May 2, 1892.] 
THE. TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 819 
adulthood. Having given some of the evil effects of 
tliein, it is only right that I slionld give some of 
its good oiTects. 'J'liein has dovelopod tlie Imain 
power of our race, as is seen in tlio wonderful ad- 
vance of inventive power. It has raised the animal 
man into the hrain man. The crave for education 
is a consequence of a stimulating power developing 
the braiu, but the question is whether this sudden 
forcing ahead of nuui’a nervous system is for his 
f rermanent advantage. Is the Australian, who 
leads the list of nations who drink tea, which 
nature has compelled him to do in consequence 
of the largo quantity of meat he eats, gaining 
by this hothouse forcing of his nervous system in a 
hot climate like ours? I say certainly not, for of all 
Australian vices I look on the one which is most 
likely to permanently injure his constitution, or rather 
the constitutions of ids cliildren, is his tea-drinking 
habits. My answer, then, to this question — Is tee- 
totalism as now carried out. advantageous to the 
human race ? must bo in the negative, for with the 
non-abstainers who drink tea largely the alcohol they 
take in a measure counteracts the injurious effects of 
thein.”* 
The doctor contends that “ we should cat less meat 
and more vegetables, especially fruit, and then we 
should not require the anionnt of stimulants now con- 
sumed by tho teetotal and noii-teetotal members of 
the community, and tho future race will have a better 
prospect before it, for there are already signs of de- 
generation in our race. 'I'he degeneration of a race 
commences with its female members, in that at first 
they cannot nourish their little ones, and then they 
have very small families. The first of these failings we 
notice amongst us. Woman's lirains are being stimu- 
lated too much by thein, consequently she may become 
highly developed at the expense of her usefulness. 
In conclusion I am^ of opinion that tcetotalism as at 
present carried on is useless for State purposes, for I 
consider that a race of people imbibing tea largely 
without fermented beverages would suffer tho same 
fate as some of the vegetwian colonies, for it 
might answer with tho parents but it would be death 
to their children. The race would wear out owing 
to nerve exhaustion. The above are the thoughts of 
one who has been an almost lifelong teetotaler. Tea, 
coffee, cocoa, tobacco, fermented drinks have all their 
usefulness, and when taken in moderation may not 
do harm any more than meat, vegetables and fruit. 
But they must he taken in reason, and then they 
are not hnnnfni. Virtue carried to excess becomes 
irksome to others, and so it is with all things. Tea 
plays havoc with our foodfonnents— natiuo's guardians 
of our bodies agsinst disease We live in an age of 
stimulants — an age of excitement— and wo demand 
impossibilities. Wo have discovered a few things 
and get disgusted at not knowing all things. We 
expect the microscope to tell us everything about 
the causes of disease, yet arc toolozy to analyse the 
blood during the different stages of disease, but listen 
with mouth wide open to everyone who says he has 
discovered tho cause of this or that disease, when 
in reality no single microbe has been so far proved 
to cause any one disease. Pasteur, the chemist, is 
the only man who has told us anything positive, 
and tho chemist we must depend on, at least so 
latest work 
on Morbid Histology’, just published. The Russians 
place a slice of lemon in their tea, which must 
strengthen its power of delaying tho digestion of 
food, and in the Black country tho men add salt to 
their beer. Tea is poison to anvono with a coiisiimp- 
tivo tendency.” — Sydney Dailii Tehiiraph, Peb. 20th. 
CULTUBK OF IMITAlUlBllRn TKFKS. 
