( 



December i, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



381 



MR. HAY ON TEA CULTIVATION AND 

 MANUFACTURE IN CEYLON. 



ill'. OM'en complained (luetapUorically) that Mr, 

 Armstrong had stokn his thunder (just as the an- 

 cients stole the best sayings of the moderns) ; aaid 

 Mr. Hay represented his predecessors as having ex- 

 hausted the lightning. The latest lecturer on tea, 

 however, has given us what Goethe desiderated : — 

 " More light." Light is the emblem not merely of 

 kno\vledge but of cheerfulness, and it is pleasant to 

 hear Mr, Hay's refrain ;— " I could not have believed, 

 when I entered this island five years ago, that tea 

 would have made sucli gigantic strides, in spite of 

 hard times and want of cash." That was the burden 

 of his song to the planters of Dimbula, while amongst 

 the inspiriting notes were such utterances as those 

 which dwelt on the greatlj- superior advantages pf 

 Ceylou over India in a climate which renders proper 

 fermentation almost always a very easy, instead of 

 a very difficult, operation. Even of our heaviest rain- 

 fall Mr, Hay makes light, a different tune to that 

 whicli our goo<l friend Mr. Baker, of the Assam Com- 

 pany, sang when he visited us some ten years 

 back and told us " in mournful numbers" that posit- 

 ive and negative reasons seemed to be against the 

 success of tea in Ceylon : too much moisture and no 

 winter. With well-built and well-furnished tea- 

 houses we can remedy rain and a moist atmosphere ; 

 while by judicious and uell-timed pruning we cau 

 make our own wintur, if we find our tea bushes 

 need rest from perennial flushing. Mr. Hay's opinions, 

 foxmded on actual obsor\ation, contirm those of Mr. 

 Armstrong : from tea estates with such steep features 

 as are common in Dimliula, an average yield of 

 400 llj. per acre may fairhy be expected, to be in- 

 creased, indefinitely by high cultivation and manur- 

 ing. Mr. Hallilcy must not waken the mountain 

 eclioes with a song of triumph as if Mr. Hay liad 

 de.scri1)ed weeds as beneficial. What he has sai 

 just amounts to this: — "Keep your tea perfectly 

 free from weeds \J you can ; but if labour is scarce 

 and dear and it becomes a question between-gather- 

 ing flush and rcmoxing weeds from between the 

 I'ows of tea bnslies let weeds alone for a conveni- 

 ent season and gatlier tlie flush." We have always, 

 in tlic discusiion of this question, insisted on tlie 

 fact of tlio superior soil of the Indian plantations 

 rendering the simultaneous giowth of tea and weeds 

 possible, and Mr^ Hay's evident belief that what 

 can be done in Jndia is possible in Ceylou is tlie 

 greatest possible c<jnqiliment he could pay to our 

 soil. On Abbotsford, to which Mr. Hay several times 

 referred, the experiment of growing b^th weeds and 

 tea on the same land has not, as yet, been tried, 

 and we confess we should be sorry to see it tried 

 except on a small experimental scale. It docs not 

 seem, however, as if the weeding process need be so 

 careful or so costly in the case of tea as in that of coflee: 

 we mean that it may answer to fork weeds between tlic 

 rows periodically inlu tlic soil, instead of incessantly 

 removing them from the soil by tlie hand. We 

 notice tliat Colonel Money, with his lite-long ex- 

 perience, insists on clean weeding as strougly 

 fts he mistakenly does on Hat land and an unhealthy 

 climate as essential to successful tea culture. When 

 Col. Money has hnd the opportunity of seeing the 

 mountain plantations of Ceylon (lat, 7° north, instead 

 of 27° to 32"), he will revise his opinions as to high 

 49 



altitudes and steep (we do not speak of precipitous) 

 features ; but we do not suppose anythii g in Ceyloa 

 would vender Irm more tolerant of wk Js than he 

 now i». As regards indigenous .Assam tea growing 

 well in Dimbula, although not fluehing readily, our 

 experience is, that, while first-class hyb id seid ob- 

 tained from the Assam Compauy resulted in llourish- 

 ing plants, indigeuous seed, twice obtiined at thn e 

 times the cost of the hjbrid, made comparatively slow 

 and unsatisfaotorj growth. On the other h.-ind, the 

 statement made by one of the speakers at the meet- 

 ing .13 to the tendency of the China ki id, after a 

 few llushep, to become " bhauji, " takes us by surprize. 

