420 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[December i, 1883. 



SHADE TREES FOE COFFEE. 

 Coombewood, Lindula, 3.-d November 1883. 



Dear Sm,— Mr. .JamcB Sinclr.ir may spwe his breath 

 and leare off tijini: to persuade people that coffee 

 if wi-U-mauured will pay ; at least, his writiug and 

 talking will not convince others, but, if he can by 

 manuring show on Bearwell regular crops of from 

 3 to 5 cwt. per acre, he may succeed. Seeing is be- 

 lieving. Philters- are too sceptical nowadays to be con- 

 vinced by argument : a thing to be believed must be 

 seen. Notwithstanding leaf-disease and grnb, I still 

 think sheltered coffee with deep-rooting trees through 

 it 20 to 30 feet apart will pay handsomely— but 

 estates as at present circumstanced will not pay, uo 

 matter how libeially treated in the way of manurn. 



Perfect shelter and open feubsoil, with suitable man- 

 ure, is, in my opinion, the sole condition under which 

 coffee may be grown at a profit.— Yours faithfully, 

 SINCLAIR'S NEIGHBOUR. 



ASSAM AND CEYLON TEA SEED. 



Dimbula, 3rd Nov, 1SS3. 

 Dear Sir, — When writing you (page 415) my views 

 on Ceylon grown and imported seed, I quite anticip- 

 ated the storm of indignation that would be raised 

 and was prepared for it. In epite of all your cor- 

 respondents, I still stick to my opinion that the tea 

 seed sold in Ceylon is in nearly every case unripe, 

 and that wo are ruining our future prrspeota by 

 planting up thoui^ands of acres with seed of a bad 

 jat. You remarked that the late Mr. Cameron re- 

 commended country-grown seed. He did so, but only 

 after he found he could not procire Indian seed. Of 

 the many orders he booked for the latter, not one 

 I believe was executed. He went in for country 

 seed, having no alternative, and it was in the in- 

 terests of his employers to sell as much as he could. 

 It is all very well for planters having seed to sell, 

 to Bneer at Assam planter's opinions and attributing 

 to them selfish motives.* You will, at any rate, give 

 them the credit of " practising what they preach." 

 In the large tracts now being opened up in the 

 Dooars, all the seed is imported from Assam, although 

 they could get seed ofl' old tea in the immediate vicinity. 

 In Chittagong, the new extensions there are all planted 

 with Assam seed; and in Assam itself, only the very 

 best jats are planted, the price being from R75 

 per maund for hybrid to R150 for iudigenoua. 

 The latest authority I asked was a well-known tea 

 broker in London, formerly a tea planter himself. 

 I showed him tea bushes here grown from seed f loni 

 a well-kuown garden iu Assam (the seed from which 

 has never been fold under R75). I asked : "Would 

 you plant out seed from these bushes?" His answer 

 was: " Certainly not, //Hi / ?»0)(W sf?/ j<.'" Your cor- 

 respondents ask how I arrive at the conclusion that 

 so much of the seed suld in Ceylon is so bad. I do 

 so just from what I have seen on gardens from the 

 elevation uf Abbotsford to Awisawella. For obvious 

 reasons I cannot give names. -1 Your correspondents will 

 admit that, unlike Assam, where the seed ripens 

 nearly all at once, the tea bushes here go ou flow, r- 

 in" nearly all the year round, similar to the coffee 

 in°Uva, and that the seed is in all sfages of rije- 

 oess, necessitating the very greatest care in eeleotiag 



* No selfish motives, of course, actuate those who are 

 interested in the t^ale of Assam seed. Like the lawyers 

 about the appeals, they are actuated, as our correspondfut 

 of course is, by the purest motiv.'s of benevolence. These 

 are the things that make one shod tears, as the editor 

 said when ho received a present of onions — Ed. 



