November i, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



377 



parts of the estate, was still most clearly evidenced 

 in this season's pruning, or six months after the 

 experiments had been conoladed, but whether the 

 evaporation of the acid from coccmut-shells had had 

 at all the same effect as the original dusting- 1 more 

 than doubt. The staving-off of the most severe 

 attack of leaf-disease last season must at any late 

 be credited to the dusting, and, if the evaporization 

 process which supplemented it kept off leaf-disease 

 also, it is equally certain that nothing was lost by 

 its discontinuance. Having commenced the treatm eut 

 with no faith whatever in the dusting, but some 

 hopes from the evaporization, I arrived ultimately at a 

 conclusion the exact converse of my expectations 

 and, indeed, of all that Mr. t^chrottkj had liimself led 

 me to anticipate. Had his other experiments been as 

 fortunate as regards weather, or possibly some unknown 

 luck in hitting off the atmosphere at the right 

 period, whicli, seems to have attended them here, or 

 had he had as much patience as he has had pluck 

 in initiating, he might by this time have proved his case 

 much more effectually than I, who have not the same 

 interest in the matter, can pretend to do. 



Mr. Storok is much more near the truth than he 

 thinks when he asks "Whatdotbe planters of Ceylou 

 really want — majict" Th.it happens to be precisely 

 what they do want, since nothing short of the im- 

 mediate restoration of coffee can save their drooping 

 fortunes, and, as Mr. Storck shows, it is not in nature 

 that the effects of a disease that has been preying 

 on coffee for a number of years should be shaken off 

 in a single season. The experiment on Clavorton con- 

 vinced me, and I am not alone in the opinion, that 

 carbolic acid will cure leaf-disease, and, in subscribing 

 to the views of the Committee generally, I did so, not 

 because I doubted this, but because I doubt if coffee 

 is worth the cure. The history of its cultivation here 

 and elsewhere has proved abundantly how difficult it 

 has always been to restore to vigour fields of coffee 

 that have once really gone back. Who shall say after 

 how many years of keeping the peet under, after how 

 many rupees spent per acre in manuring and pruning, 

 may we expect our best fields to return to their 

 old form ? 



Those who first began searching for a cure for leaf- 

 disease did not count on this lost ground to be made 

 up, and it is only by watching such experiments as 

 those here that a distinction can reliably be drawn 

 between tlie fall of immature leaf from inherent weak- 

 ness (the result no doubt of a continuance of disease) 

 aud that produced by the sporing of leaf-disease 

 itself. Such a distinction it is very difficult for any 

 not working on the spot to admit, the only 

 outward and visible sign to outsiders being the f.iot 

 that /<a//in.s/a.Vcn. lam quite satisfied of two things, 

 (1) that dusting with carbolic can be made to 

 stamp out sporing disease ftr a very considerable period, 

 and (2) that the Junyxis itself is principally local. 

 This conclusion I have arrived at, from carefully 

 watching the coffee since the commencement of the 

 experiment. A very severe attack of sporing leaf- 

 disease, which set in generally in May 1882, com- 

 pletely failed to make a sign in the treated coffee, 

 and that, too, over patches that had alwaj'S been 

 most susceptible to it. The line of demarkation 

 between the treated and untreated coffee became at 

 once most d'stinct and could not in my opinion be 

 attributed to prunimj alone for the following reasons. 

 A cropping face of coffee, through which Mr. 

 Schrottky's boundary line ran, was, shortly after the 

 outhre.ik of the d Bea?e in June, completely smothered 

 with blotches of sporing fungus to within a tree or 

 two of the boundary, while, atu the same distance 

 below, the fungus was simply ot lo be seen, and no 

 toffee cou!d have possiblj locked finer. 

 The previous year, ISSl, the whole of this face, 



treated and untreated alike, had been worse diseased 

 than any part of the estate, and, having borne but 

 little that year and been manured and knife-handled in 

 September, the pruning in this instance was far too 

 light to lay claim to any such result. Unfortunately, 

 ihe committee had only inspected the 100 acres a 

 week or so before this became apparent and could 

 not again be brought together. But, again, although 

 pruning undoubtedly reduces the spread oi the fungus 

 to an enormous extent by taking off the wood most 

 susceptible to it, it has by no means succeeded here 

 in preserving the leaves left on from attack, nor in 

 preventing such vigorous young wood, as was sub- 

 sequently produced, from developing the spores badly 

 at an early stage. Yet these have been the results 

 actually attained on the treated acreage. In support 

 again of my belief that it is local, I would remind 

 you of the many years the fungus took to 

 establish itself in these upper districts after 

 much of the finest coffee lower down Irad been 

 destroyed. 1 think, however, you will admit with us, 

 that the Dikoya report went quite as far in approval 

 of the carbolic treatment as under the circumstances 

 of the country was justifiable, and that our views 

 of practical cure coincided much more with the feel- 

 ing and wants of planters than Mr. Storck's do. In 

 deed, his explanations and criticisms only prove how 

 little he can do for us. The preservation of the 

 staple industry of the island has passed imperceptibly 

 beyond the power and the purses of the planting 

 community, and, as it is the part of a nou -paternal 

 Government to deplore rather than remedy Ihe f.alling 

 revenue, it is idle for Mr. Storck to look for any 

 prufitable result for bis enterprize here. He ought 

 to know by this time that the Ceylou public has 

 long ceased to interest itself in his vaporization.'* or 

 "evaporization" either. — Yours truly, 



E. H. SKRINE. 



P. S. — Permit me to correct the impression conveyed 

 in your letter of 18th iust., that Mr. Schrottky per- 

 sonally supervized his experiments here. He never 

 paid me more than one lirief visit, to arrange about 

 sending up his powders. Since this, I have neither 

 seen nor hc-ird anything of him, though from the 

 expressions he let fall then I inferred that he had 

 spent a good deal of private capital iu the interests 

 of Ceylou and in return thought that he was getting 

 more kicks thau halfpence. E. H. .S. 



[In saying thrit Mr. Schrottky had the opportunity 

 of personally watching his experiments, we had those 

 in Dumbara specially in view. — Ed.] 



ABANDONED ESTATES VS. JUNGLE FOR TEA. 

 Colombo, 15th Oct. 18S3. 



Sir,— I find soma one advertizing in your columns 

 for an abandoned coffee estate with the view of 

 converting it into a tea plantation. Now, 1 would 

 strongly advise this person, before committing himself 

 to such a purchase, to travel down to Galle and 

 examine for himself the thousands of acres of Crown 

 land, within a radius of 10 miles from the town, 

 available for planting purposes, at the upset priceof 

 ElO per acre. The land is hilly rather than mountain- 

 ous, and is well-wooded, and roaded to a certain 

 extent. Plenty of labour can be had from tiie neigh- 

 bouring villages ; the climate is healthy for Europeaus, 

 and suita'ile for tea and other products ; and its close 

 proximity to the town of Galle gives one the command 

 of supplies, as well as an occasional run into town on 

 business or pleasure. . . 



Anyone wishing to judge for himself should_ visit 

 Mr. .'-imon Perera's Liberian coffee estate of 75 acres 

 iu beariuJ, eituuted jusc 4 miles from town, where 

 the trees are loaded with fruit aud must yield at least 

 one ton per acre. Here tea and cocoa have also been 



