September i, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



177 



there are those among us who still say they fear not leaf- 

 disease if they could get rid of grub; but I am still of opiuiou 

 that much is attributed to grub which is due to the condition 

 of the soil or to its action upon trees the constitution 

 of wliich is already weakened by leaf-disease. There 

 is another animal pest from which we hare suffered a 

 good deal, and wluch resembles the grub in many ways, 

 but chiefly in attempting to destroy in tlie dark the tree 

 upon which it feeds. I refer to the ci-oakcr or pessimist 

 pest : I prefer the latter name, because my dictionary tells 

 me to croak is to caw like a crow. I have no objection 

 to croaking or Ciiwing, I have every wish that my spade 

 should be called a spjade, but I object to being told, es- 

 pecially if I have to pay for tJiis opinion, " This 

 spade is apparently a very good spade, but I tremble 

 to think what might be the consequences to this spade 

 if at some future date in unskilful hands it came in 

 contact with a granitic boulder, and I cannot, 

 therefore, attach a value to it." I object to being told, 

 as I was a short time ago by a Colombo merchant 

 witli gi-eat influence in Loudon, after having discussed 

 with him, aud, as I liad hoped, tlisposed of satis- 

 factorily, the question of yield per acre and quality of 

 tea, that he foresaw difficulties in the way of procuring 

 labour when tea became largely grown in Oeylon. He bad 

 seen more of the world than I had, and it he had told 

 me he dreaded the extinction of the tea entereprize in 

 Ceylon by an iceberg which would one day lioat down the 

 Paumbeu Channel it might have given me a momentary 

 anxiety, but to tell me, who have been working Tamil coolies 

 for eighteen years and who have seen them in tlieir own 

 homes, and who know that the extra L'iO,000 or 200,000 

 ccolies we may require when we have a large area of land 

 under tea can easily be procured by tbo.se who treat their 

 laborers well and pay them regularly, is to go out of the 

 way to create a phantom. 



There is one more animal pest which I may call the com- 

 2niiti/ pest. 



There have been several companies connected with 

 Ceylon, formed perhaps in some cases, as com- 

 panies are generally said to be, by philanthropists 

 desirous of benefiting their fellow-creatures by affonl- 

 ing them opportuuities for the profitable invest- 

 ment of capital, in other cases by designing men who 

 wovdd relieve themselves of doubtful responsibilities at the 

 e.xpeuse of others, and whichever the object of formation 

 there is no doubt the agricultural Companies of Cc^lun, 

 have with few exceptions proved a failure. The Company 

 which so prominently bears the name of our island, but 

 which hitherto has attributed its los.ses to another island, 

 has done much to weaken our credit, and the malignant 

 rony of fate pursues us still, for just as we are on the 

 ipoint of securing confidence and attracting capital to the 

 tea-growing industry in Ceylon this Company publishes 

 a report showing that its yield of tea per acre was less 

 than 140 lb. over their acreage in bearing, and that it has 

 lost £900 on the cultivation of 1,100 acres for the year; 

 but even in this there is comfort, for if the loss is less 

 than £1 per acre on producmg 110 lb., it requires only 

 a simple proportion sum : what will the profit be if we 

 can produce 400 lb., which can be done if tea-planting be 

 carried out properly on almost any estate in this di.strict? 



4th. — And now I come to the fourth and gravest cau.se of 

 the b.arrenness of our laud, tliat is lkai=-i>ise.vse. WcW do 

 1 remember when, as one of a sub-committee working up 

 figin-es for the Matale railway, it was resolved that crop 

 1872 was so abnormally short aud so imlikely to recur 

 again that it woidd be unwise and unfair to include' it in 

 our statistics: that crop was, oflf a very nmch less area, 

 three times as much as the crop now lieing shipped. This 

 mysterious disease, which has so far baffled science and 

 practice, still continues to work its insidious way, and though 

 there are still districts, estates and jiai ts of estates where, 

 with favored ci«Him.stances of soil, climate and above all 

 things shelter, high cultivation can .still be profitably car- 

 ried out, we must face the fact that there is much land 

 now under coffee cultivation which is not only unremuner- 

 ative itself but which is absorbing for the cost of its 

 cultivation the money wiiich might be very profitably ex- 

 pended upon crop-yielding coffee: in other words our good 

 coffee is being made to pay for our bad, and the first step 

 towards placing Ceylon upon a sound footing is to rectify 

 this. I do not take the gloomy view. I think there are 



on most places fields which will go on yielding profitable 

 crops of coffee, and I do not overlook the fact that with 

 the favomable blo.ssoming seasons of 1876-78, i.e., after 6 

 - " years of leaf-di.sease, many old estat&s gave' bumper 

 ■s, aud I do not despair of their doing so again but 



or 8 

 crop: 



