THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[May 2, 1898, 
1SQ 
Messes. LaaRMAn & Co., of Amsterdam, have 
forwarded a Review of the 1890 Romeo lobacco 
cron to Secretary of the B. N. B. Co. Whole crop 
1896 in total iS,992 Bales, British North Borneo 
Tobacco average about 91c. Tliis is the price it 
was sold at first licixid,^ value about /*l,910,C(j0 
or=£175,000.— ^ovth Borneo Xews. 
Kamih Fiere. — Mes.=rs. Lee Hedges & Co. as 
Agents for Messrs, MacDonald, Boyle & Co. 
himd us a pamphlet on the Cultivation, 
Decortication, Treatment, and uses of Ramie 
Fibre. But it appears to be the same pamphlet 
we lately noticed and ex tr, acted from, the only 
difference is a correction on page 6, where the 
second Estimate does not include cost “ of erec- 
tion ” of machinery. 
How TO Grow L.vrge Melons. — A very simple 
method of watering and at the same time manuring 
melon vines is to sink a cement or bottled ale- 
cask a little cvjr half its own depth in the ground. 
Then throw up the soil against the uncovered part 
of the cask, tlius making it the centre of a rradu- 
ally sloping mound, much like a scrub turkey’s nest. 
Fid the cask with stable manure. Sow the melon- 
seeds outside and at a little distance from the cask. 
Every day or every second day, when the plants 
have begun to grow vigorously, w Uer the m.rnure 
in the cask. The liquid passes between the staves, 
and thus fertilises the plants. A distinct advantage 
of this process is that during dry weather, when 
surface watering would only result in baking and cak- 
ing the soil, the plants draw moisture and nourish- 
ment from below, and thus the soil round the roots 
ia kept constantly moist. — Queensland Agricultural 
Journal for March. 
High Price for Tea Land.— O ur contemporary 
the “Observer” falls into an error in supposing that 
the price paid — equal to £120 per acre — is the highest 
price paid for tea estate property in Ceylon. The 
honour of securing the very highest price per acre 
does not lie with any Agrapatna estate, but with 
Dukinfield, which was sold a short while ago for 
£30 COO, or at the rate of £126 per acre. The his- 
tory of Holbrook and its purchase is given in another 
column. It may be interesting to compare it with 
that attaching to Dukinfield, or, as the place was 
once called, Sylvakaude. It was, like so many others 
of our crack tea estates, once coverei with coffee, 
and w.rs mortgaged to the extent of some £5,000. 
In course of time the mortgagee foreclosed, and 
bought the property in— raising another £5,000 on if, 
which was subsequently increased to £7,000— and pro- 
ceeded to develop the estate. For a considerable 
time it is estimated, the estate brought' in a return 
of 30 per cent, upon the total capital invested in it ; 
and it was ultimately sold, as already stated, for 
£30 000 which, being at the rate of £126 per acre, 
is the 'highest price ever paid for estate property 
in Cevlon. The estate consisted nf 230 acres of tea 
and 54 acres of forest. The latter was valued at 
£1 Olio and this left the rate for the tea about £126 
per acre We may add that the estate gave a profit 
of £3.000 in 1896, and, judging by the average ob- 
tained for its tea last year, about a similar amount 
for 1897. Some estates have gone through strange 
vicissitudes in this respect, and the increase which 
has taken place in the saleable value of Ceylon tea 
estates of late years is almost moredible. Six years 
affo for instance, we aretold, an estate whic.i fetcaea 
i^5 600 three years afterwards was parted with for 
£9 000. Oulv 18 months ago it again changed hands 
this time realising £16,500. Again, /^“°ther case 's 
brought to our notice. The sum of £6,8J0 sufficed 
to purchase an estate seven years ago when u_ ha 1 
no factory, but last year the purchaser relused 
f90 000 for it 1 It is interesting to note that a we. 1- 
kiiown Ceylon planter, now Managing Director of 
more than one Sterling Tea^ Goiupanv _ui Lmd,.n, 
refused to give more than .£6,5.10 for this estate, so 
that ho lost over £20,000 by not springing anotlier 
£oAQ a reflection which we feel sure must be a most un- 
pleasant memory to him to this day !— Local i lines 
Trout Ova.— T he letter, wliicli Mr. Burrows, 
Hon. Secretary to tlie Ceylon Fishing Club, sends 
ns (see further on) will be ^read with great satis- 
faction, nut only by all anglers, but by all who 
wish well to tlie niost interesting, and even im- 
portant experiment of iiitrodiieing trout into 
Ceylon streams. Tlie capture of so fine a fish, 
the other day by .Mr. Maselield, shows the 
potentialities involved, and we do not see why 
most of the Dimbula, Dikoya, Maskelij’a, Ram- 
boda and Upper Uva streams should net be siip))lied 
with fry, by-anu-bye. Never was tliere a scheme 
better worth persevering witli. 
