April i, 1892.] 
THE TROPICAL AQRIOULTURIST. 
be furnished. 8uilice it to say that the market 
question baa been praotioally thought out and eon- 
airtered, and Ibo rosulta of the calculation are re- 
assuring, 
Then ns to hUyht.i. The locust is the chief enemy ; 
the rabbit can be kept at a dietanee in "intenao 
cultivation.” But peats are not so common or deadly 
as under a tropical son, and in a community like 
Mildura combined effort will be effeotusl. 
Aa to transport. The liiver Murray is wide enough, 
and besides this a railway will yet be made through 
Warrnokmabeal, and this will enable growers to eend 
table, grapes and fresh fruit to the Melbourne and 
Adelaide market quickly. Mildura must have a 
railway. Then in such a large community buyers 
will oome to them, to their doors — nay they will 
purchase the fruit on the trees, and all the 
grower haa to do is to sit in his arbour and count 
up bis money like the “ King ” in the nursery rhyme. 
For Factu and Figures beyond what I have given 
and in oonfirmation and aupport of what I have 
given, I refer all to Messrs. Chaficy Brothers, Limit-.d, 
Hwanston Street, Melbourne. 
And now in " oonolnsion," as the padres say. 
1 speak lo Young Men. Is this not tempting 7 
The problem that has puzzled your “ governors.'’ 
“ What will we do with our boys?” is fairly solved. 
The expensive “Army,” the tedious “0;^e!"the 
doubtful passing into the '‘Civil” with its few 
“ plums then the “ Church " for whom so few are 
fitted ; then “ Planting " in India and Ceylon. Tea, 
Indigo, Ooffee ! Who are making money? Ask the 
veterans. Hcie you can use your supei fluous energy ; 
and your youthful buoyanoy will oa-ry yon over 
the toil. Yon will have many coogei i il friends — 
public school and college men— all woii ing. and all 
happy. 
I speak to Middle-Aged. Merchants siuk of bad 
times, hopelees and despairing in the struggle, with 
wives to think of and helpless babes to feed, (iather 
the fragments of the wreck and oome here to easy 
yet constant labour. Your wife and children can 
help you in a hundred ways, aronnd you can 
make many friends of men in your own condition. 
/ speak to our Soldiers— vhetber the grizzled and 
tanned officer, pensioned off with many years of 
work in him, which will be shortened by the spirit 
wearing out the case, the bird beating against the 
wires of the cage, the man accustomed to all the 
life and energy of active work in India suddenly 
coodemned to aimless wanderings, with a “ Trioby ’’ 
cheroot and overcoat, in a busy world where only 
children and nursery maids are idle. Ilow often 
has the Anglo Indian uffloer turned with a longing 
to Tasmania and repented at finding il a country 
without “go”? Here is a paradise. Write and 
inquire. 
And to mg Prather Planters of India and Ceylon. 
I have spent long years in both countries, and 
as I looked round this land of promise I thought 
of you with your dark future, dark past, and what 
sort of “ present ” ? Your ladies ! poor pale miser- 
able strugglers against a climate which is specially 
pernicious to those who have no active out-door 
occupation. io«r wives and daughters I See them 
here with deep sunbonnet and gloves to protect 
their delicate skin, daintily turning the water 
down the rows, oarefully picking the grapes 
and leaving them on the trays between the rows to 
dry into raisin. They would have cheap horses, 
and agreeable friends, for there sro many ladies 
here and horseflesh is cheap. 
And to ladies, old or young, without a protector 
of the stronger sex — you can have your garden and 
bower, your villa-block, your township-blook, and 
have all these things under your own eye— easily pro. 
ouiiog hired help, 
91 
7aj 
There is already marrying and giving in marriage 
in Mildura. Now I most leave the theme — and the 
slesmer, as I am now at Swan Hill on Saturday 
morning. A long day’s journey brings me back to 
Melbourne at half-past eleven in the evening, so that 
I have been exactly a week away I bad two hours 
to see Bendigo the groat sunny centre — but I must 
postpone furlher particulars to another time. 
Aburdonensis. 
HEMEL.EIA VASTATKIX. 
» » * 
There will bo probably a differrnoe of opinion 
among the plauting comicuaity in regard to the deoi- 
siou of the Oovernment of Madras. We must confess 
that we agree fully with the wisdom of it, aa the 
opinion rxpresaed by Dr. Cunningham, a scientist of 
the very front rank, is supported by many planters 
of long standing and great experience. For eixtecn 
years or more experts Lave been engaged in the iii- 
veet’gation of this disease, and so far the practical 
result has been ml. This in iiself would argue nothing, 
as after all it ieonly just cow that the causes of many 
diseases in the human frame have been discovered and 
the proprr prophyinotios ptesotibed. But with the 
oomparatively small interests at stake we cannot be- 
lieve in the wisdom of incurring a vast expenditure ou 
the possible obance of discovering an iufallible remedy 
iu the face of suob an opinion trom such a man as 
Dr. Ounningham. The planting industry is prepared 
to pay a fortune to a man who csin provides oeitain 
cure, and daring tbe past twelve mouths we have been 
assured (hat such a cure does exist. When ibe dis- 
coverer was presse.1 to tell us something about it all 
we learnt wag how to mix manures, dig drains and 
prune. Suob is the usual finale of the boasted infalli, 
ble cure. The disease has now extended throughout 
every coffee district, and wherever it has been checked 
or stayed, it has been due to the precautions taken 
by the planters themselves. It is an undisputed 
faol that it has spread through the jungles, and 
unices there loo il is destroyed, nothing can insure 
immunity for the fields of coffee, or prevent 
p.opagation of tbe nredlnoiis sporce. It is unsatis- 
factory to have to form such a conclueion, but ittia 
idle to hope tor the millennium yet awhile, and, if 
tbe lion cannot lie down with the lamb, there is no 
neol just yet to anticipate a eoaroity of mutton. 
So, too, in ■ large measure as regards the ooffee 
industry, greater care and attention mutt be bestowed 
on tbe oboice of locality and tbe cultivation. Under 
unfavourable oircumstanoeg the diseaee will doubtleas 
asaume the form of an epidemic, but so lung as pre- 
ventive measures are carried out and the weather does 
not become abnormally unfavourable to the plant, 
dire results need not be anticipated. It would, we 
believe, be wise if the Flauting Assooiations of the 
diSeront districts were to obtain from aomo of their oldest 
and moat praetieal planters observations of tbe disease 
aud the measures taken to chock it, showing which 
they found most effectual. In aomo diatiicte out remedy 
will bo found the best, in others a different one. If 
such observations were caiofully collated and edited 
by a gentleman with soientifio knowledge, we believe 
that it would prove a hand-book of inestimable 
Borvioe to plantora in contending against this disease 
and in mitigating the evil effeote of an attack . — Madras 
Times, Feb. 12. 
PRODUCER AND RETAILER. 
'Within tbe last few weeks a very keen diaoussion 
has taken place in certain English journals oonoorn- 
Ing the advisability or otherwise of retailers growing 
their own tee. In a letter that appeared in the 
Orocer, mention was made of a Urge Oeylon Tea Plan- 
tation Company, which paid dividends at the rate of 
IS per cent and tbe question was asked why with 
such brllliaat results plantationa should not be owned 
and tnanogod by a combination of retail traderi in 
