t)Ec. r, 1897.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
IMPORTANT FACTS CONCERNING 
CATTLE MANURE. 
The November number of the Agricultural Magazine 
contains an article, entitled “Denitrification — Some 
important discoveries,’’ dealing -with the latest inves- 
tigations of the German Agricultural Society, into 
the action of cattle manure, the results of which, 
it must be admitted, are of a startling character. 
Expeiiments carefully conducted by the leading Ger- 
man scientists have gone to prove that cattle manure, 
when used with artificial fertilizers, tends to “depress” 
the action of the latter. We note that the power 
of denitrification, or of causing a loss of nitrogen, is 
possessed to a great extent by the straw or litter in 
the manure, while the depressing action is exerted, 
not only upon the artificials used along with dung 
but even upon the nitrogen naturally present in the 
soil. Superphosphate of lime and kainit were found 
to intensify and prolong the denitrifying action, but 
this objectionable property tended to decrease with 
the age of the manure and with long contact with 
the soil, while such substances as sulphuric acid and 
copper sulphate have the effect of minimising deni- 
trification. 
All these results, it must te confessed, open out 
new questions with regard to the use of manures, 
the forms they should take and their method of 
application. 
The first idea that strikes us with reference to this 
question is that to defeat the denitrifying power 
we should apply cattle manure and artificials sepa- 
rately and at different periods, due time being given 
for the dung to lose the power of bringing about a 
dissipation of the nitrogen of artificial fertilizers. 
But the subject is altogether too complex to be 
disposed of by any offhand suggestion, and there 
is little doubt, considering the far-reaching results 
of the German investigations referred to — not only 
to the agriculturist but to the manure merchant — 
that English scientists will thoroughly thrash out the 
subject before long. It would be interesting to en- 
quire whether the denitrifying power of dung also ex- 
tends to or is exerted upon such organic fertilizers 
as castor cake, blood meal and fish manure, while 
we should be glad to know whether any of our 
tropical agriculturists have been struck by what is 
termed the “depressing action” of cattle manure 
when used in combination with the more concen- 
trated fertilizers commonly in use in the tropics. 
We would draw attention to the article in question 
in the Agricultural Magazine, which we may mention 
is given as a Supplement to the Tropical Agriculturist, 
COFFEE IN THE STRAITS. 
Mr. W. W. Bailey writes some pungent comments 
in the Straits Times upon the careless way coffee 
is pulped in the Native States. As the matter is 
of great importance to our own coffee growers, we 
quote a portion of his remarks On the cherry 
loft, I saw a lot of cherry which had been picked 
several days without having been pulped, though, 
in the old coffee days in Ceylon, one would have 
been in a great state of mind if any had to be left 
over even to the next day. 10 per cent, of the cherry 
was imature and the beans of such cherry are bound 
to shrivel in drying, and not turn out a good glossy 
sample (and I imagine it is more likely to go bad 
in transport). I remarked at the time that it was 
a very good sample of cherry. From the cherry 
loft, I went to the pulper, which was sending some 
40 per cent, of pulp into the receiving cistern , we 
have not yet got a pulper which can do anything 
approaching good work in separating the cherry from 
the bean, no matter how well set it is ; however, I 
think one will soon appear which I have seen do 
really good work. 
From the pulper I went on to the receiving and fer- 
menting cistern, and there I got a shovel and turned 
up some of the parchment which was being fermented. 
Xtte etbuch was something horrible from enormous 
percentage of pulp being fermented with the parch- 
ment; when 1 was looking at it, I said to myself, 
“No wonder our coffee is getting a bad name in the 
market.” This treatment does not much interfere 
with the appearance of the coffee when it has been 
pulped, polished, and made ready for market ; but 
I am absolutely certain that it must give the coffee 
a bad sour taste. I consider this fermenting of the 
parchment with the pulp the worst of all the evils 
I have mentioned, and the simple and cheap remedy 
for it is as follows: — 
Pulp into the washing cistern, in which have two 
men washing and separating the pulp from the parch- 
ment, and this can be done to the large extent 
of 90 per cent : throw the pulp (which still contains 
a little parchment) alongside the cistern to be washed 
again the next day to get the rest of the parchment 
out, and the parchment into the fermenting cistern 
(it will then be minus 90 per cent, of the pulp it 
first had). If any one should say that this is ex- 
pensive, I am prepared to prove that the curing per 
picul of clean coffee on the estate on which it is done 
is about the cheapest curing done in the Peninsula. 
On looking over the sidesof the fermenting cisterns, 
I saw flakes of nasty, sour, half-dry saccharine 
matter, and at the bottom in a pool at one end was 
some white looking stuff, which smelled very much 
like bad bread barm that had a dead rat in it for 
some days, and this horrible stuff, I know, is left 
there until the next lot of coffee is put in to be 
fermented and get its flavour ; whereas with the water 
turned on for 5 minutes one man with a brush would 
make it as sweet as a nut. 
I would not write the above if I did not realize 
that the planters have to do something to produce a 
better sample of Liberian coffee than they now pro- 
duce, and I know they can produce one very much 
better at a cost of less than 60 cents per picul of 
clean coffee. 
I am a strong supporter of doing something; but. 
I do not think that the planters should look for any 
direct profit out of it, and I thick that a travelling 
agent m America would be more likely to advertise 
our coffee than a place of business in London: but, 
before we had advertise our coffee better see and turn 
out a better sample than the present one, — British. 
North Borneo Herald. 
CURING VANILLA BY THE CALCIUM 
CHLORIDE PROCESS. 
The cultivation of vanlla is the largest secondary 
industry in the French colony of Reunion, near our 
own possession of Mauritius. Indeed, the profits yielded 
by it have more than tnce helped the farmers in the 
island to tide over a bad sugar season, although on an 
av'erage the value of the vanilla production is onlv 
one-third of the 600,000f. which represents the sugar 
output. A great deal of the Reunion (or Bourbon, as 
it is often called) vanilla is consigned to London) 
and passes through our drug-auctions. About two 
seasons ago attention was called in the sales to some 
packages of Reunion vanilla which had just been 
received as havit g been “ dried by a new process,’ 
but no information was given wherein that new 
process differed from the old. We were afterwards 
enabled (see C. and Z)., September 12th, 1896) to give 
a short outline of the process, which consists, in the 
main, in the substitution of calcium-chloride as a 
drying-agent for the free air or hot-air stove foimerly 
relied upon. 
Consul C. W. Bennett, in a recent report, gives 
further particulars of the calcium chloride process, 
which appears to have thoroughly established itself 
in the island by this time. The preliminar} treat- 
ment of the fruit is the same as that of the older 
method. The pods should be picked as soon as their 
lower portion begins to turn yellow. If picked too 
green their aroma does not fully develop ; if 
tpo ripe they will split in the drying, which lowers 