Mr. 11. Crist, of Ihilo. Switzerland, writing on the 
above subject in liimkn and /yrrti, says: It is, 
perhaps, worth while to call attention to the ease with 
which that beautiful tree can^ bo propagated for 
cuttings. As is well known, it is only necessary to 
take a piece of a bramdi and insert it into moist sand^ 
Fsiicy a luiiii daring to talk of alcohol ccrrcoling the 
cu«,c tH of theii.o 1— Kn, 2\ A. 
and to protect the cutting with a bell-glass to secure 
a rooted plant ; but it is loss well-known, perhaps that 
tho last articulation of the branch is capable of niaking 
roots much more quickly and readily than those lower 
down. Mr. Gamble, inspector of tho forests of Madras 
in South India, tells me that when they desire, in his disl 
trict, to make plantations of this valuable tree, workmen 
always take tho end of a branch with a single leaf for 
tho cutting, as experience has shown that this is tho 
way to obtain plants quickly and surely, and I believe 
that horticulturists would do well to follow this plan 
always in propagating Ficus elastica. 
This tree, by the way, does not demand a real 
tropical climate. On the contrary, in nourishes outside 
the tropics in regions where snow falls sometimes and 
which experience several degrees of frost. 1 have 
seen ill the beautiful garden of Hamah, near Algiers, 
specimon.s of Ficus elastica, and of its relative, F, 
Jloxl:ur</hii, iwi large as our large forest trees, casting a 
shade blacker and thicker than I have ever smii 
before. Generally, the genus Fievs is hardy and easy 
to acclimatise. 
Hcus australis succeeds admirably in Algiers, and 
F Fcnjamina is used in tho same city as a shade tree 
in the suburb of Mustapha, There is a large specimen 
<»u>hatU, already old, on the Italian Riviera at 
Mentone, which, protected on the north by a house, 
forms a superb mass of dark green foliage ; and at 
(ladiz there is a handsome avenue of large fig-trees, 
with small leaves, not far from tho Botanic Garden, 
Iheso are trees two feet or more in diameter of trunk 
with thick spreading heads. There are often severe 
frosts, however, in all these regions. 
With regard to the fruit of Ficus elastica, I have 
onco seen it on a small plant cultivated In a pot 
at Bale, so that it appears that this species boars 
fruit sometimes in a comparatively young state. — 
India-lluhber Journal. 
THK ORIGIN OP PETROLEUM. 
Theories as to tho origin of petroleum have been 
numerous— some plausible, some hardly so, but inge- 
nious, some ridiculous, though all more or less in- 
teresting as presented by their advocates, the fol- 
lowing rather unique theory is propounded by T B 
Malone in the I‘illslmr<ih ikspatch 
What was the origin of the oil that exists in the 
earth in such vast quantities ? This is the question 
that the thoughtful observer asks himself as he sur- 
veys a score or more of iiumenso wells at McIJo- 
nald, out of which in the aggregate fully 00,000 
barrels of oil are discharged daily. Think of it — 
a vast river of petroleum rushing out of tho earth. 
Truly this question is one that is suflicient to sot us 
to thinking. How are we to account for this olea- 
ginous wonder that comes up from l.lUKl ft. or more 
below tho level of tho hills 1' How easy for some to 
put the question off with the remark that it is 
not for us to answer — that it is one of the mysteries 
of the world that God did not intend that man 
should ever luiderstand; but the thinker is not to lie 
satisfied with any such evasion of a question tho 
natnro of which demands an explanation. 
Down deep in the earth ho knows that there is 
a vast deposit of oil. Call it lake, or river, or what 
you will, it is there, and, judging from the amount 
that rushes up through a U in. casing in a second 
of time, one is inclined to think that it is very 
tired of imprisonment, and has long been wanting 
to get out. 
The scientific man, over readji to wrestle with any 
vexatious problem, is the only individual that under- 
takes to give us any light on the subject. Ho ad 
mits that it is a profund subject in every sense of 
the word, and wishes that he had some kind of 
siiliterranean telescope that would enable him t”^ 
study the rocks from whence this great volume of 
potioleum coiiiOB as the astroiiomers stndv the at 
The distance that intervenes shuts out an invo 
gation as compl^ptely as if the source of the oH ' 
far beyond tho North Pole. O'lwaa 
But tho drill and tho sand pump that i 
into tlio oortli, what do they reveal ? Look at Ri" 
