4IO 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[December i, 1883. 



To the Editor of the Ceylon Observer. 



NEWS FROM FAR FIJI. 

 Forest Creek, Taviuni, 7th Sept. 1S83. 

 De.\r Sir, — Iq the July nuuiher of your most valuable 

 oompeudiam of contemporary planting information 

 appears a letter from "A. J. S." and I claim room for 

 refntation of and remarks ou certain statejienca con- 

 tained in your correspondent's letter on the ground that 

 I too shafl communicate iufoniiatlon. 



First : From statements such as c. g. " We are 

 suffering from black leaf" and "Coffes at lo we i- elev- 

 ations than 1,000 feet e-capes to a great extent,'' you 

 infer that "for coffee curiously enough the climate of 

 Taviuni at least seems to be too wet even at 

 1,000 feet above sea-level." In refutation, I have 

 to remark that this estate is at an elevation of 

 from 1,000 feet to 1,600 feet, that it has never 

 suffered from "black leaf" or " black rot." Twice 

 I have seen "black leaf" on this plautatlou : once 

 in a nursery where the plants had b^en allowed to 

 grow in one mass to about two feet or two feet and ; 

 a half high. By wholesale stumping of the bed affected, 

 the disease disappeared. The second time it appeared 

 on one or two trees at ihe boirudary of the estate. 

 On opening out the trees affected, the disease dis- 

 appeared. And Liberion coffee at 1,300 ft. is growing 

 magnificently. 



Secondly : With regard to leaf-disease it may be 

 observed tbit the same conditions which produce a 

 very heavy crop and immuuity from black rot on 

 this plantation may protect it from any injurious at- 

 tack of leaf-disease. Sometime ago Mr. Parr, who 

 takes an enlightened and broad-hearted interest in the 

 prosperity of Fiji, whose coffee estate was sacrificed, 

 and who suffered spoliation in an endeavour to 

 eradit-ate leaf-disease, wrote asking me to allow 

 Mr. Storck to practise on 20 acres of Fortst Creek, 

 promising me eulianced crops. An excerpt from my 

 reply appeared in the Tropical Agriculturist that I 

 ehould not wish to see the trees bear more 

 heavily than they do, and a month or two after- 

 wards my overster could not find a leaf aft'eoted 

 with the disease to show the Wesleyan minister who 

 wanted to see what the Hemilcia vasiatrix was like. 



Thirdly : With regard to the inference you have 

 been led to draw that "the best coffee crops are to 

 be found below 1,000 feet altitude, which is not true 

 of CeyUm or of Jamaica," I should remark that any 

 conditions in Fiji that are found different from the 

 conditions imposed in other countries will be found 

 to owe their origin to the work of man, not to Providence, 

 No doubt coffee planted at a low elevation may show a 

 spurt for a year or two, but the permanent estate as 

 in other countries will be the one planted at a 

 high elevation. I enclose four cartmde-visitc, and, at 

 a glance, you will observe that this estite is backed 

 by lofty hills attaining an elevation of i.OOO feet 

 which form a natural breakwind from the prevailing 

 S. E. winds ; whereas the estate of which " A. J. S." 

 speaks as it it represented Fiji is situated on a level plain 

 or undulating plateau on one end of the islnud, witb- 

 out the slightest natural protection, and coffee on such 

 situations Las never done any good in Ceylon. The 

 soil too on the estate referred to is a stiff reddish 

 clayey foil, while that on the slope i)f the mountains 

 is a loose chccijite soil with dark mould. But for 

 the conditions imposed by man, this estate woul I 

 warrant the whole hillside for a stretch of some 

 fifteen miles by a depth say of two miles and a half 

 to be opened up for coffee estates, when my mill 

 (I confess to being an interested party) would be a ' 

 valuable iurestmeut instead of as uotv a heavy drag 



on my own estate. It would be few single estates 

 iu Ceylon that could support a mill costing some 

 three thousand pounds witih the help of the charges of 

 curing .ibout twenty tons of coft'ee in all for others. 

 Lastly :I wish to refer to the matter ofihe strin- 

 gency of the labour laws in Fiji, and the deprecation 

 of any sympathy with the cruel planter drawn from 

 you. One would be iu great error in referring from the 

 statement of "A. J. S." that the Fiji planter desires 

 not the liberty but the license of putting four mustard 

 plasters on a labourer, and tying the man in a sackup to 

 the waist for less than three months' imprisonment with 

 hard labour. Had the act been performed on a Poly- 

 nesian, apart altogether from the effect on the policy 

 of the Government, who are over-mlling to sacrifice 

 the ninety-aud-nine righteous planters if one wicked 

 planter be found, irreparable injury would have been 

 done to the planters who desire to recruit labourers. 

 The Polynesian comes from a home blessed with 

 favourable conditions of existence, and as a rule is anxious 

 to return to his home at the completion of his service, 

 if even for a short stay, and then come back to Fiji. 

 From a glance at one of the jjictures showing eighty 

 Polynesians, you will observe their strong physique, 

 and they are no less capable of attaining speedily the 

 rights of a civilized man in virtue of their intelligence 

 and development of ideas, simply because they ^on't 

 learn reading, writing (and arithmetic ?) In this severe 

 climate of an elevated estate, with an average of eighty 

 men, I have not had a death for mors than a year, and 

 not a single ease of sickness for six months. The act, 

 however, was performed on a Fijian wliose animal 

 nature has been sj"stematically developed at the ex- 

 pense of his human nature. I could enlarge in- 

 definitely ou the point, were it not that I have 

 communicated my views in length almost extending 

 to a volume to the Government, but I shall con- 

 tent myself with saying that the policy of the 

 Government iu looking to order as an end 

 in itself and not as a means of attaining to 

 liberty even by the oppression and the enslaving of 

 and the hardening of bonds of tyranny on the white 

 man extenuated to some extent the offence of the 

 peculiar method adopted of stopping shamming ill. The 

 instance chosen is chosen very injudiciously .and comes 

 with some authority from "A.J. S.," behaving done 

 certain work for the Government and the proprietor 

 of the estate from which he writes being a member 

 of the Legislative Council, and uufortumitely it so 

 happens that (1) " A. J. S.," (2) the party who per- 

 formed the act, and (3) the proprietor of iho estate on 

 which the act was performed are all Ceylon men 

 who learned their ideas in working coolies who come 

 to Ceylon in many instances to escape starvation, 

 whereas the Fijian and the Polynesian are permitted to 

 go into the service of the white man, as a meiins of 

 their mutual further development and civilization. — 

 Faithfully yours, A. R. W. 



TEA IN KOSLAXDA: RUBBER AND 

 CINCHONA. 

 DiiAK Sir, — I beg to send you the rainfall 

 hero for ove^ five years. Now that tea is being 

 grown successfully in nearly every district, I do not 

 see why it should not turnout a paying product in 

 this. Oiir raiufa.l may be considerably smaller thau 

 about Dimbula and Uikoya but I think it is better 

 distributed. Our r.ain falls chiefly iu ihe siiapeof after- 

 noon showers or during lue nighi, so would uo inter- 

 fere with plucking the leaf ; there are also often 

 a day or two of dry weather between the show, rs, 

 so that the trees have ample time to take all poss- 

 ible benefit of every shower ; if the tea trees were 

 to produce flushes of leaf as rapidly as the coffee 

 here produces wood, I think there need be little 

 feai ot its success. 