agam, but 



which coffee never has and probably never will be cultiv- 

 ated profitably, and on every estate there is a certain non- 

 yielding acreage which is hampering the better fields to 

 maintain. To pl:int this non-productive land up with the 

 products adapted to it and to relieve poor productive land 

 of the cost of maintaining it is the thing to consider Tlie 

 way to increase our yield of coffee is to reduce our acreage 

 of coffee, and m this we have the best chance ofmitieat 

 mg leaf-disease, for we all Imow estates or fields upon 

 estates which suiTounded by forest or isolated from other 

 large areas of coffee do not suffer from leaf-disease so 

 acutely as estates sm-rounded by coffee. 



And here I must say a few words about cinchona which is 

 being unnecessarily decried. No doubt, a great deal is dvinir 

 out. but no doubt a great deal of thi.s was hurriediv iilauted 

 not always from well-selected seed. M'e know it is'a de'hcate 

 thing, and we are beginning to know that it won't erow 

 everywhere, and he who, instead of going on year after 

 year plantmg up land suitable and unsuitable, exercises 

 judgment in the selection of lan<l and plants, aud eoes 

 about the cidtivation properly, will reap his reward Thp 

 continuous wet of the last two planting seasons has proved 

 fatal to many young plants, and those put out early this 

 year have ahcady caught up many of last year 



And here we must look at both sides of the picture I have 

 referred to. Our crisis is more serious than any othercrisis, in 

 that fall in prices and financial difficulty are temporary triu 

 bles which tune adjusts but the failure of laud to pVoducP 

 crops from a disease which we have no prospect of cur 

 ing is a far graver matter or would be if it were not for 

 altered circumstances. For many years— indeed until latelv— 

 it was an accepted theory that it paid the European to cult 

 ivate coffee in Ceylon, that anything else wonid ruin him 

 and that when his estate c ascd tojiold coffee profitable 

 It ceased to be ot any value, e We have changed all this- we 

 have provedthat tea, cinchona, cocoa,cardamoms, Ac kc'cin 

 be profitably cultivated, and some of the most valuable pro 

 perties in Ceylon at present are properties upon wliich 

 coffee was exhausted. 



I had meant to louch upon all our new products in turn 

 but I have already trespassed too long upou your patience 

 The question which is of particular interest to this mcetiiiff 

 IS: will It pay to cultivate tea at this elevation ? I am'mv 

 self satisfiB<l that it will. AVe h.ave had much scepticism to" 

 conquer introilucmg tea. " Your land is too steep "said one- 

 one; " You wi I never get sufficient yield," .said another 

 " Y'^ou may get quantity but not fla\-or," said a third Ma 

 have overcome these difficulties, and now scarcity of labor 

 and new and hitherto unknown diseases are suffi^este 1 

 The duty of man is to try and overcome difficulties not to 

 create them, andwith om- advantages of labor, transport an 1 

 climate, not to speak of the minor advantages of water 

 power and many other tilings, judging from the wav'tei 

 adapts Itself to our circumstances from sea level to the ton's 

 of our hills, there is every jiromise of its proving a re 

 munerativeuivestment if carefully carried out and of Cevloii 

 becoming the greatest tea-exporting country in the world 



I had collected figures as to the yield of tea. cost of nrn 

 duotion &c. from several estates, which I meant to lay before 

 you today, but as Mr. Armstrong has kindly promisci to nd 

 dress our Association upon this subject soon I prefer leaving 

 this subject in his baiuls, the more so as his luacfical and 

 lengthened experience of tea-gi-owing at a high ele'vition 

 stamps him as one of those best able to answer the ones 

 tion. It IS m times such as these that we should loot for 

 help aud sympathy from Goverument, but, 1 fear we look 

 in viuu. The same fiil disease has been at work on native 

 coffee gardens as an European plantations, with even more 

 dis:istrous results, for a large tract of the most valuable 

 land in Ceylon has been allowed to pass out of cultiv- 

 ation the people having been driven to theft to make a 

 livelihood. 



In the Kaiidian valleys there arc thousands of acres 

 of the richest laud in Ceylon capable of growing cocoa 

 cardamoms, tea, all cultivations sijecially adapted to 

 the native, but what encouragement has been given to o 



