October i, 18S3.] 



THJE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



2S9 



a longer residence in the district than he could him- 

 self, and they appeared to hold views diametric- 

 ally opposed to his own. He refeiTed to Mr, 

 Walker and Mr. Kelly. He thought the sanguine 

 views of the first-named gentleman might perhaps, be 

 explained by the fact that he was the fortunate pro- 

 prietor of an estate in that favored portion of their dis- 

 trict known as Bojjawantalavva, where, if they were 

 to credit all they heard, every prospect pleased, even 

 coii'ee with short crops and leat-disease. Mr. Kelly's 

 views were perhaps more dithcult to account for, in 

 that he was not so favored locally as his friend Mr. 

 Walker, being the owner of an estate adjoining, if not 

 actually belonging to, that despised portion of the dis- 

 trict knovn as Lower Dikoya. Mr. Kelly had, though 

 been absent from the district for the past six years and 

 could hardly be ©xpected to see as clearly as those who 

 had been on the spot the complete collapse in coSee 

 which was now so evident to most of them. He 

 had not said half that might be said in support 

 of the amendment, and felt he must leave it to an abler 

 speaker to put before them its many advantages, and 

 on resuming his sent again called upon Mr. Shand to 

 rise and support the amendment. 



Mr. Kelly rose to malte a correction. Holding the 

 report of ilr. Shand's remarks at the lastmeetiog in 

 his hand, he objected to the construction put upon 

 it by Ihc last speaker. Mr. S. Skrine would mislead them 

 by reading only a portion of Mr. Shand's remarks, 

 but these must be taken with the whole, and he now 

 begged to read tl em what that fjcntleman had said at 

 an earlier part of hisaddnss but which Mr.Skriue had 

 pas-sed by unnoticed. The following was the para lie re 

 fenedto: — "I do not take the gloomy view, 1 think. 

 There are on most places fields which will go on yielding 

 prolitalilc crops of coffee, and I do not overlook the fact 

 that with the favourable blossoming seasons of 1876- 

 78, i, c, .after 6 or 8 years of leaf-disease, many old 

 estates gave bumper crops. I do not despair of their 

 doing so again, but in all our valleys there is a certain 

 zone in which coffee never has, and probably never 

 will be cultivated profitably, and, on every estate, 

 there is a certain non-yielding acreage which is 

 hampering the better fields to maintain.',' Mr. 

 Kelly thought this put a very difl'erent com- 

 plexion on Mr, Shand's remarks, and he read this 

 that they might see that the rendering as given by 

 .Mr. Skrine was not fair. The amendment proposed 

 to tlieni was a hedging. It was nothing like the old 

 resolution, bnt the whole question was one of such 

 plain common sense that he left it to them to decide. 

 Mr. Sholto Skrine thought that it would 

 have been better if Mr. Kelly had allowed Mr. 

 Shand to reply himself to the remarks he had 

 made on his paper which, he thought he 

 was quite capable of doing. He was perfectly 

 willing to admit the acciiiacy of Mr. Kelly's extracts, 

 but lie attached little importance to them himself, since 

 Mr. Shaud, in summing up his paper and in drawing 

 attention to the grand and prosperous future in front 

 of them (which was to be brought about by the 

 introduction of tea, cinchona, cocoa etc.), carefully 

 omitted coffee as a contributor to that result, and his 

 silence on that point fully justified the inference he 

 had drawn from his paper. Ashe eonld not but con- 

 sider that his rendering of Mr. Shand's meaning was 

 the correct one, he again called on that gentleman to 

 rise aud support the amendment. 



The Hon. .1. L. Sh.\nd thought that, if Mr. S. Skrine 

 read the whole of his pai,er instead of a part of it, 

 and did not mix up the present and the future, he 

 would draw a different conclusion from it. The hon. 

 member then proceeded to amuse the audience by pay- 

 ing some ironical compliments to the last speaker on 

 his maiden effort, and, as an older speaker, gave him 

 Bome useful hints for future guidance. 