+ This is rich, after having specially named Abbots- 

 ford: since we last wrote, we have learned that Oeylon 

 tea seed has been taken to D.arjiling.— En. 



the ripe seeds. In my travi-la I have seen the whole 

 crop of an estate clean swieped oft and distributed 

 to the buyers. A ripe tea seed should not only 

 have a full-developed kernel, but the brown ekiu 

 should also adhere to it. This is a most import- 

 ant point in testing tea seed, and many planters 

 even gifted with a good ctf-al of commonsense 

 overlook it. I commend it to your correspondent 

 " Absurd " 's consideration. Another correspondent asks 

 whv I did not return my seed when I found it un- 

 ripe. I unfortunately paid for it before delivery, and 

 I knew I bad no chance of seeing my money again. 

 A fellow ijlanter, however, in Dikoya, who fully agreed 

 with me in the disappointing results of locally-grown 

 seed, informed me he got seed to replace what he 

 bad purchased on complaining of its Ijeing unripe. 

 This seed, I think, was from Orwell estate and pro- 

 minently advertized in your paper. Now that I have 

 named it, will the superintendent or proprietors_ of 

 this estate favor us with answers to the^ following 

 questions?:—!. What acreage of tea in bearing is there 

 on Orwell? 2, How many maunds of tea seed have 

 been sold as Orwell seed within the last 12 months? 

 3, How many maunds planted in Orwell or same 

 owners' nurseries? 4. How many maunds have been 

 given to make up for bad seed and the cause of the 

 seed turning out bad ? I think the sum total, if given, 

 will rather open your eyes. Bear in mind, the 

 lower the jat the heavier the yield, and mce versa. 



In conclusion : " None are so blind as those who 

 won't see." If planters will persist in rushing into 

 tea in the way they are doing, let them : there will 

 be a great awakening soon. — Y'ours faithfully, 



PLANTliR. 



The Price of Teakwood, particularly Eurmah teak 

 has risen very much within the past year or two. 

 Logs that could be purchased at R(iO or RTO per ton, 

 now cost RUO, and it will soon be a question of 

 finding some other timber as a substitute for It. Aus- 

 tralia bids fair to supply this, and India -noil soon be 

 compelled to di-aw ou this colony for her timber supply. 

 An euterprizing fii-m in Madras has imported a con- 

 signment, and a Madras paper hears that Govermneut 

 intend to give the timber a trial. A wood _ that will 

 not decay rapidly on immersion in water, is wanted, 

 and an experiment is, we learn, to he made in the 

 construction of a lock ou the Buckingham Canal with 

 this timber. If it shouhl answer, it would soon Ijecome 

 a very important item m the imports of the Madras 

 Presidency, as it now is procurable at about a third 

 of the cost of teak, and competition in the trade will 

 no doubt reduce it still hwther.—Madnts Alhemmm. 



Darjeeling.— The last day of September saw the 

 end of the Dam Dim tea factory, as it was burnt to 

 the ground on Sunday nijjlit ; at the time the fire 

 broke out there were about 200 maunds of tea iu the 

 factory, and it was all lost, 1 do not know it this 

 was covered by insurance or not. Anyhow the loss of 

 the factory is a very serious one just now, as it will ho 

 impossible to rig up a jury one by tlie close of the 

 manufacturing season, and the nearest factory is nine 

 miles off, so that making any more tea this season is 

 out, of the question. Talking about tea reminds me 

 that the crop will bo even less this year than was 

 anticipated two months ago. "Mosquito blight" has 

 broken out anew and with renevi-ed virulence, the 

 result boaig that planters are at their wits ends in 

 some parts of the district to find leaf to pluck. Ori 

 the other baud, prices have been vPry good all round 

 and probably loss of quantity will be fauiy w'ell 

 balanced by gain in prices. I saw the results of a 

 Loudon sale the other day, and the prices wore not 

 only over valnatiou but remarkably good into the 

 bargain.— /Hrfigro Planters' Gazette, Oct. 9. 



