August i, 1891.] 
THP TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
139 
is not the soionee o£ the arborioulturist. It '.a » 
Boience peouUar to itself and hiis been studied on 
it" own merits. As fat as 1 have made it out, 
the matter stands thus: — The art of pruning for 
flush depends on the skill of training coolies to 
recognize red wood and prune accordingly. The 
man who is fortunate in having rich loamy soil and 
good developed trees of high jilt on flat ground and 
sheitored from marauding windk, this man can 
prune high and make the mast of his burhes. 
But even lie will have to cut down now and again to 
stimulate his bushes. The man who has a great many 
white-wooded trees of low iilt which arc inclined to 
go to seed i the man who has exposed fields and 
unfavourable soil, or high elevation and cold 
tompsralhre, — these men have to prune “ as if they 
were angry with the bush.” It is a matter of 
eiperieuee. (lomraonsense will tell you that bushes 
which soon shut up, whether on account of soil, jdt, 
aspect, or elevation, must be kept down and pluoked 
hard from the start. The old idea of pruning for 
breadth is oxplode.l. You have a fine big bush, 
and your fields look luxuriant and the ground is 
well covered ; but if you count the number of avail 
able shoots in the old method as ooraparod with 
those in the severe method there is no comparison. 
Wo don’t want to cultivate trees, and we don't 
want to kill our bushes. On the one hand we 
do not want our •bushes to run away up. 
neither do we want to kill them outright. But 
I think experience shows that the greater distance 
from the ground the greater likelihood of the sap 
ceasing. Those “ thick leafless sticks " that your 
tree-cultivator is so angry with are just those from 
wh'oh you will get il le redwood- Follow the Ted 
V 30 < d . “ wh'.i II y u have not 
8 ' . plenty of it 
ot . tr. P'ollow the 
reu . lol • .-oeding to its 
individual oharaotoristios and idiosyncraoies. If 
your bushes are white, inclined to blossom, or 
sulky, or backward in any way — out away and 
foroe a orop of red wood. If you can't get red 
wood, pull the whole blooming es a e up. 
But a word to the wise. Don’t prone severely 
in very dry weather, or it is the very d 1. 
The old way of pruning high, then leaving a long 
pipe of 6 inches on the top of that (to prune into 
next year, "dontoherknow”), which makes the bushes 
sulk as long as a pruning, or rather which is in 
itself a second pruning, then mild plnoking on the 
top of that : — why, before the year is out yonc 
bushes are away high up and only the oeniros 
are yielding flush. Then the jealous way with 
which the side brauohos were guarded from the 
coolies ruthless hands. Why, U you leave this they 
become •• bangey," and don’t come on. It you pluck 
them you euoourage flushing and draw them up. 
Let your maxims ba ; 
(1) F.dlow the reil wood; 
(2) No stagnation; 
(3) Oommonsense ; 
(4) Sweat and slioe-leathor. 
PBAOTIOAL MAN. 
MICA AND TALC: USKFUL INFOBMATION. 
8ia, — That tale and mica are ccutmoroially inter. 
changeable terius may account for the fact that many 
people use the term talc when speaking of mica, 
but how anyone who knows any hing of geology 
could confuse two suhstanoea so distinct in compo- 
sition, aijpearanoe and piopcrties, is diliicult to 
.explain. 'There are some who are under the im- 
pression that mica only when it ooouta as llakoa ns 
it does in many igneous rocks, merits the name of 
Blioa ; but that when it is found as a distinct 
mineral in plates of any size, it should be termed 
talc. This is as unreasonable as supposing that 
graphite when it ocenrs in flakes as a rook consti- 
tuent must only be called plumbago ; but when it is 
found in any quantity, as a separate mineral it 
should receive another name. The micas are sili- 
oalos of alumina with eilioates of potash, magnesia 
and other bases : they orystalizo in prismatic 
forma, and are all remarkable for their very perfect 
cleavage — sfilitting into very thin laminse which are 
flexible and elastic. Tale is a hydrated magnesium 
silicate and is monoclinio : it ia very seclile with a 
greasy feel, and splits up into thin non-elastic 
folia. But these definitions and descriptions, which 
can bo found in any book on mineralogy, are 
quite unneeessary to one who has once seen and 
lelt tale and mica. The soapy feeling to the touch 
is snfllclent to enable anyone to distinguish tale 
from mica with closed eyes. However excusable 
it may be fur eommeroial men to confuse these 
term-i, that those who as soientifio autho- 
rities and heads of soientifio institutions should 
do BO, and what is more mislead others, is un- 
pardonable. — Yours D. 
“ D " rendirs a useful service in making cleat 
the scientifio and practical distinefion between 
Miea and Tale. In the Export Trade accounts of 
the Government of India wo find the heading to 
run “ Mica (oommaroially called Tale)” 1 In the 
Ceylon Customs aooounts, now, the beading " Miea” 
is omitted and only •' Tale ” given, — Ed. T. A.] 
Cotton Cultivation to be Stautbd at Kabativu,— ; 
July lUth. herd A, Osborne and Mr. Butler have 
been tliu guests lioro of Mr. I’unnyouiok, but left two 
or three ila.^s ogo for iliu K irativu island— a long 
strip of laiiil lying north of Dutch Bay. It is their 
iulc tiou, I am told, to buy up this island and to 
plant it nilb 0 : on— capital idea, and one wbioh I 
hope will be carried out, !— Buttafa/a Oor, 
Coconut Cultivation in tub Nonxir-Cmf- 
TBAL Fkovinoij. — By returns received for our 
Dirwotory, wo are glad to see that ooeonut— like 
paddy — cultivation under the influenoo of the 
now state of things, ia fast extending in the 
North-Central Proviuee. The Government Agent 
lately institute.! a census of palm trees and the result 
so far as ooeonuts are conoerned is; — 
47,013 bearing coconut palms- 
.34,470 young palms not in bearing. 
So that in the past five years, the number 
of coconut palms previously existing has been 
increased by 75 per cent. At 80 trees to an 
acre, the total of 82,083 palms represents 1,026 
acres fully planted in the North-Central Provinoe. 
ilicK Cultivation in this United Status, — 
An elaborate aniole on this subject, illustrated 
by engravings, principally from quaint Burmese 
drawings, appears in the Louisiana Flantcr and 
Sugar Manufacturer, After a sketoh of the history 
of rice culture and the kinds used and modes of 
cultivation in Egypt, China, India, Burma, Ceylon, 
ifeo., the whole process of growth and “manutaoturo" 
in the United States is drsoribed at groat length. 
We are reprinting the artiole in the Household 
Register and Tropical Agriculturist, because hints 
useful in Ceylon may be obtained from the widely 
diff-rent mode of culture observed in the Western land 
whither rice seems to have come from Madagascar. 
In slavery time the enterprise was of great im- 
portance, but it was ruined in the Civil War ; and 
the writer of the paper is not hopeful of its 
revival to any great extent by means of expensive 
free labour. Wo have hill noe and irrigated rioa 
m Ceylon: in Carolina the grain is am phibiCus; 
-being grown in water, but ripened on dry soil 
