April i, 1884.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



735 



over the precipice, and it Ja & sure bet that veryone 

 will follow. 



I waut to ask you to find out — say frorti Mr. Pyper 

 of Hautane who is one of the overy few wl)o has had ex- 

 perieuce of shade in coffee in CpyIon«: lias he 

 studied the propei' trees that suit coflfee, the propai' 

 Bupply of light to enable the coffee to bear a pay- 

 ing amount of fruit, the different degrees reqnired 

 for (say) a northern as distinguished from a southern 

 aspect, the annual lopping in order to maintain the ori- 

 ginally desired quantity of light, and the pjanting of suit- 

 abletrees where light was over-abundant ? Mr. Holloway, 

 who h one of tlie few planters who have planted 

 artificial shade (that on Hantane being natural growth 

 . prior to the planting cofifee), I trust, will apeak out. 

 I would rather have as an inspector a man like 

 Holloway than any fancy V, A. beloved of Colombo 

 agents. I feel sure that the two gentlemen I 

 have referred to will reply, but I am also sure' that 

 shade has never been made a study in Ceylon. If 

 Mr. Holloway has thoroughly studied shade, then let 

 him try Coorg coffee. It will pay him, and it will 

 pay planters in general who still slick to coffee. 



Now here are two coffees: — 1. Munzerabad or 

 Mysore brought by an old pliuter 200 years ago. 

 2. The Coorg or Nalknaad brought by the iftoplahs 

 from Mocha. (See Tropical Agriculturist page OGU 

 Vol. 1.) Besides these, there is the Ceylon kind. 

 Planting operations commenced tirat in Ceylon and 

 Mysore. Stewart, Mann, &c., got seed from both 

 these localities and started in Coorg, and all went on 

 nicely till 1SG6, when the borer came, and 1S71 the 

 leaf-disease. The insect and the fungus resulted from 

 unnatural culture. 20 years ago Mr. Mimu started 

 " Nalknaads " and all this time these have flourished. 

 Then Munzerabad planters got seed from Coorg, and 

 they also are beginning to lift their heads andrejoic. 

 Now it is an interesting point whether the Moplah.s' 

 coffee will top that of the aged pilgrim Baba Budau 

 in price. 



As for sport, you can with good retrievers get 

 through a good deal of ammunition and load up a 

 number of carta with duck and teal in the tanks between 

 Chickmuglur, Hassan and Sucklaspore. You can get 

 antelope-shooting without much trouble. You can 

 stalk bull-bison (none of your " cow-butchers ") 

 without going very far out of your way. You can get 

 bears as plentiful as is necessary, and you can have 

 a tiger marked down and pot it from a staging erected 

 up a tree as it prepares to feast on the bait. You 

 can get a fine tusker if you look for him, but you 

 will have to pay ihrough the nose if you have not 

 a license : RdOO is a stiff' fine and a stiff price for 

 a pair of tusks. But in all this I do not think there 

 is anything here to come uj) to a week at Bintenna 

 with an agreeable companion or two, ponies and snipe 

 in llic day and cards and pipes in the evening and 

 a jaw in the hammocks before going off' to sleep. 



All the effervescence about the coolies' pay bill 

 seenjs to have ended — the law is for the terror of evil- 

 doers and for the protection of those that do well. 

 All sensible men will be quite willing to afford much 

 information to Government as will prevent scandals 

 arising which have in this instance helped to. publicly 

 wash the dirty linen. 



I wish you all success with tea. You have failed 

 f with cotfeo and ciuehona. "Let that Ilea stick to the 

 wa'." Co ahead but don't Jorcc the pace. It's the 

 pace that kills. With every good wish for Ceylon 

 planters and their organ the Ohscrmr, 1 remain, yours 

 faithfully, .ABIiltDONENSIS. 



