352 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[Nov. I, 1897. 
The ‘‘AoRictiLTUBAL Gazette” ofNew South Wales, 
issued by direction of the Hon. Sydney Smith, M.P., 
Secretary for Mines and Agiicultnre Vol, VIll. 
Part 8. Edited by W. H. Clarke. August, 1897. 
Contents; — Useful Australian Ple.nts, ,7. H il-iden; 
fjo. 40 — The Mulga (.Iccrfo. F.v.M.) A i- odder 
Fla'nt; No. 41 — S&lt-gj:a.ss (iJisHchlis mariUina, Eafin); 
No. 42 — A Mud-gi'p.ss (CTa?»cer(V)/;is pantdoj a, Poir) ; 
Botanical Notes; The “Brush” of Wheat Grain, N, 
A. Cobb ; Coccids (Scale Insects) in Sydnej’ Gardens, 
yij , W. Eroggatt; Magpies (Black and Gray), Dr. 
Jas. Norton; Destruclion of Babbits by means of 
the Microbes of Chicken-Cholera, C. 7. Pound; The 
Fodder Value of Salt-bush, F. B. Guthrie; A Gall- 
making Diaspid, C. Fuller; The luTuence of Bees 
on Crop“, A. Gale; Bee Calendar for September, 
A. Gale; Orchard Notes for September, G. Waters; 
Practical Vegetable and Flower Growing for Sep- 
tember, W. S. Campbell; General Notes ; Eeplies 
to Correspondents; List of Agricultnial Societies’ 
Shows; Label for Specimens. 
Planting in Brazil. — Mr. T. L. Villiers. formerly 
of the Scrubs, Nuwara Bliya, who has just returned 
to the island with Mrs. Villiers, has come to the con- 
clusion that there are worse places than Ce Ion to 
E lar.t in. It will be remembered that he was 1 1 gaged 
V theDiiectors of the Dument Coffee Company to 
take charge of the laige and recently-acquired pro- 
nerty of the Company in Brazil. Mr. Villiers went 
with Mrs. Villiers to the estate, but found the life 
there loughi r than he anticipated, and very different 
to a plante.'s life in Ceylon. The heat, he says, 
was very trying, almost as bad as Colombo, and 
yellow fever was very prevalent in the neighbourhood, 
BO that he managed to get his agreement with the 
Company cancelled, and left Brazil after a very 
brief stay. His description of planting life in Brazil 
is interesting. There are very few English in the 
country and they are not popular with the indi- 
eenous population. There was a European family on 
the Dumont Company’s property— the Secretary and 
his wife but the nearest European doctor was a 16 
hours’ railway journey away, and the labourer is 
Italian with little in common either with the 
cooly or with the planter. The little narrow-gauge 
railway that traverses the San Paulo district is 
the principal means of communication, but there 
is an accident on it nearly every day, 
so tha* wTiile it is useful for freight, passengers 
mefer to go round to Rio by sea, as being slower 
but saf er. Brazil coffee growing may be profitable, 
but is evidently not an occupation for a married 
Ceylon planter, or for anybody who is not prepared 
to rough it a good deal. Mr. Villiers has gone up- 
country, and may he reckoned once again as a 
Ceylon planter.-Local “ Times.” 
A New Mixture.— Adulterated tea is played out 
in the^e markets. The li e of the Indian and Cey- 
lon tea industries piactically put an end to the art 
of doctoring tea leaves. On the Continent the game 
still flourishes, and a preparation of adulterated 
tea leaves is described in a German medical 
‘ er The nreparation has long been known 
fn Russia, where it is sold under the name of 
“rogogeski.” It is made in the following yvay :- 
“ The manufacturers of this adulterate buy in the 
tea houses the residue of the teapits— leaves which 
have aheady been used— and mix these leaves while 
still moist with other leaves and veiy little genuine 
y little gen 
tea The mixtuie is heated with an addition of 
^vtrnct of caramel and campeche wood, in older to 
improve the colour and the taste. The weight is 
also increased by Ihe addition of sand or soil and 
lust before being dried the leaves are i oiled between 
the hands The adulteration is so difficult to re- 
coenise that a chemical test is necessuy to prove 
it If tea prepared in ibis way is aippid into a 
cold saturated solution of copper the blue colour 
of the solution will not be changed, not even it 
the adulterated tea is allowed to remain 
for three or four months. If Ihe tea is 
and has not previously been soaked, the solution will 
turn green within a short time. 
