104 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 
[August i, 1891. 
Chriatie, m. l. 0. in bia condemnation of irrigation! 
said that a network of roads waa neoesaary. 
Here ore some interaating paragraphs ; — 
Colton Cultivation. — Thia indueiry may bo said to 
have been a complete failure. The sood vraa anppliod iu 
the nrovioua year, and althougli the plant* promised 
well up to a certain stage, so much damace was 
done by the drought that the crop was not worth the 
transport. 
Palmyrah.— Mr. C. A, Murray had theao plants put 
in along several miloa of the Yodn-ela, and 1 fouad 
that tho majority of them were doing well, allUongh 
they have not been specially caro l for or fenced. I 
hope to procnre a large supply in Ibill to extend this 
oultivstion. . 
CocODuts.— One of the great advantsges which irri- 
aatiou ” has soourcd for this Provinoo is Hist oouonut 
cultivation is rapidly oxtending. To any oiio sceptical 
of this statsment I wonid recommend a vi.it to the 
vllagis below the Y, da-ela, or to take Ksrombewa, iu 
Kalagam korale, as a speoimen. I am having a ocusns 
taken of coconut trees, village by village, which will 
show hereafter whether the oultivatiou is exletidiug 
or not. 
Indian Corn. — This valuable grain is largely grown 
in chcn is ; ainl that which is produced in Tamman- 
kaduwa wiH,oomp're favourably with the finest Ivua- 
siau'growu'^m I have seen X3ut its valno is much 
lost from the unhealthy manner in which it is estou. 
The pods are half-boiled and then gnawed off. This 
mode of ‘'ocohiog” is said to bo productive of 
several evils, as may readily bo conceived. 
The Leaves of .SVifpia triloba are extensively used 
in the Levant in the preparation of a kind of tea. 
The plants are simply out, dried, tied in bundles 
snd sold on the market-place, and ate found, ready 
for use, in every caf6 of GreBOO, and even in the poorest 
homes! This " Athenian tea," or ns the Greeks 
call it, " Phnskomylia tea,” is believed to be a 
sure preventive of colds and fevers, and is therefore 
univeisaTy drunk in winter weather and by sailors 
at sea.— Garden and Forent, 
Gold in Sibkbia.— F rom a paper iu tlic 
London Times we quote as follows 
Of all the industries of Eastern Siberia, probably 
the most important is the gold mining iiidns'ry. The 
richest washings and mines sro those of Yeneseisk 
and Olekminsk, but the yield of metal at these places, 
owing to the present primitive and wasteful method 
of extraotiug li, is not neatly so large ss it might be. 
Mining engineers oiloulate that when the railway 
is ooDSirnotod and it is possible to transport hydraulio 
gold-washing mnohiuery they will be able to save at 
from 25 per cent to 80 per cent of the gold which is 
now wasted. When these improved methods of ex- 
tracting the melal have been adopted, they are oon- 
fident that the yield will be about double what it uow 
is. At presoet, owing to the immeuse distance of the 
washings of Eastern Siberia from Kussia, it is not 
oonaiifered profitable to work " waBliiiigs" unless they 
produce live times as much gold as the least profit- 
able of the WHsbings in the Urals. It is easy tu see, 
then that the railway will give an immense impetus 
to the gold mining indnstrios of Easter Bilieria. A 
reeulat gold fever may, indeed, be expected to set in. 
Pew people have any idea ut the amount of gold 
•itiioh baa been obtained slroady from Kasiern and 
Central Siberia. *. ’ * Eastern and Central 
Hlheria lias bIoub given to Russia, during the pu-t 61 
years about £120, 000, 000 worth of gold The Ural 
and Wostoru Siberia have, I am told, furnished an 
even greater quantity. And, when it is remembered 
that the yield of gold would bo much larger— some 
say twice as large-if proper roiuing machinery wen. 
in use, and that luuob of the gold which is extrac ted 
never finds its woy to Itussi*. but is surreptitiously 
disposed of tu the Ohineao nnd private traders, no one 
will bo Burprised that the Government are anxious 
to keep a firm hold of their territories in Eastern 
Siberia and turn them to batter acoouut, 
IMPOllTS OF TEA :>’TO TUB UNITED 
STATES. 