 To this day the China plant is that cultivated on the vast 

 majority of the Darjiling bill plantation?, the teas of 

 which top the ujarkot. We have never before heard 

 this special tendency to " bhunjiuess" advanced against 

 the China kinds as grown in India, though we hare 

 heard of yield cousiderably less in ((uantity than that 

 obtained from good jut Assam hybrid. Mr, H,iy h.iviug 

 had Daijiling experience may be able to say if in 

 tliat district the special tendency of China tea t> 

 become /lard was a received doctrine? There can be 

 no question, however, that best quality Assam hybud 

 is the best to cultivate on the higher estates in L'eyhiu, 

 although "indigenous" maybe preferable at altitudes 

 from 2,500 feet downwards. 



We have no doubt the very adverse opinion given 

 by Mr. Hay of Jackson's drier (SO per cent less work 

 than the .Sii'occo with an expenditure of fuel 50 

 per cent greater !) will attract the immediate 

 attention of Messrs. John W,alk£r & Co., the heal 

 agents for Mr. Jackson, and of Mr, Jackson himself. 

 In our own case .lackson's drier was recommended to 

 us as superior to Davidson's .Sirocco, aud there cau 

 be no question that at Abbotsford it has done very 

 good work. At what comparative expendi ure of 

 wood fuel is a question to which our attention has 

 not been diiected, but we have no doubt that now, 

 Mr. A. M. Ferguson, junior, will send full details 

 for publication. We should be glad also to hear from 

 any otlur planters who have J.aoksmi'K drier in use 

 Tlie fuel (piestion will, of course, become inerea.i- 

 ingly inip.rt.ant as dead and living timber on estates 

 disaiipears. 



It will be seen that ill the case of locally grown tea 

 seeil Mr. Hay prefers that from bushes specially de- 

 voted to seed-hearing. 



For planting in cotrce 5 by 3 is no doubt a good 

 distance for tea. 



The alternative put to Mr. Hay about deciding, .at 

 the end of 18 months, to uproot coffee, if tea is to 

 be finally adopted as the permanent ci Itiv.atuin, will 

 be a sore one to many planters, aud men like Mr, 

 James Sinclair, who cannot understand why ijlautcrs 

 in Dimbula should take to planting tea, will look 

 on the uprooters of coffee as insane, t'oflfee may and 

 we hope will revi\e, but we can only say. in view 

 of painful experience, we wish we had listened to 

 the late Botanical 1 lirector Thvvait 3, when, at 

 Nuwara Eiiya, in !■ 70, he advised us personally to avoid 

 Ci.ffee and plant tea. We all made lij.ht of the 

 fungus in those days. But what its effects have 

 been i.s forcibly proved by the fact that 

 Mr, Win, Smith of Mattakelly, who did more, 

 perh,Tp3, than any other planter, in liber.-illy manuring 

 coflee, should be the mover of the resi Intioii lixmg 

 on Ihmileia cashUrix as the main cause of the failure 

 of coflee crops. 'J'he fact has long seemed to us so 

 obvious, while we have quite recognized in addition 

 the evil efi'eots of grub und abnormal se:i=on3, tliat we 

 only wonder 7 should be found to v< te against 8 

 on the subject. What Mr. Wm, Smith said about the im- 

 munity of tea on patan<as from grub is the more striking 

 iu view of the frequent destruction by grub of cinchonas 



