The Tropical Agriculturist: a Monthly Record of Information for Planters of Coffee, Tea, Cocoa, Cinchona, Indiarubber, Sugar, Tobacco, Cardamoms, Palms, Rice, and other Products suited for Cultivation in the Tropics

Abstract

ABULKY volume containing thirteen monthly numbers and occupying more than a thousand pages can hardly fail to contain a large amount of varied and useful information, especially when it deals with such a subject as tropical agriculture. Not only tropical but subtropical regions are laid under tribute, the latter being oepresented chiefly by Southern Australia, New Zealand, and China, while Ceylon and the various provinces of India receive, as might be expected, the greatest share of attention. There are, moreover, abundant references to several oceanic islands which have within recent years been invested with more or less political interest. Thus of Fiji it is stated that the planters are chiefly concerned in growing sugar-cane, coffee, and cotton, and though it is claimed that the first-named is indigenous, the best kinds of cane grown in the plantations have been introduced. The Sea Island cotton is easily cultivated, but the production has lately fallen off, the quotations being too low to tempt the planter. Tobacco answers well, and it is believed that cocoa, tapioca, ginger, pepper, and all sorts of spices, camphor, and vanilla, might also be profitably grown. Madagascar appears to have bright agricultural prospects before it, as it is admirably adapted to the cultivation of sugar and coffee, and indeed as a sugar-growing country it seems likely that it will before many years leave Mauritius, in the background. The small islands between Madagascar and the mainland are enthusiastically spoken of as a new planting region: “situated in a most salubrious climate, between the southern tropic and the line, they are admirably adapted for the cultivation of sugar, coffee, vanilla, cocoa, spices, cloves, and other products, many of which are pure articles of luxury, and will always command a high price in the European market.”

The Tropical Agriculturist: a Monthly Record of Information for Planters of Coffee, Tea, Cocoa, Cinchona, Indiarubber, Sugar, Tobacco, Cardamoms, Palms, Rice, and other Products suited for Cultivation in the Tropics.

Compiled by A. M. and J. Ferguson., of the Ceylon Observer. (London: J. Haddon and Co., 3, Bouverie Street, 1882.)