416 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[December i, i 883. 



i'Utlive any of their uew loves and pay them hand- 

 iuinr; profits. Cipitalist, trust me yet; treat me 

 well, and I will repay you. — Yours ou the wa'ch, 



KING COFFEE. 



THE NEW COFFEE. 



25th October 1883. 



Dear Sir,— I have just seen in your issue of the 

 23rd instant Mr. Christy's letter about tlie Mara- 

 gogipe coffee. Can you let us know whether seed 

 of this appareutly highly valuuble variety are to be 

 obtained in tbe island, and, if so, to whom we should 

 apply? If it is really such a paragon as described, 

 we should lose uo time in obtaining a supply, tliough 

 it will require a very determined planter to follow 

 tile example of the Brazilians, and cut out bis splend- 

 id (?) trees of the old variety to make room for the 

 new. — Yours truly, EARLY BIKD. 



[We believe Messrs. Bosauquet & Co. are Mr. 

 Christy's ageats ; but, after the mode in which 

 Liberian coffee and Blue Mountain coffee have been 

 attacked with leaf-disease, there is not much encour- 

 agement to try new kinds of coffee. — Ed.] 



LARGE TEA BUSH IN DIKOyZ " 



Bogawantalawa, 26th Oct. 1SS3. 



Deau Sir, — The following particulars relating to a 

 tea bush ou this estate may be of interest to some 

 oi your readers who contemplate cultivating tea at 

 liigh altitudes. Age of bush, 6 or 7 years ; species, 

 Assam hybrid, with dark .shiny leaf ; girth of stem 

 (> inches above ground and below the junction of the 

 branches 2 ft. 1 in.; diameter of bush about 8 ft. from 

 the ground, 18 ft. G in.; height 19 feet. This bush 

 has never been touched with a knife. ].)oes this 

 beat the bush ou Abbotsford which I have heard 

 spoken of ?— Yours faithfully, THOS. FAUK. 



[The Abbotsford giant when last measured showed 

 a diameter of 25 feet, the circumference being iibout 

 75 and the height about 22. — Ed.] 



INDIAN VS. CEYLON TEA SEED. 



Glenanuie, Kegalla, 26th Oct. 1883. 



Dear Sir,—" Planter," in his letter " Indian vs. 

 Ceylon Tea Seed," evidently overlooks the fact that 

 bis Amluckic seed went through the process of 

 germination during its transmission from Assam, and 

 very naturally the resulting plants were ready sooner 

 than those grown from the Ceylon seed, presuming, 

 of course, thit the latter was planted at the same 

 time and ungerminated. 



I quite endorse his statements that tea seed ob- 

 tained locally is often iusuUicieutly matured ; and I 

 find tliat the resulting plauts show every variety of 

 jat, piroving that care had not been oLsjrved, by 

 those growiug seed for sale, to allow only those bushes 

 to run to seeil which are of an undoubtedly good 

 jal. As everyone knows, previous to the present, de- 

 mand for seeds of good j;i', estates, with perhaps lew 

 exceptions, had beeu planted with unselected tea 

 plauts. —1 am, yours faithfully, 



G. W. F. SAULlilRE. 



""the COMMENCEMENT OF LEAF-BISEASE. 



Drak Sill, — The idnas of " an old cofFee-stumf " who can 

 scarcely manage ti) keep branches and leaves together, 

 cannot, in themselves, be of any intrinsic value, except in 

 so far as they report the comhtion and progress of him- 

 self and his fellows. But the tilk which I sometimes over- 

 hear aud make notes of is by our masters, who, to 

 judge by their voice aud action, hold pretty teuaciously 

 to their opinions, and mean what they say. 



Just now, that old familiar sound — the music of the 

 pulpers— is heard every day, only tlicro are not so many 

 k-erses in it as there used to lie. It is soouer ended ; and. 

 jormy own shuck part, I quite envy the vigor of the 



neighbouring trees from which I see the coolies carrying 

 loads aud loads of ripe cotfee to the pulping-house every 

 day. But my turn will come "next year"; there, I have 

 blurted it right out this time, but I feel it is true, aud 

 that makes me bold. 