These show a gain over last year. The March 
imports as compared with last year were light, being 
only 2,244,7S3 pounds, against 6 640,951 pounds in 
1890. For the nine months ending March 31st the 
imports were 76.609,214 pounds, against 71 792,298 
pounds for the same time in 1890 . — American Grocer. 
The New Fobuoba Tea-Ckop is larger and finer 
than it has been tor many years. The grower 
thus far have been a little uppish on account of 
the superior quality of the leaf , so that the ohiof 
if oot the sole buyers thus far have hoeu the 
Chinese hongs. The increased output however will 
soon cause a fall in prices and a heavy shipment 
to Amoy — Amoy Timee. 
Pkppkk, Paddv, Tigers, and Bat Caves in 
Pebak.— T he Report on Trong and Kurau, for April 
and May, staled : — 
During Hin month I walked through the popper 
garden of U»ji Mohomed Yusuf {the Asaiatai t Kathi) 
at Ayor Terjiiu (Ulu Suugt'i Tinggi), who h«8 taken 
11 lease of 80 acres for popper cultivation, but only 
from 15 to 20 acres are »t present plauted, none of 
the plants b log more than years old, but looking 
strong and lieallhy, and had they bein trained up 
dead-wood poets, instead of up dedap trees, the owuet- 
I venture to say, would have bad a return from tho 
plants this year. In a email peppor garden from 7 
to 8 years old the plants having been trained up dead- 
wood poate, are iu full bearing, and looking remark- 
ably well. The owner might havn coiigratul.alod him- 
self had he bad 100 or 200 acres planled up wi h such 
peppi-r. The inhabitants sro evidently kteuly alive ns 
to tho pepper future of the di'triot, ns fresh nppli- 
CittiouH for land to oultivaie pepper are coining iu fast. 
Tho padi crop usually a reniarlnibly good one, was 
this last season pariially desirojed by rats. 
It would be a good plan to try the system of 
poisoned grain adopted throughout the Australian 
colonies for the destruction of rab afs, and which so 
far has been the only reiinhie cxterminnlir of that 
pest, though scientific men have racku.l tludr brains 
to substitute a better mode of desiruotion, but with- 
out any great show of success. 
Since my arrivoliu the district two tigers have boon 
shot by Mat flalleh, a Pataiii man, the same man 
having shot no less than five of tbein within the la>t 
three months, whilst there are aovoral more in ibo neigh- 
bourhood, as was proved on iho night of the 18lh, a 
settler having two of his cows killed and eateu, and a 
third seriously injured. The brutes are of such a 
ravenous nature that they carried away nod ate up 
tho body of a dead comrade killed the previous night. 
Doubtless they are attracted by the herds of Indian 
cattle ollowed to run loose in the kampongs during 
the night. All were shot by spring guns iugouiuiisly 
set iu the jungle. A well-known goiitleranu having 
offered a reward of $50 for the dead body nf the first 
largo tiger brought iu, there is every reason to believe 
that, iu this diatnotat any rate, their exloriuiiiation is 
at hand. 
The Batu Kurau rock, stundiug about a mile from 
the foot of the Hijau range, is worthy of note, and 
well worth a vi-it. It is an isolated, perpondi- 
oular limestone rock of siiveral hun ired Let in 
height, uow overgrown with trees, with the Hnngei 
Kuriiii winding round the foot of it. The largest 
cave of interest jis on the eastern side of ihe rock, 
about 50 ft. in length, and proportioiinte'y broad, 
into which I roile a large t lephani ; at the 
further eud of this cave gapes an ounraioiis black 
envern, extending perpendicularly upwards ; I bad no 
means of as 'crtviaing tu what height it ran. Thousands 
of bats were Hying iu the liarkiio-s, frightnued at our 
approach, their wiug.s making the cive-i r. sound with 
n noise like distant thunder, whilst the floor of the 
cave was from 4 ft, to 5 ft. deep in bat guano. Thera 
are several olbor oaves of minor iiilcro.st in tho rook, 
said to have been the lairs of wild beasts, in ths 
rememhranoe of the oldait inhabitants. 
