September 1, 1892. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
1 % 
- The Production of Tea, Coffee, and Cocoa.—A t a 
meeting of the London Chamber of Commerce on Monday, July 25th, 
Mr. J. Ferguson read a paper on “ The Production and Consumption 
of Tea, Coffee, Cacao (Cocoa), Cinchona, Cocoa-nuts and Oil, and 
Cinnamon, with reference to Tropical Agriculture in Ceylon.” He 
referred to the position of Ceylon, its forcing climate, its command of 
free cheap labour, and its immunity from the hurricanes which periodi¬ 
cally devastated Mauritius, from the cyclones of the Bay of Bengal, 
and from the volcanic disturbances affecting Java and the Eastern 
Archipelago. The plantations of Ceylon afforded, he said, the best 
training in the world for young men in the cultivation and preparation 
lands and which were already in danger of being over-produced, and he 
had arrived at the conclusion that Coffee, Cacao, and rubber-yielding 
trees were the products to plant, while Tea, Cinnamon, Cardamoms, 
Cinchona bark, Pepper, and even Palms (for their oil) did not offer 
encouragement to extended cultivation.—( Nature .) 
BEGONIA MARIE LOUISE. 
Amongst the novelties exhibited at Chiswick, on the occasion of the- 
Begonia Conference, was a very handsome Begonia of the Rex type,, 
named Marie Louise. It was placed before the Floral Committee last 
Fig. 28.—BEGONIA MARIE LOUISE. 
of tropical products, and in the managementof free coloured labour. The 
cultivation of Cane Sugar, although tried at considerable outlay on several 
plantations forty and fifty years ago, now proved a failure. More recently 
experiments by European planters with Tobacco had not been a success, 
notwithstanding that the natives grew a good deal of a coarse quality for 
their own use. Although cotton growing had not been successful, the 
island had proved a most congenial home for many useful Palms, more 
particularly the Coco-nut (spelt without the “a” to distinguish it and 
its products from Cocoa—the beans of the shrub Theobroma cacao) and 
Palmyra, as also the Areca and Kitul or Jaggery Palms. Within the 
past few years Ceylon had come to the front as one of the three great 
Tea-producing countries in the world, India and China being the other 
two, with Java at a respectable distance. Mr. Ferguson said one of the 
chief objects of his paper was to demonstrate which of the products of 
the island it was safe to recommend for extended cultivation in new 
year by Messrs. J. Veitch & Sons; but as a desire was expressed to see 
whether it would retain its dwarf character another year it was held 
over and produced again on the present occasion, when the Committee, 
being fully satisfied of its dwarfness, awarded it a first-class certificate. 
Although very little is known of its parentage or whence it emanated, 
it is thought to be a hybrid, possibly of continental origin. It averages 
about 6 inches in height, and is remarkably handsome. The foliage is 
heart-shaped, bright glossy green, with a broad bronzy patch near the 
base, across which run veins of a silvery flesh colour. The surface 
of the leaf is covered with silvery blotches. The edge is of the 
same bronze hue as the patch referred to, and is thickly studded with 
silvery dots, as shown in fig. 28, which represents it. A point that 
should be mentioned in favour of the plant, apart from its dwarf 
growth, is the way it retains its colour, a feature that is exhibited by 
both old and young leaves. 