in it 
fresh 
Sunflower Salad Oil.— Dr. Wiley, the che- 
mist of the Agricultural Department in Wash- 
ington, .says that in hi.s opinion the coming salad 
oil will be made of sniiflower see<l. It is a per- 
fect substitute for olive oil, and will be very 
chea.\^.— American Af/ricnli nrint 
Acacia Seed. — T here is quite a dearth of Acacia 
seed tills year in New South Wale.s — two leading 
“Seedsmen” firms reiiorting that the dry season 
has stopped the trees trom seeding. Another 
linn reports tiuil the only Acacia- a vailable, are : — 
“ Acacia Pynantha ” S. A. AVattle for Bark. “ Acacia 
Decurrens” N. S. V. Wattle Bark. 
The “Indian Forester.” — E dited by 7. Olvier, 
Conservator of Forests, and Director of the Forest 
School, Dehra Dflu. Contents for September, 1879 : — 
Original Articles and Translations ; Sir Richard Stra- 
chey and Indian Forestry by Sir Dietrich Brandis, 
K.C.D.E., PH. D., I.L.D., ' I’. R. s. Correspondence. 
Esparto Grass, Letter from “ Q ” ; Forest Litera- 
ture, Letter from “ Miles ” ; Calotropis procera. Let- 
ter G. M. R. Reviews: Mathieu’s Flore Fores- 
tiere. Forestry in the Central Provi ices during 
1895 6, Forest Administrntion in the Southern 
and Bind Circles of Bombay during 1895 6. Ex- 
tracts, Notes and Queries : Timber and Produce 
Trade Extracts from Official Gazette Appendix 
Series: Planting up of Shifting Sands near Dres- 
den in Saxony, by A. M. Reuther, Indian Forest 
Service. 
Rubber and Ceylon. — Tlie Editor of The India 
Rubber World evidently tliinks Ceylon may ilo 
for “inhber” what was done for “Cinclionii” 
in a big production ! We quote as hdlows : — 
The new director of the royal botanic gardens of 
Ceylon— Mr. 7ohn C. Willis— is a believer in the 
cultivation of India-rubber as practicable at least for 
that part of the world. His initial report, recently 
published, has won high praise from the usually 
critical Tropical Afiricidtirrist. of Colombo. While 
not underrating the value of the purely scientific work 
in botany performed by Mr. Willis’s predecessors, 
the Agricidturist is pleased at the evident disposition 
of the new director to devote his attention to the 
more practical department of economic botany. The 
most important steps in rubber-cultivation now under 
way are being taken in Ceylon, where the new 
director of the royal botanic gardens is addressing 
himself to the task enthusiastically, in the belief 
that results of great value are attainable. It is not 
impossible that his hopes may he grounded on reason. 
While Mr. Gustav Mann’s long experience in As- 
sam led him to discourage all planting of exotic 
rubber species, the pioneer introducer of Pai a rubber- 
trees into India — Sir Clements Markham — has re- 
corded in The India Rubber World his be ief that, if 
the initial attempts had been seconded with proper 
vigor, that country would now be an imporlant pro- 
ducer of Fara rubber. But supposing Mr. Mann to 
be entirely right with regard to the localities in 
which he worked, it may be that Mr. Willis has 
found in Ceylon exceptionally favorable circumstances, 
and that the hundreds of planters who in that island 
are seeding Parfi rubber alongside their tea estates 
may derive a profit therefrom as promptly as the 
last generation did from their first plantings of tea. 
Though we Americans are little tempted to invest in 
lubber plantations under any conditions, we may 
watch with interest the development so confidently 
p cdicted in Ceylon, remembering that we, no less 
t'lan the rest of the world, have profited from the 
enterprise shown by the English colonists there for 
more than a third 'of a century in the growing of 
cinchona. 
Renewed attention will be called to the subject 
V»y the iiapers laid on the Council table re-, 
cently which we reproduce on another page and", 
notice. 
