354 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[November i, 1883. 



safe and sure), then these estimates would be applio- 

 aole to all parts of Ceylon, and bring up the total 

 cost per acre to the traditional E250 to R300, or 

 Bay, after this, R275 as the maximum cost over 

 three years. That is for au entirely new estate cut 

 out of new land ; aud this reminds me that one 

 weak point is the very first, thus ''cost of land." 

 Tea planters will be more fortunate than coffee 

 planters have ever been if tliey can eecjre blocks of 

 land in cjua^lity and quantity to order. Mr. Hay 

 could or would scarcely buy ixactly 250 acres and 

 then fell and plant every stick of it ! He should 

 have made his block 400 or 500 acres at least to 

 meet a fair allowance of patana aud reserve, &c., and 

 this would have doubled his first item, " cost of 

 laud." But now occms the question to many minds : 

 what items in these estimates would be saved by tbe 

 proprietor of an existing well-found cofi'ee estate 

 of tlie same acreage which he intends forthwith to 

 convert into a tea estate? say these : — 



Felling and clearing 250 acres ... r.3,750 



New roads ... ... ... 1,050 



New drains ... ... ... 2,300 



New lines ... ... ... 1,200 



New bungalow .. ... 3,000 



Half cost of new tea house ... 1,500 



Total K12,S00 

 Allowing all other things to be the same 

 even to the "cost of laud" (as the 

 old estate may have at least that much 

 debt upon it) the final result would he : — 

 From Mr. Hay's tot.Vl ... R72,359 



Take the above ... ... 12,800 



E59,5a9 

 Leas profit by tea sold ... ... 18,000 



E41,559 H- 250 = E167 per acre. 



Mr. Hay shows that a «t'i« estate, bearing average 

 crops of R320 per acre, will, after the end of the 3i-d 

 year, give a yearly profit of R2 1,000 on a capital 

 invested of R54,000, or about 39 pier cent per annum. 

 Against this, based upon these same estimaies with 

 the same expenditure in ths 4th year, but with only 

 300 lb. of tea per acre (deducting notliing for " new 

 lines," or from the item " manufacturing") the above 

 calculation shows that 2oO acres of couverted coffee 

 laud, bearing only 300 lb. yei acre, will, on a capital 

 of R42,0U0, pay a yearly profit of R18,000 or 44 per 

 cent pel' anintm ! 



In the latter case, too, some coffee, cinchona, and 

 other established new products would in all probabil- 

 ity contribute their quota to effect a considerably 

 better result ! ! WJtieh is best ? Without being part- 

 icular ns to who spoke these speeches, they were 

 overheard by AN OLD COFFEE STUMP. 



P. iS'.— Mr. Hax'.s Estuute, October 10th.— I owe 

 this gentleman an apology for carelessly misrepre- 

 senting him iu my last paper, in the matter of 

 the acreage of his block. After taking a few 

 notes 1 had sent to the paper away, but on 

 its return find he had provided for more land 

 than he cleared, by 50 acres, which I overlooked aud 

 stupidly did not give him credit for. It does not af- 

 fect the comparison of cost of opening old estates and 

 new land, but rt-fiects on Mr. Hay's forethought, for 

 which I am sorry aud would like the offending 

 paragraph omitted, if indeed it is likely to be pub- 

 lished at all. AN OLD COFFEE STUMP. 



THICK HEADS. 

 Heavy .stomachs, bUlious conditions — Wells' " May Apple 

 Pills" — anti-bilious, cathartic. 5d. &]s. H. ,S. JFapon & Co., 

 Bombay, General Agents. 



THE TROPICAL AGEICULTURIST AS THE 

 PRACTICAL ORGAN FOE THE PLANTING 

 ISDUSTEIES AKD AGRICULTURE GEN- 

 ERALLY OF THE ISLAND. 



9th October 1883. 



Dear Sir, — Questions have been asked about the 

 best way of economizing the expenditure of our Kandy 

 Association. It has been sugt;f-ted in more than one 

 quarter that the annual brok of proceedings might 

 be dispensed with as more ornamental than useful ; 

 while on the other hard, some branch associations 

 have been ijroposing to do a little publishing and 

 printing on their own account. You, sir, on the other 

 hand, have called on the parent P. A. to collect the 

 papers recently read and discussed at district meet- 

 ings, to get up a report on them aud to re-publish the 

 whole in the same book of proceedings which some 

 people seem to think might be abolished. 



It seems to me that you, as well as the leaders of the 

 different Associations, are rather inclined to spend 

 more money over paper and ink than is at all necessary. 

 The papers which are so much the talk of the plant- 

 ing districts just now have not only been given in 

 the daily papers but I have seen copies in a bandy 

 pamphlet form of some of them. If this is not enough, 

 there is a still handier repository for all information 

 useful to planters in the Tropical Ae/ricuUnrist, and 

 I cannot, for the life of me, see why it sLouId not be 

 made the organ of every planting or agricultural com- 

 mittee aud association in the country, to tbe great 

 saving of the outlay required for duplicate and triplicate 

 printing, and of the time of secretaries and committees 

 in compiling separate reports and annual volumes. 



For instance my copy for October of the above period- 

 ical has just reached :ne, and in it 1 find Mr. Arm- 

 strong's paper on tea, with the discussion on it aud on 

 coffee at the Dikoya Planters' Association ; also Mr. 

 Owen's valuable paper and the discussion at the Mas- 

 keliya Planters' Association, both given in full with your 

 own remarks upon them ; also the discussion on india- 

 rubber at tbe Kandy Planters' Association ; and I have 

 no doubt in the November number I shall find the 

 Dimbula Planters' Association's papers on coffee and 

 cinchona with Mr. Hay's letter and a discussion on 

 tea. 



Now what on earth more than this is required by 

 my fellow planters or our Associations ? 1 think we 

 might drop spending another cent on separate pub- 

 lications, for so far as the political and person.il pro- 

 ceedings of the Kandy body are concerned it is surely 

 quite sufficient that they be recorded in the daily 

 press ? There can be no handier volume in which 

 to record the practical work of our planting 

 meeting than the Tropical Agricidturist with 

 its convenieut index. I might mention that in tbe 

 October number, besides the above, I note several 

 of Mr. Owen's lettei-s on the tea districts of North 

 India, a great deal about cofi'ee in Java, about cin- 

 chona, dwarf palms, vegetables, various useful plants 

 and new products. Altogether a volume of the T. 

 A. ought to be woith half-a-dozen of any that the 

 Kandy Planters' Association and its branches can com- 

 pile aud put forth, aud I, for one, will s'ote to mako 

 the T. A. our representative agricultural organ and 

 to save one considerable item of outhay in the Kandy 

 accounts.— Yours faithfully, COMMONSESSE. 



CEARA RUBBER : GILLIAT PROCESS. 



Goouambil Estate, Wattegama, 9th Oct. 1S83. 

 Dear Sir, — By parcel post I send you a sample 

 of Ceara scrap rubber obtained yesterday afternoon 

 from five trees, three to four years old. Mr. Gilliat, 

 who w.rs formerly in charge of this estate, was good 

 enough to come up and conduct the first of a eerieg 



