THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST 
[JVNE 1, 1892. 
913 
If you have a troublesome 00 m the doctor can 
bo attain put to good account by rubbing him on 
the too after you nave taken a hot Imtli, ami cut 
away a« luucli as possible of the troublesome intruder. 
Besides all this the doctor is always ready to 
socridce himself in the cause of Russian tea — slice 
him in without sugar — or in the preparation of old- 
fashioned lemonade, than which no drink is more 
wholesome. 
Altogether Di'. Lemon is an individual few people 
can offord to get along without.— Krc/ittnyf. 
PLANTING IN THE NEW HEBRIDES. 
From a letter dated to a gentleman in ColomVo, 
we quote as follows . — 
'■ Santo, Kew Hebrides, Fob. lOtb, 1892. 
“.last a line to let you know tint we are applyinf 
to Japan for coolies, and as far as we oan ses at 
present, any number oan be had lor the cost of trans- 
port and about siipenco per diem tor their work. 
“ It may not have struck you that in these is anls 
a man has advantages that cannot be formed else- 
where. 
“ No restrictions with regard to imported labour 
which he oan get from China, Japan, Malay or any- 
where at bis own prioe and on bis own terms. 
“If a few planters came out we could send our own 
chartered veeeels and bring ns many brhourers as 
we require, and as to the question uf titles to the 
lend, that would be perfectly secur.i as wo could get 
the islands annexed without trouble if re'tlers were 
here, and you have time to make a iortune or lay the 
foundation of one before there are too many laws or 
reatrictioue. Sugar planters could send th' labour verse's 
up to Japan and load up thousands and there is no- 
thing to prevent going to work at cno.-. Thisrnd of 
Santo, Maio and Mallicolla has good low land for 
sugar and the natives as you sro aware are anxlcui 
to aell for what they oan get. 
“ We bavo been pushing the authorities for annex- 
ation, and no doubt shall got it iu time, but it is 
questionable whether wo rhouM not be actii g more to 
our advintage if wo sent a vessel up to Japan for 
200 coolies. 
“ We are getting islanders row by the mail rtonmer 
under the same laws that enable the mission stationr 
to obtain native cooks and traobers from 0 hrr isla ids. 
“ We pay their pessages by steamer and the expen.se 
is lees than iu any part (f the world, £11 p>r bead 
and no restriotions. I think we can get 'hem from 
Japan under £5 per head. Wh.st more do tho planters 
want ? There is no drought here to burn up the cane 
fields, and no heavy timber to clear. 
“ Price of land about one penny per acre cash or 
100 acreo for a musket and yon would never be 
troubled by aeeing a native unleae you ei courage them 
and come to trade or work." 
COCOA. 
Bv Joseph Hatton. 
{JUuttrated by W'. 11. ifargetton.) 
“ Cocoa-loaf, coco-nut, cocoa,” reuiarks a teclmica 
authority, “ it requires thouglit before one can rightly 
attribute tho properties and uses of tlieso veget.ilile 
products.” Many persons think cocoa-nibs are made 
from a root, others associate them with the coco- 
nnt palm. I could hardly realize the existence of 
BO much igiioraiico or indifference about one of tho 
most familiar of popular boverages and confections 
until I opened an established dictionary and found 
an engraving of the coco-nut paliii illustrating the 
word “ cocoa." The Koat Encyclopedias do not 
however leave one in doubt. Cocoa is the product 
of the seeds of the Throbrowa (Food of the Clods) 
cacao. The tree flonrishos in ifexico, Brazil, tho 
West India Islands, Columbia, Equador. I'lie finest 
qualities are grown in the island of Trinidad, and 
in Venezuela. Caracas has given its name to a 
popular brand. Of Into years, Ceylon also has produced 
a bean of high character. A drawing made in a 
leafy corner of that sunny island supplies us with 
our initial illustration. The Theobroma cacao, better 
known as tho cocoa tree, rises with a bare stem to 
the heiglit of six or seven feet, and then dividing 
into many iTraiiohos climbs upwards some ten or 
fifteen feet higher. The branches spread out not un- 
like an oak, but with a dark green loaf something 
of the sliapo and character of a plum tree. The 
fruit is a large pod tliat hangs pendulous from tlie 
tree by a tough timber stalk. Its surface is grained 
and liavd. At first tho pods are green, but as tliey 
ripen thev become yellow, the side next the sun red. 