So much for myself, ^s regards a subject I reported in 

 my last, I heard the same durai talk further as follows : — 

 *' Your morning contemporary has noticed my assertion 

 that leaf-disease had its origin in Madulsima. Not in 

 order to deny that historical fact, but to submit that it 

 is * open to question,' or to ' cavil,' as he puts it. Well, 

 until some evidence of facts is forthcoming of much more 

 value than the hazy ' fancies ' and opinions of men sud- 

 denly overcome by surprise and disaster, would-be wise- 

 acres who believed they knew everything concerning coffee 

 from ' insidious defunction' to the lightning strides of 

 leaf-disease, which gave them uo time to thiuk, shall I 

 agree that ' caviUing' is the better word. What are the 

 facts F Here is a highly prolific thing — eometldng between 

 a vegetable and an animal — with seed-spores far lighter, 

 more numerous and more insididous than the seeds of the 

 goat-weed, finds a plant for the leaves of which it 

 has the greatest possible affinity — in structure and com- 

 position being so completely all that it needs for its 

 habitation and diffusing by every wind that blows— that 

 once on this side of the huge barrier, the Nuwara Eliya 

 range, it spreads over our coffee fields like wUd-fire. And 

 yet, we are asked to believe that these spores had beeu 

 lingering for years about coffee, here a bit and ihere a 

 bit, uaable to make up its own mind, or apparently to be 

 aware of its own nature ! And all this ou the strength of 

 mere fanciful recollections, concerning which, if put ou 

 their Bible-oaths, these old planters would not swear. 

 But what would be the good if they did ? The unerring 

 operations of Nature are surely more to be rehed upon 

 than their vague imaginings. The disease appeared first 

 in large patches on Galloola and Doomoo Ouvah- 

 kelle and Verella Pataua estates, but nevertheless 

 so apparently within a measm-ablo compass, that 

 Mr. Donald Eeid hoped to check its progi-ess by em- 

 ploying coolies to pluck off and remove the affected leaves. 

 In this, of course, he was unsuccessful, as the wind, and 

 the vigorous aud virulent tenacity of the tliuig itself, took 

 care to <lefeat his efforts. It at ouce extented its area 

 with the resistless energy of a tidal wave. True, individual 

 trees only suffered in patches severely — generally, far less 

 than half the leaves on flue large trees were affected — 

 but cotfee in those days was vigorous, from roots whose rami- 

 fications occupied every inch of the soil ; but this very vigor 

 only favored the diffusiou of the pest, by keeping it provided 

 with so large an area of leaves upon which to deposit itself. 

 Let that emiuent naturalist. Mi-. 'William Ferguson, say if 

 in common-sense itis reasonable, or if hi nature it is possible, 

 to believe that a fiinffits of such vigorous vitality, having 

 once found conditions so favorable to its fimctions and 

 fertihty (as afforded it in the wide expanse of Oeylon 

 coffee tield.s; would go fooling about, year after year, ap- 

 pearing here on a leaf aud there on a leaf, and then dis- 

 apiieariug, as these * recollections' of some old planters 

 would have us believe ? 1 thiuk it quite possib/d that 

 its appearance was simultaneous in other districts than 

 Jladulsima. but, as a fact, I do not believe it was so, 

 because, while it was troubling the miiuls of the Madul- 

 sima planters (aud, be it uoted. their minds only), I took 

 a tour through all the otiier Uva districts, and scrutinized 

 the then splendid coffee-fields, estate after estate, with- 

 out being able to find a single affected leaf !" 



Pooh ! I 'm glad he "s done; for, if there had been much 

 more of it I am afraid my few remaininf: leaves would 

 have dropped off in my excitement aud efforts to hear 

 and record it aU. Besides, after all, what 's the good ? 

 Coffee is '■ doomed, " so what does it matter ? Nobody 

 cares anything about the past, the present or the futiu'e 

 of coflee, now-a-days that tea is filling everybody's 

 head. But you can just tell '• /eetle tea plant " not to be 

 so cocky, because it 's just possible that coffee won't " go " 

 at its bidding ; and, also, that it 'e just possible, that, if 

 grub aud its other afflictions will go away, then, a 

 lot of litt'e aud big tea plants will be pulled up again, 

 and be ignomiuously removed from its nobler presence. 

 At all events, so thinks 



AN OLD COFFEE-STUMP, 



