746 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[May 2, 1898. 
(let us Iiope) by railway into the plains. 
What an openin? ! The minerals, serials and 
•wool and fruit of Kulu : the salt, timber 
and grain of Mamli, the wild mountain 
fibres (many of them valuable if, only tran- 
sit weie ciieaper) the tea, 'he rice, tire 
timber, the chai'coal, the slates ami the cut stone 
for building of the Kangra Valley. Not to men- 
tion the snow, frozen as solid as ice and a per- 
fect substitute. You can land a ntaund of snow 
at Palampur any time in the middle of the hot 
weather for three annas; given a railway and 
you shall deliver it at I.ahore for six or eight 
waste excluded. It constituted a brisk trade in 
the days of Akbar when the snow of the 
Kangra Hills sold in the bazaar of Lahore for a 
rupee per seer. Does modern Lahore long less 
for this luxury then the Lahore of 333 years 
ago? Are the educated peasantry of the parched 
pfains unable to appreciate it ? Would Amritsar 
fall to use ? I have ssen a stalwart Jat 
ao-riculturalist drink a bottle of iced bclatc 
paid at a railway station on May, and nothing 
will induce me to believe he did not like U. 
The second thing the Kangra Tea Association 
Wants is the Nushki-Seistan route to Mashed made 
clear and safe. To assure this, British Consular 
Agents at Nasirabad and Seistan are needful to 
counteract the influence of the Kussiaii agents 
at those places. The Government of India spends 
c ores of rupees in making ready to fight Russia 
on our frontiers. To what end ? To preserve our 
possessions and our trade, fehall it not spare a 
few thousands to compete with Russia in the 
cornnrercial arena of Central Asia? The new trade 
route requires developing. It carries us straight 
to Central Asia. All it wants is Bi'itish Con.sular 
protection to guide it to success.— Pioneer. 
PARA AND AMAZONIAN RUBBER. 
It is stated in a Foreign Office report from Her 
Mafesty’s Consul at Para that the total amount of 
Amazonian rubher exported from Para, Manaos, 
Bolivia, and Peru during the twelve months ended 
June 30, 1897, was 22,216 tons, of which ,12.398 tons 
were sent to Europe, and 9,818 to the United States. 
The Amazonian crop during the same period amounted 
to 22,315 tons, of which 9,100 tons belonged to the 
State’ of Para The amount of Amazonian rubber ex- 
ported dudng the year ended Dec. 31 1896, was 01,597 
tons of which 12,542 tons were sent to Europe (10,637 
to the United Kingdom, and 1,905 to France) and 
9 055 to the United States; while the amount ot 
Amazonian rubber exported in 1897 (Jan. 1 to Dec. 
15) was 20,554 tons, of which only 9,726 tons went 
to Europe, and 10,828 tons to the United States. 
The value of the rubber exports from Para during 
he year 1896-97 was 4:1,977,596, and the duties col- 
lected on this value amounted to £416,295. 
All the trade between States watered by the Amazon 
(i.e., Para, Amazonas, Peru, and Bolivia) and the 
United States is transported in British bottoms ; and 
all the rubber purchased by the United States is 
paid for through British banks, of which there are 
three established in Para. A British company— the 
Amazon steam Navigation Company of London— 
possess 35 steamers for the navigation of the river 
Amazon. Over 100 river steamers belong to Para. 
Most of them were made in England, and merchants 
in Para, Manaos, and Iquitos are continually pur- 
chasing others from the same source. Purchases have 
been made also in the United States, France, and 
Germany, but the British article is found to be 
^'^Bubber of the best quality is produced throughout 
the continent waterel by the Amazon between Pa,ra 
and the Andes mountains of Peru, and the majority 
of authorities on (he subject are of •pinion that there 
is absolutely no fear for the exhaustion of the supply 
of rubber in the Amazonian States. Distance and 
rapids are not insurmountable obstacles, for in some 
cases this produce is transported as much as 6,000 
miles before it reaches Para ; and, when rapids im- 
pede the way, canoes and their cargoes are hoisted 
out of the water and rolled along the banks, sometimes 
for several miles, until navigable water is reached. 
This causes much delay and additional expense, 
but it is found in the end that distance and pro- 
longed transportation have improved the rubber, so 
that when it arrives at its destination it sells for 
higher prices than that col'ected nearer the mouth 
of the river . — Journal of the Society of Arts. 
COFFEE PLANTING IN THE STRAITS. 
Mr. E. V. Carey, formerly well-known in npeountry, 
at one time superintendent of Amherst, Udapussellawa, 
and now in charge of several estates in Selangor, 
passed through Colombo on Thursday. In the course 
of a brief conversation with the representative of a 
contemporary, Mr. Carey gave one or two inter- 
esting particulars of the progress of planting in the 
Straits. He appears to be full of faich in the future 
of planting there, though the low price now ruling 
for coffee has, of course, been a great blow to the 
Liberian coffee industry in that part of the world. 
Mr. Carey thinks that considerable improvement is 
capable of being effected in the curing of Liberian, 
so that it shall occupy a better place in the market 
relatively to other coffees than it has hitherto done. 
“ What makes our bean so unpopular with buyers 
in great measure is the adherence of the silver ekin 
to the bean,” said Mr. Carey. ” Many of us think 
this can be overcome by subjecting the parchment 
to a high temperature artificially, thereby contracting 
the bean itself before the silver skin has time to 
adhere to it. Experiments made in this way have 
shown that the silver skin is so much disliked comes 
off quite elean, and leaves the bean itself with a 
grand colour visible.” 
KILLING OUT THE JUNGLE! 
It is to be noticed that planters in the Straits are 
turning their attention to rubber, and Mr. Carey made 
several enquiries as to the progress of the cultivation 
in Ceylon. He told us tnat the latest suggestion 
made to them in the Straits was to cut out lines 
through the jungle about 40 yard-i apart, and, making 
a heap of rubbish and top soil at convenient dis- 
tances, to place a plant of Jiscus elastica on top. In 
six months’ time the jungle growth round the plants 
would require cutting back, and a few supplies would 
have to be put In. This would have to be repeated 
two or three times at intervals of six months or so 
till the plants were well established, and in a few 
years the trees would kill out the remaining jungle I 
Fiseus elastica is not the most valuable of rubber 
trees ; but, if this description of its hardihood be 
not exaggerated — and we fancy it is — there would 
appear to be a grand future before it. 
OUTLOOK IN THE TEA MARKET. 
GENERAL REVIEW OF THE DECLINE OF 
CHINA TEA AND THE ADVANCE OF INDIAN 
AND CEYLON. 
A London authority on tea, write.s !— “I enclose 
ail article from the Financial Neias of the 22nd 
iiist. on ‘ The Outlook in the Tea Market ’ wdiich 
will doubtless interest you”: — 
Beyond a general idea that the teas of India and 
Ceylon have for some years past been gradually dis- 
placing China teas in the home market, the British 
public does not appear to have much knowledge of 
the facts connected with the wonderful development 
of the tea-planting industry in our Eastern depen- 
dencies, or of the size and importance to which that 
industry has attained. People have been satisfied 
that when the “ resources of civilisation ” were 