The tree 'attains its full vigour iu seven or eight 
years, and yields two principal crops in the year. 
Sphere is not what may he called a harvest time, 
not in the sense of our cutting of corn or the vin- 
tage in F’rance. Tlio pods do not ripen all at the 
same time. One or two from a tree are cut as 
tliey appear to the eye of tlie expert as ready for 
stripping. Those are gathered together in heaps, and 
by and by the'plantation hands, men and women, burst 
open tho pods, strip away tlie rind and extract the 
nuts, each pod containing a hundred or morej^ked 
in tlie closest eompass. Tho nuts are then laid out 
upon mats to drv, after wliioli they arc packed for 
exportation in lings, oocli of which holds about 
11211 ). 
Recently, in company witli a friend, 1 saw vast 
quantities of tho liiscions-looking bean turned out 
of its Oriental packing in “the cocoa metropolis” 
of the West of England, and watched its gradual 
conversion into that particular “ food of tho gods " 
which has become universal among men. Bugs from 
Trinidad, Venezuela, Ceylon and other cocoa regions 
were being swung through tlie air into the storage 
and grinding room of Fry's factories at Bristol. 
Pausing in one of the galleries that unite the dif- 
ferent factories to watcli tlie busy scene below us, 
we find ourselves on a level with the vane of St. 
Bartholomew’s Church steeple. The sacred edifice is 
literally embedded in the secular buildings that 
have grown up all round it. Tlie children pouring 
out of the chnrcli-Bchools might ho part of the 
working-folk of the factory going to dinner. They all 
look free and happy and well nurtured, the working 
childrou as well asHlie soholara with their books and 
slates. St. Bartholomew's is one of those out-of-the- 
way churches which you often find in old cities lost 
in the noisy tlioroHghfare.a of growing iuduatries, their 
congregations dispersed among other houses of prayer. 
A new site will evidently have to be found for St. 
Bartholomew's. From tho first it would seem as if 
trade and couiuivice had been struggling at Bristol 
for supremacy with ecclesiasticism. In tiio fifteenth 
century it was “ a city of towers,” eighty monasteries 
and clinrchos crowning its embrasured walls. Prior 
to the edicts of Henry VIII.. it was indeed more or 
leas an ooolosiastical city, crowded with devotional 
guilds, hospitals, hermitages, churches, chantries, 
the population picturesque with tho typical coatumos 
of Franciscan, Benedictine, Carmelite and Domi- 
nican monks, priests, and friars, the air (says one 
historian,) “ thick with clouds of incense.” 
If tho possible conversion of the site of 
St. Bartholomew's into business purposes should 
strike a note of regret in some minds we would 
liasten to offer the oonipeusating fact of the annex- 
ation of the county gaol for the finn's stables and 
timber stores. Indeed the exigencies of cocoa mann- 
faoture seems to have compelled a general making 
free with tlie western city. Fry’s brasaplate meets 
the eye in tho various business quarters of the city, 
sotting up fresh landmarks for old ones, and filling 
the air with a perfume at some points hardly less 
iioticeahlo than was the incense of Bristol's olden days. 
Wo had paused at the open door of the roasting 
room, not only to witness tho unloading of tropicol 
cargoes hut to take a gliiiico over the red-tiled roofs 
and gabled houses of Bristol away to St. Paul's in 
Portland Square, busy streets right and loft and at 
all points, suggestions of tlie historic character of 
the famous old city and its merchant venturers, its 
battles for king and parliament, its royal and civil 
baiiqiietings, its reform riots, its literary ciitoriea, 
and its varied enterprises maritime and otlierwise. 
