April t, 1898. 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
6?9 
litres of cherry picked by the colonist, the latter 
giving five weedings as well as the gathering for that 
fixed amount. The first mode is unsatisfactory, 
because of the difficulty of adjusting accounts. The 
second equally so, because some years the crop is 
small and does not satisfy the colonist, and when he 
sees he has little to receive at the end of the year 
he shirks his weedings. The mode which many have 
adopted, and which works more smoothly, is to give 
a fixed sum for the five weedings, and another for 
the quantity of cherry picked. The price for the 
weedings is 80 millreis per thousand trees which at 
exchange of lOd per millreis would be about twenty 
four shillings of sterling money per acre, and for 
picking one millreis or ten pence per 50 litres or about 
IJ bushels of cherry — about the size of your cherry-box 
of which the task per cooly used to be two per day. 
This system always leaves the planter in a difficulty 
as to labourers for working for the drying-ground, 
the machine-house, and cartmen, cattlemen, &c. 
These 
Day Labourers 
are generally found from a vagabond sort of 
class, native Brazilians with a good deal of coloured 
blood in them, and freed slaves, a very difficult 
class of people to manage. Their pay is three mill- 
reis to three mill five hundred reis per day — equal 
at lOd exchange — to two shillings and sixpence to 
three shillings per day. These can only be got by 
paying a large advance to clear them from their 
former employer, and if a disagreeable word is said 
to him he leaves without any thought of paying 
what he owes ; sometimes the advance is got from 
his next employer, but in many oases the planter 
loses it entirely. 
The introduction of 
Japanese 
even at the high rates mentioned above would be a 
good substitute for these and it ought to have a fair trial. 
I may mention that since the introduction of Eu- 
ropean families on a large scale, many of the young 
unmarried men work as day labourers, but they 
soon get into the careless habits of the Brazilian 
working only when it suits him, observes church and 
national holidays religiously, loses one day before 
each in capturing his horse and cleaning him, and 
one day after because he is tired, and however press- 
ing the planter’s work may be, he has to endure it, 
and practise that most important virtue paciencia. 
Happy is he who possesses that in a high| degree. 
with all this unsatisfactory system of working, coffee- 
planting in Brazil, has paid well for many years, 
and even with large stocks in the consuming cen- 
tres and consequent low prices, there is no reason 
to apprehend that capital judiciously invested in 
coffee property is anything else but safe. With all 
the fluctuations in exchange and the steady lowering 
of the value of paper money, coffee properties have 
kept their value in gold. Bents of houses in towns 
have more than tripled. He who has lost greatly is 
the careful man who has deposited his money to be 
repaid in currency. The poor man who has been “lay- 
ing bye for a rainy day” the foreign commercial or 
railway employde, who looked on the savings from 
his large salary to visit his native country he finds 
his passage ticket requires nearly four times as much 
in currency as formerly, and if he turns the rest 
of his savings into gold he finds he has more than 
two-thirds less than he ought to have had. The 
Commercial house which has not tripled its capital 
representive in currency has been losing. British 
Exchange Banks have all paid well during the last 
ten years, but their cash balances and other accounts 
are represented by very much larger sums than for- 
merly taken in currency. With all this there is no 
need to fear that things are without a remedy. Bra- 
zil is a large country, its resources are enormous, to 
use Mr. Chamberlain's phrase “ it is a large undeve- 
loped estate.” By abstention from party strife, and 
conscientious and honest administration of public af- 
fairs, by not allowing the expenditure to exceed the 
income and by an honest attempt to set aside part 
of the revenue, to replace by gold and silver the en- 
ormous accumulation of paper money, Brazil wilt yet 
become a great country. There are many men amongst 
them of great ability and good education, but in pub- 
lic affairs the real iuterest.s of the country have to 
give way to party, and paid patriotism is of the worst 
kind sickens and pollutes public life. I have not left 
room to enter into other topics which I intended to, 
when I began this epistle; but must leave them for a 
future occasiou. 