Narrow Waggon Tires have been proved in- 
ferior 10 broad tires by the Missouri Agricultural 
authorities. Given the same amount of drauglit, 
or pull, a load of 2,518 lb. can be hauled over 
macadam on Gin. tires, and only 2,000 on liiii. 
tires. Tests have been made on all kinds of roads 
for a year, and the only surfaces unfavourable to 
broad tires have been found to be dry roads with 
several inches of dust, and sticky clay roads with 
firm ground uiiderneatli. On clay roads deep with 
mud, but drying on to[>, the tests were favourable 
to the broad lire. Six inches, the authorities liave 
decided, is the best width of tire for a com- 
bined farm and road waggon. — Honic paper, 
March 17. 
Coffee in South America.— According to the 
Bulletin of the Bureau of the American Repub- 
lics for January, cotl'ee is still in the experimen- 
tal stage of cultivation in Paraguay, but numer- 
ous plantations are now being made in difiereut 
parts of the country, and especially in the govern- 
ment settlements. The largest plantation is to be 
found in the department of Emboscada. T'heie 
are in this plantation already some 2u0,000 trees 
bearing fruit which is declared by some to be su- 
perior to the Brazilian berry. The results so far 
are considered satisfactory and encouraging, biic 
whether the venture will ultimately prove a pro- 
fitable one it is not at present possible to say. The 
government assists the coffee planters by granting 
them facilities for acquiring seed and by offering a 
reward of 30 cents for every jilant transplanted and 
in good condition at the time of application. A 
loan of 30 cents for each plant may also be ob- 
tained, and, if granted, is jiayable in two yearly 
installments of 15 cents per plant . — Bio News, 
Eeb. 22. 
Imperial Tea Duty.— W e had personally com- 
piled a more elaborate return than the following, 
for oar Handbook, a few weeks ago. Still the 
figures liere given are strikingly put by the Loudon 
Times : — 
Piom 1836 to 1852 ihe tea duty was 2s Id per lb.; in 
1856 it was Is 9J ; in i860 Is 5i ; in 1863 Is ; from 
1865 to 1839 6d; aud since 1890 4d. The yield of 
the duty is new about what it was 60 years ago, 
when the burden was more than 6 times what it is 
now. The yield of eacli penny of duty, which was 
£181,000 ill 1833, was £263,000 iu 1856, £426,000 in 
1866, £320,000 in 1876, £ 145,000 in 1833 and in 1896 it 
had risen to £949,000. At the same time the whole 
sale price of tea apart from tho duty had been 
steadily falling. Thirty years ago it was on tl e 
average is 7d per lb.; it is now only 94d. Nor is ic 
unimportant to note that while, just after the close 
of the Oi'imoaii War, we drew almost the whole 
of the tea cousuniDd, in Great Britain from China, 
about 80 per cent of the supply comes in the 
present day from India and Ceylon, 
The price of tea averages 9 d, says The Times, 
We wish it did in Mincing Lane, 
