Nov. I, 1B97.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
351 
rule the best method of application is to use very 
■weak solutions of salt and water. A little salt in the 
artificial compost used for potting flowering plants, 
is found to enhance the bloom and brilliancy of the 
flower. 
Salting Manure Heaps. — Horsekeepers and gar- 
deners will find salt most useful for their manure 
heaps in destroying vermin and in preventing too 
rapid fermentation and the consequent escape of 
ammonia. 
Weeds. — To destroy weeds in pavements and garden 
walks, make a strong brine with salt and boiling 
waiter. Apply with a watering can. A moderate 
quantity of salt stimulates the growth of all vegeta- 
tion. It is therefore a mistake to suppose that a 
sprinkling of salt will exterminate weeds. 
^ 
PLANTING NOTES. 
Tea in the Caucasus.— Reports from Odessa states 
that the new tea plantations at Chakia, in the 
Osurgentski Government, on the Caucasus, have given 
most excellent results, and encouraged their proprie- 
tors to engage a number of Chinese experts to instruct 
the natives in all the intricacies of tea growing. The 
last tea crop yielded Jib. of tea for every bush planted, 
or 1,500 lb. from an acre having 6,000 lea plants on 
it. The whole available area for tea growing is 20,000 
acres, therefore the total yield could with ease be 
brought up to nearly 30,000,0001b. which represents 
more than half of the annual consumption of the 
tea imported into Russia. This news is not gratify, 
ing to those who expect an expansion of the Ceylon 
tea trade with Russia, but it is no doubt unduly 
sanguine in its estimate of fu.ure results. 
Canal Silt as Manure,— We learn from an 
Indian paper that Dr. J. W. Leather has been 
making some interesting investigations into the 
value of canal silt as a fertiliser, and becomes to 
the conclusion that the amount ©f silt and its 
contents of nitrogen and phosplioric acid are very 
small during tlie cold weather, and quite insuffi- 
cient to replace tli3 plant food taken from tlie 
.soil by a crop of wheat. On the other hand, the 
silt carried on to the land during tlie monsoon 
period contains very material quantities of these 
plant foods. They are probably fully sufficient to 
replenish the amounts of plant food which are 
taken from the land by the rice crop. According 
to Dr. Leather’s analyses, some 321b. of nitrogen 
and 42 lb. of phosphoric acid were supplied per 
acre by canal silt in the latter period, as again.st 
81b. am^ 20 lb. respectively in the cold weather. 
“The Queensland Ageicultueal Journal.’’ — 
Issued by direction of the Hon. A. J. Thynne 
M.L.C., Secretary for Agriculture Volume I. Part 2. 
August, 1897. Contents: — Agriculture — The Agricul- 
tnral Possibilities of Western Queensland, H. A. 
Tardeut ; Maize-growing on Scrub Lands, A. J. 
Royd ; The Velvet Bean ; Dairying — Choosing and 
Breeding Dairy Cattle, John Mahon ; On the Devel- 
opement of a Dairy Breed from our Nativa Cattle, 
P. R. Gordon ; The Tick Pest ; The Orchard — Fruit 
Culture in Queensland, Albert H. Benson ; Co-oper- 
ation in Marketing Fruit ; Grape Fruit ; Show Awards ; 
Entomology — Scale Insects, Coccidse, Hy. Tryon ; 
Apiculture — Bee-keeping for Extracted Honey — Part 
II., H. Stephens; A Tropical Industry — India-rubber 
(Caoutchouc)— Part )I.,E. Cowley; TheDiviDivi Tree, 
E. Cowley ; Chemistry — Composition of Foods, J. C. 
Briinnich ; The Farmers’ Conference at the Gatton 
Agricultural College ; The Fruit growers’ Conference ; 
Opening of the Agricultural College ; Exhibits of the 
Department of Agriculture at the International 
Exhibition, Brisbane, 1897; General Notes; The 
Markets ; Farm and Garden Notes for August ; 
Field and Garden Notes for Tropical Queensland; 
Orchard Notes for August ; Oranges. 
CtYLON Tea in America.— We direct atten- 
tion to the interesting extracts from Mr. Wm. 
Mackenzie’s letter on tliis subject. Clearly a 
good hold has been got on the atttention of 
hotli the Press and large tea houses in the 
United State.s, and this is mainly due to the 
interest fostered among the consumers. A very 
good answer to those who go on exalting “Chinas” 
and “Japrns” and depreciate machine-made teas, 
should be to enquire how, as patriotic Americans, 
they regard the tea produced by Dr. Shepard 
in South Carolina, They cannot deny its purity 
and value, and it will be found, on examination, 
to be of the same type as our Ceylon teas, 
though scarcely so delicate as our medium and 
especially high-grown. Our Tea Commissioner 
may well take courage and go on with his adver- 
tising, whether in verse or prose, in the United 
States as well as Canada. 
Coffee in Britlsh Guiana.— Mr. Thos. Garnett 
writes in Timchri to correct the prevalent notion 
that coffee is being grown there for the first time 
We are solemnly told— quite as a discovery — that 
the cultivation of Coffee on the already mentioned 
and misnamed coast lands is “ perfect!}' piactioable.” 
Now, considering that Coffee was the principal pro- 
duct of this Colony before sugar was ever started 
here, and as one only has to refer to the annals 
of the Colony to see how largely it was grown in 
the No. 1 Canal and other suitable liver districts, 
this information is indeed wonderful, and is about on 
a par with the strange dissertations that have been ap- 
pearing lately in the local press on the subject of 
Coffee growing in this Colony. Why my father re- 
members that little property called “Java,” on Canal 
No. 1 — which at the time was entirely in Creole (“Ara- 
bian ”) Coffee— changing hands with only a handful of 
slaves, for £30,000 1 I myself have been growing both 
Liberian and Creole Coffee in the Canal District for 
a considerable number of years, and as Messrs. 
Lewis & Peatt’s report on my sample appears to 
have led some people to think that this is the first 
time Liberian coffee grown here has been sent to 
England, I may mention that I have been shipping 
the same to London off and on now for some years 
and my shipments have been very ably disposed of 
at prices more satisfactory than those now quoted by 
Metsrs. Lewis & Peatt. 
The Akolition of the Tea Duty, if 
effected in Belgium, will have important results 
says the Pioneer — ^^to the advantage of planters 
in India and Ceylon. It will encourage the use 
of tea as a beverage, and experience shows that 
the taste once acquired is retained and spreads 
by examrde. As yet Kussia is the only country 
in Continental Europe where tea drinkino- is 
f eneral, but the custom is becoming commo*n in 
'ance, where, hotvever, as elsewhere tea is 
heavily taxed. More important than any fillip 
to consumption in Belgium resulting from the 
abolition of the duty, will be the effect of that 
step in strengthening the cause of those who are 
agitating for tim abolition or reduction of the 
duty in England, and it is not likely that the 
Chancellor of the Exchequer will be able to 
resist their demand if he gets many more bic 
*urpluse.». The advocates of “a free breakfast- 
table,” like the income-tax payers, have been 
mortified of late years by seeing surplus after 
surplus allowed up by the navy, military works 
education and the landlords, while the voice of 
Ireland, always crying “Give, give,” is to be 
appeased by a bountiful dole next year. Their 
titiie seems long in coming, but it will arrive 
in the entl. Tea has become a nece.ssary of 
life at Home, and a tax of thirty-five per cent 
of its value cannot be defended a day after the 
possibility of relief. 