Wishing you and the “ old rag” a happy and pros- 
perous New Year, I close this long rigmarole of a 
letter. A. SCOTT BLAOKLAW. 
^ 
PLANTING NOTES. 
Pawpaw Juice. — The pawpaw juice mentioned by 
Mr, J. F. Bailey iu his article on the Pawpaw 
(Queensland Agricultural Journal, Volume I., Part 3) 
as being worth 10s per lb. in London, is now quo- 
ted at five shillings per lb., and is easily obtained 
from the unripe fruit. The Cheniist and Druggist 
gives the following as the best method of preparing 
it;— The juice is pressed out of the fruit, clarified 
by filtration through a twill bag, and the ferment 
precipitated by alcohol. It is then dried, but is 
sometimes purified by treatment with water. — Queens 
and Agricultural JournoA, for February. 
“The Queensland Agricultural Journal.”— Vol. 
II, Part 2. February 1898. Contents ; — The Wheat 
Crop of 1897 ; Co-operative Bacon Factories ; Agri- 
culture— To Keep Sweet Potatoes ; Wheat-growing 
by Irrigation at Barcaldine ; Wheat-growing at Boma ; 
Dentition of Sheep ; Directions for Curing Heavy 
Pipe and Export Tobaccos. B. S. Nevill ; Notes 
on Silos and Silage ; On Gross-breeding. P. B. 
Gordon ; Darying ; Horse-breeding ; Poultry ; The 
Orchard — Propagation of Fruit Trees. A. II. Ben- 
son; Viticulture— Fermentation of Dust. E. H. 
Bainford; Appointment of a Viticulturist; Botany 
— Contributions to the Queensland Flora. I’. M. 
Bailey, f. l. s. ; Plants Beputed Poisonous to 
Stock. Ditto ; Popular Botany — Our Botanic Gardens, 
No. 3 ; Seeds for Exchange, with Short Descrip- 
tive Notes ; Apiculture— Beekeeping ; Wax-extract- 
ing; Horticulture — Perfume-making as an Adjunct 
to Horticulture; Tropical Industries— Picking Coffee; 
Coffee at Landsborough ; Coffee Cultivation in Bra- 
zil ; Bamie Fibre Experiments in New South Wales ; 
Bamie Fibre — An English Manufacturer’s Opinion j 
Entomology — The Dissemination olE Yeasts by In- 
sects ; Pisciculture — The Giant Perch ; Forestry — 
Forest Conservancy — Part 3. A. J. Boyd ; The Mar- 
kets — Average Prices for December : Farm and 
Garden Notes for February ; Orchard Notes for 
February ; Public Announcements. 
Durian in the West Indies. — The well-known 
Durian tree of the Indian Archipelago (Duno 
Zibithinus, L.) has been successfully introduced 
to the Botanic Gardens, in the West Indies, but 
hitherto it has not fruited anywhere except at 
Dominica. In 1895, and again this year fruits 
have been produced by a tree growing in the 
garden of Dr. S. A. Alford Nicholls, c.m.g., at St. 
Aroment. This w>i ; originally received from Kew 
with numerous oii^. plants seut out to tho late 
Dr. Imray and to Dr. Nicholls, iu exchange for 
Dominica plants, contributed at the private expense 
of the two gentlemen above meutioned. Kefereuce 
is made to tho St. Aroment Garden in the Ken> 
Bulletin for 1887, June, pp. 9T0; and a list of the 
economic plants already established there was given 
in the Bulletin for July of the same year, pp. 10-12. 
It is gratifying to find that all the seeds saved from 
the Durian fruits so far produced have been placed 
by Dr. Nicholls at the disposal of the Botanic Station 
at Dominica, in order that plants may be raised for 
distribution to other parts of the Western tropics. One 
fruit was lately received at Kew, but, unfortunately, 
it did not arrive in good condition. Those inter- 
ested iu the subject may see a fine plant of Durian, 
about fifteen feet high, iu the Palm House, where 
it has been established for about fifteen years, 
but so far has not flowered. — Kew Bulletin for 
November 1897. 