The Hon. Secretary said the debate had been 

 a lengthy one, aud he would not trouble the meetiu" 

 by noticing the aspersions that had been levelled against 

 his brother by the hon. member. Thty amused the 

 opposition aud did not hurt him .and it was very like 

 pouring water on a duck's back. There wtra however one 

 or two points both in the resolution and ihe amendment 

 of which he should like lo speak. The mover of the 

 resolution staked hie cause on the permanence of good 

 coffee. Now, this was a very vague way of putting it, for 

 there might be many gentlemen present who would 

 like to know what good coffee is. 'I'hey all knew wh.at 

 it used to be. But the days of 8 and 10 cwt. au 

 acre were over, and they had to be contented now 

 with a good crop of 3 cwt. au acre, and a had one 

 of 3 bushels. Perhaps they might consider this an 

 extreme, or, as it was the fashion now to call it a 

 pessimistic view of the case. Very well then, he would 

 be quite satisfied to take an opiimistic instance. He 

 would take Warleigh. This was an estate that had 

 always paid aud was paying still. His earliest recol- 

 lections of Dikoya were in 1872, when they piaked a 

 crop of lOi cwt. off Warleigh. This had been preceded ■ 

 by a very good crop, and a very good crop foUowid 

 it. But there was a great difference between crops of 

 4,0Uo to 6,000 bushels oft' 120 acre.s, and 2,000 to 

 2,500 bu.>hels otf ISO acres. He quite admitted that 

 with these better estates it was a case of " facilis 

 descensus Averni." But the fall of the tide was being 

 very clearly marked, and even these better estates 

 were alre.aoy gettiu;; into shoal water. True, their 

 weather prophet, Mr. Walker, had assured thtm that 

 the tide would rise again with his barometer, and, if 

 he could only adjust the weather lo his barometer, it 

 would be a very tortuuate thing for the district. Un- 

 luckily their faith in his skill, as a meteorologist, 

 had been somewhat shaken since their last meeting' 

 when he had anuounced that the north-e.ast monsooa 

 had set in. But a belter test of this weather theory 

 would be to compare its effect on other fruit-bearing 

 trees. He had beeu over a good deal of sued-bearing 

 tea lately, both in the Kalutara district and at Na- 

 walapitiya, and had noticed seed in every stage of 

 development fro.n the size of a pea to the well-matured 

 pod. This vyas just what years ago used to be seen 

 in coffee. They had their small spring crop in April- 

 Miiy, and their regular crop pickings began in Auoust 

 and went on into I'ebruary. Now-a-days, whatlfew 

 berries there were on the trees were all of the same 

 size, showing that it requires a special combination of 

 the most pel feet weather and the most perfect wood 

 to produce any crop at oil. Again, iiad they had no 

 bad seaeous years ago— 1873 was quite as bad a blos- 

 soming season as either of the two last. It followed also 

 the luigBpt crop the district had ever given, yet the 

 crops picked in that ye.ar on the same estates were 

 as niucli as both this aud last season's crops put to- 

 gelhtr. These facts, he said, pointed to a conoiusion 

 to which there was uo gainsaying. Tlioy had the late 

 of the old Kandy districts before them^ and were 

 within a measurable distance of the same rapids in 

 which the older enterprise had been engulphed. They 

 had Mr. Walker's str.ike oar, coffee, labouring away 

 with a sprung blade, aud ha thought the sooner they 

 got his deadweight out of the boat aud settled down 

 to their work ut tea, the better. They must remem- 

 ber that he said nothing against the immediate juture 

 of cottct, the prospects for which might be considered 

 to be good on properly worked estates, hut Mr. ICeJly 

 must be presuming on their better judgment when he 

 asked them to commit themselves to a belief in its 

 permanence. 



Mr. Kelly. — I did not use the word perinaneuce. 



The Secketaky :— The words of the resolution 

 amount to the same thing. It would be out of 

 place in him to offer any remarks on tea, bttt ths 



