Nov. I, rSgy.J 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
PALLEGAMA GRANT ESTATE. 
Sportsmen occasionally find their way to 
the neighbourhood of Pallegama and we are 
glad to have independent opinions of the 
olanting in some “ Notes ” — not from one of 
a recent party, but gained indirectly : — 
“Pallegama has every appearance of being 
a very fine property in course of time ; coconuts 
and coffee were looking very well indeed, 
though wild pig and buffaloes do a lot of damage 
to young supplies. But couldn’t the liides and 
horns of buffaloes be turned into a ‘ New 
Product,’ and add to the revenue of the estate 
instead of taking from it? The bungalow is 
a neat building on the top of a knoll, and has 
a cart road right up to the door. The whole 
distance from Matale is 47 miles, and sportsmen 
often go much farther than that in search of 
game.” 
4^ 
FRUITS AND VEGETABLES : 
HINTS FOR MR. WILLIS AND HIS STAFF : 
AS ALSO FOR ALL UPCOUNTRY (AND 
I.OtVCOUNTRY) RESIDENTS. 
[From a practical Golomst.) 
“ The Tottum, Sept. 14th Don’t you think, 
Mr. Editor, that our energetic Director of 
Peradeniya Gardens would be conferring a boon 
on the whole community, if he were to train 
a staff of coolies that could be hired out as 
garden workers at so much per month just as 
gardeners are lent out at home. For instance, 
if any one wanted a garden laid out or one re- 
modelled, what a convenience it would be to get 
a cooly who knew how to do it, even by paying 
a good wage for him ! — and an ordinary estate 
cooly could keep a garden weeded and watered 
when once it was laid out ; and twice a year, 
say, an experienced gardener from Peradeniya 
might be had, to put in fresh plants and 
seeds. The Peradeniya Gardens might do wonders 
in introducing new fruits that could be grown in 
our island, 1 am perfectly certain there w’ould be 
much le.ss fever in many districts were people to 
eat more fruit. Even plantains are not to be 
always had in planting district.?, and if oranges, 
limes, pineapples, papa ws, &o., W'ere for sale at the 
Government Gardens, there would be a great de- 
mand for them, and I have often thought a good 
way of celebrating this year of .Jubilee would be 
for every one in the island to plant GO fruit 
trees (of sorts) near bungalows wherever sucli a 
thing w’as practicable. The expense would be 
trifling and people ought not to bo deterred by 
the feeling that those who planted the trees 
might not reap the fruit of them. Let us all 
be disinierested for once in a w'ay : some one will 
eat the fruit in course of time. 
“ I fancy the pineapple fibre you wrote about is 
extracted from the leaves, is it not ?— we could 
grow tons of these. Papaws planted from seed 
come into bearing in about 10 months at an 
elevation of 2,400 feet. So papaw juice could also 
be produced in large quantities.” 
NOTES ON RUBBER. 
The Indict Rahhcr World of New York is 
starting a discussion as to the relative values 
of the rubber of different countries, and certain 
authorities seem inclined to make out tliat Para 
rubber trees are never to succeed in Asia, nor 
Africa rubber from the Congo ever prove as 
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good as the rubber from South America. Even 
the latter proposition is improbable, while we 
have no faith in the former. Why sliould 
not Para rubber prosper w'ell in moist w'arm 
Ceylon, just as much as Trinidad cacao has ttoiir- 
ished in our upland valleys and Peruvian cin- 
chonss on our hills? We quote from our Ameri- 
can contemporary as follows : — 
Any hope that rubber may be cultivated success- 
fully in more favourable climates seems to us wholly 
unfounded. There is no higher authority on this sub- 
ject than Mr. Mann, late forest conservator in Assam, 
who wrote recently in The India Rubber World : ‘:The 
acclimatization of American rubber-trees in Asia has 
not been a sirocess, and, generally speaking, I am now 
inclined to think that all rubber plants had better 
be grown in the conn-tries in which they are indi- 
genous.” By the way, there is not, and never was, 
a large plantation of Para rubber-trees in India, ab 
though a statement is going the rounds in regard to 
such a plantation, said to cover 200 square miles. 
More than this, experiments made in Brazil have de- 
monstrated that, while cultivated trees may flourish, 
they may not yield rubber on a different soil, or at 
a higher elevation, than is common to the native 
rubber forests. Thus it will be seen that the business 
of planting rubber should not be undertaken without 
considerable oantion. 
The cultivatioH of India-ubber, coffee, and pineapples 
together is proposed by the Mexican Gulf Agricultural 
Co. (Kansas City, Co.), incorporated under the laws 
of Missouri with jpl00,000 oapiial. Organized origin- 
ally to start a coffee plantation in the isthmus of 
Tehuantepec, their plans have been extended until 
they now include an offer of 100-acre tracks, one-half 
planted in coffee and pineapples, and 4,00J rubber- 
trees. The idea is to attract additional capital and 
increase the number of persons interested in tropical 
cultivation. They claim to have several thousand 
rubber trees on their lauds already, and more will be 
planted. After eight years it is promised that the 
rubber-trees will yield yearly .|1 each. 
A despatch appeared in the New York Sim of ,Tuly 
12, dated from Oaxaca, Mexico, saying; “The India 
Rubber Company of Mexico, an English corporation 
with a paid up capital of !^2, 000,000, is going into 
the rubber industry in Mexico on an extensive scale. 
This company is now planting .5,000,000 rubber trees 
on their lands in the district of Pochutla, this state. 
They have 400 men at wefrk'-'oH' the land now.” 
Every increase in the demand for any grade of 
rubber tends to raise its cost to the manufacturer. 
Suppose, then, that certain African sorts shoii.ld be 
found truly to yield a substitute for Para. Hov.' long 
would the present difference in price continue? Thera 
would be a steady rise in Africans until it would be 
economical no longer to use them instead of Para 
rubber. This consideration would soon put an end to 
any hope for great profits from substituting low-pvicsd 
African gums for the higher priced sorts from South 
America. But it remains to be proved that the 
African rubbers are capable of such use as has been 
asserted. Of comse great advance has been made in 
their manipulation, permitting their use in channels 
where, not so many years ago, it would have beeM 
impossible. It is reasonable to suppose that the use 
of Africans will continue to extend in new directions, 
but the experience of every manufacturer who has 
ever had anything to do with these sorts has helped 
to make him conservative. 
It is not the question of how much rubber there 
is in Central Africa, or of how many laborers can 
be had. It is not even the question of transportation 
that is most important, but how the rubber is going 
to find a market. Para rubber always has been and 
always will be the mainstay of the rubber industry. 
There is a demand of course, for African rubbers, 
and this will grow, hut from this time on it will be 
only in the same proportion as the rubber indurf -y 
grows as a whole. When the limit to the demand 
for Congo — or any other — rubber lias been reached, 
the production will fall off, and this is why I say 