I'.tj. — In Hall's Coffee jiUuillnn in Suulhem liidia and 

 i'<illoii, page 90,;you will find the foUowhig : — "The 

 natives always cut band)oos for building purposes when 

 the moim is on the wane, as they then contain less 

 sap, aud are. consequently, less liable to c-iuly decay.'; 



I think you were too hasty in dubbing the con- 

 clusions of a man like Mr. Graham Anderson as the 

 petty notions of a nati\-e superstitition. \^ou may 

 depcnil on it, Mr. Anderson has satisfied himself, 

 and Mr. Hall too, that there is something more 

 than suiier.stition. [We said nothing in disparage- 

 ment of Mr. Anderson, who merely mentioned a 

 notion which seems to us to be unscientific. — Ed.] 



ECONOMY OF FUEL AND EXPOSURE TO 

 LIGHT IN TEA PKEPAHATION. 



Nilgherries, S. India, 7th March 18S4. 



Dear Sir, — Now that so many tea estates have 

 (unfortunately) had to resort to steam for lack o 

 watei'-power, you would confer great benefit no doubf 

 to many of your readers if you could furnish us witt 

 a few practical wrinkles on effective stoking anh 

 economy of fuel ; also the best aud cheapest moand 

 of utilizing the waste heat from boiler and dryings 

 machines fof^ur withering lofts. 



A few hints on these matters by a practical en- 

 gineer would be a great boon. Manuals by Reynolds, 

 Clark aud others give us a good deal of information 

 regarding the advantageous and economical uso of coal 

 aud coke, but little is said regarding wood-fuel. 



Can any of your Ceylon tea authorities kindly in- 

 form me whether full exposure to light, during the 

 fermenting process, is requisite to obtain a good 

 " colour"?— Yours faithfully, NOVICE. 



[Perhaps some correspondent may give the information 

 desiderated. — Ed.] - 



YIELD OF TEA BETWEEN 5,000 AND 6,000 

 FEET ALTITUDE IN DIMBULA. 



Abbotsford, 14th March 1884. 



Dear Sir, — I have already sent aud you have 

 published the yield of a :tive-acre field on the above 

 estate, showing an average of 405 lb. made-tea per 

 aero. I have now the pleasure to enclose still fuller 

 and more fatisfaotory statistics concerning ihe remain- 

 ing 1U5 acres, ehowing an average of 424 S-12lh8 lb. 

 per acre. It will be noted that we only worked 230 

 days out of .305. This means that on this estate 

 there never is (aud never will be, I trust) Sunday 

 picking, and only in the hottest season does any 

 Saturday picking t.ako place, so as to avoid Sunday 

 making. That God rewards those who honour 

 Him I have not the slightest doubt, and I am per- 

 fectly certain that this estate has not suffered through 

 striving to keep one day in the week holy to the Loi-d. 



The 'rainfall for 1883 was IIO'IO inches, but for 

 the 12 months from 1st March 1883 to 29th February 

 1884 it was ouly SS'82. The drought seemed to suit 

 the npoouutry tea, for , while I hear of a serious 

 decrease on estates lower down, wo have registered to 

 end of February an increase of 10,443 lb. over the corre- 

 sponding two mouths of 1883. 



The "excess in bin" is easily accounted for. Each 

 dny's tea (or week's tea) is weighed roughly in boxes, 

 sacks or baskets, before emptying into the bins, and 

 care is taken to uuder-rather than over-weigh. For 

 instance, if a box 18.J lb. weight is used and the 

 gross is 171 lb., the amount of tea would be entered 

 as 150 lb. 



I may state in conclusion that the whole of the 

 tea is planted up with cinchona, three years old, 

 between every live rows, and that, while the cinchona 

 does not seem to harm the tea, the latter certainly 

 immensely improves the former. — I am, yours faiihfully, 

 A. M. FERGUSON, Ju. 



Yield of Tea fkom 105 aches, AnnoT.si'OEi) Estate, 

 Feet above sea, 4,800 to 0,000. 

 From 1st March 1883 to 29th February 188-1. 

 C20 acres in June 1882. 

 Primed-{ 70 do March 18S3. 

 (.15 do July 1883. 



