336 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[Nov. I, 1897. 
N. B . — I have been a continuous resident in 
N.-S. Wales for over 60 years, and for 12 years in 
its Forest Department. — A. li. 
P.S . — Tlietiniher of in N. S. W. 
is considered our best for the staves of casks as 
it is tough, does not warp, nor does it shrink 
much, nor impart any bad flavour to wine or 
butter stored in it. Our only regret in respect 
to it is, that it is now very scarce, indeed while 
we are now losing some of our best timbers, and 
fodder plants, other countries, more alive to their 
importance than ourselves, are getting the benefit 
of them. In N. S. W. the proportion of forest 
that has been conserved is little more than per 
cent of the whole and even this -wretched pro- 
vision is constantly liable to curtailment under 
political pressure from outside influences, and very 
bad Timber Kegulations under an uninformed Ad- 
ministration of Forestry. — A. li. 
TREE-GROWING IN CEYLON. 
Abbotsford, Nanuoya, Sept. .30. 
Dkar Sir, — Theere is neither 
laris nor Cedrcla Australis on Abbotsford ; but 
there are specimens of the former on Carlabeck 
in the near neighbourhood. It is a magnificent 
tree and nothing better could be used in forest 
clearings, but amongst tea it is objectionable, 
as it is one of the eucalypts which exudes any 
amount of tarry gum which tea dislikes. Ce- 
drela Australis, I presume, is allied to the Ce- 
drela Toona, etc., -which have been tried exten- 
sively here. 
The C. Australis evidently suffers from insect 
pests in the same way as the White Toon, and 
I should therefore say leave it severely alone in 
its native habitat. — Yours faithfully, F. 
HOW TO ECONOMISE THE AVAIL- 
ABLE LABOUR SUPPLY. 
— From afar I venture to give you my ideas 
on some of these points : but will only touch on 
such of your questions as I can tackle with 
full personal knowledge. 
To begin with, let me bracket questions 2 and 
8. Let your field S. D.’s have a pony 
each, especially on large estates, and more espe- 
cially in the lowcountry. It is a long morning 
from 6 till 11, and after 8 o’clock many a young- 
ster feels slack and limp, especially w'here he has to 
cover long distances over rough ground from point 
to point, not to mention that a pony will save 
much time otherwise wasted in weary trudging, 
and .will allow’ considerably more attention to be 
uiven to field supervision. I am satisfied that 
more time behind the gangs w'ould result in more 
work being got out of the coolies ; and a man 
fresh from the saddle would have more energy 
and could impart more of the same to his coolies, 
than one pumped out by a steep short cut ; 
languidly dragging one fooc after the other, and 
only wishing it was time to get back to the 
bungalow. I have vivid recollections of my S. D. 
days when I was not allowed to use tlie road 
if there was a short-cut ; and I know of one 
man who was told by the doctor that he had 
injured his heart permanently by '• busting it” 
up koorka pdthics. 'riiere used to be an idea that 
a man who rode to his work was lazy. The 
sooner this is puc aside, the better. 
4. The cleaner the estate the cheaper the work : 
and I never met a man who “believed in w’eeds” 
but he was short-handed. A.s .soon as such an 
one has sufficient labour he will unblushingly tel 
you that his estate has always been clean and that 
he never did believe in weeds! — and he is invariably 
strongei on the enoimity of a dirty estate than 
the man who has been habitually clean. 
5. Less frequent weeding would certainly end 
in disaster : and selected weeding is not possi- 
ble in practice. I have known it tried : but 
the inevitable tares came up with the wheat, 
and the last state of that man was worse than 
the first. 
6. Wheat and tares again. 
7. Drainage might be much improved by re- 
novation pits between the existing drains. 
These conserve much soil which i.s otherwise 
carried away ; and if made big enough, could 
be filled in with piunings, the ])runings, of 
course, being covered, and fresh pits ojiened. 
These cannot be too many nor too big. I prefer 
them in shape of a trough two feet deep .and 
long enough to cover two trees. They should, of 
course, be di.agonally one below the other, so 
as to overlap each other over the whole field, 
thus reducing the loss by wash to a minimum. 
They are risky on steej) lands with heavy rain- 
fall ; as an overflow from such pits would cause 
Tiiore damage than Inirsting drains. 
9, Gardens by all means. If they are well 
kept, you know that your coolies intend to re- 
main. But no extra perquisites. One great cause 
of the l.abour trouble is that Ramasamy is 
too rich already. No Asiatic can stand pros- 
l>erity. What percentage of coolies had plain 
rice and chillies brought out to the field twenty 
years ago? Ami how many have three meals a day 
of good curry ami rice today? i\lost .appetising 
is an occasional sniff from their breakfast in 
the fields. Further perqui-ife-; 01 presents make 
Ramasamy think himself imlispensabe, ami 
as soon as that idea gets inio liis head, he is 
useless. 
10 Estate boutiques and monthlg pagments are 
excellent — but the present cu.stom of adv.uices and 
payment of coolies puts the system, with its 
control of boutique debts, out of the region 
of practical politics. 
WILD MAN OF THE WOODS. 
Paraguayan Tea. — Ina report to the Foreign 
Office, quoted in the Board of Trade Journal 
H M. Consul at Villa Asuncion states that 
Ycrba-matc or Paraguayan tea, is the most valua- 
ble article of export from that place. There are 
two classes sold, hut it is only in the manner 
of preparation that they differ. The kind known 
a.s “ Mborovire ” is meiely dried over a furnace, 
and tlien lieaten into small pieces with sticks. 
The “ Molda” goes through the same process, but 
it is afterwards ground in a mill. The export 
duty’ on the former was increased in 1895 f om 
30 c. paper to 10 c. gold, and on the latter from 
25 c. paper to 9 c. gold per 10 kilos. The re- 
venue derived from this source in 1895 amounted 
to 471,668 dols. (£16,845). Yheyerha forests, called 
yerbalcs, were formerly the property of the State, 
but most of them liave been sold, and are now 
in the hands of a few’ capitalists and companies. 
The Industrial Paraguaya Company, whicli owns 
about half the yerbuls known to exist in the 
country, exports annually about 400,000 arrobas 
(4,512, tons). The total quantity of yerba exported 
during the past year is estimated at about 9,024 
tons, and the average price per arroba (25 lb.) 
was 11 dobs. 50 c. paper (7s 8d .) — Journal of the 
Soeiety of Arts, Sept. 17. 
