i6 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[July i,-i886. 



JAVA AND CEYLON. 

 Some idea of the difference between Java and 

 Ceylon in planting enteqjrise may be gathered 

 from the following particulars taken from a Batavia 

 newspaper. At a meeting of the Planters' Asso- 

 ciation of Sukabumie held at that station on the 

 22nd April Mr. G. F. Mundt, a planter, set forth 

 his experiences during a recent tour in Ceylon as 

 regards plantation matters there. He spoke in 

 hiph praise of the excellence of the roads in that 

 country which taken on the whole, is un- 

 suitable for the cultivation of the soil. On 

 railways in Ceylon there is heavy traffic even 

 in small produce articles in consequence of the 

 low freights. The rapid progress and widespread 

 destructiveness of the coffee disease were mainly 

 ascribed by him to the unfavourable and stony 

 nature of "the soil and the gross carelessness shown 

 in laying out estates. ^Yhat struck him parti- 

 cularly was the rapidity with which_ in Ceylon 

 substitutes were found for the declining coffee 

 arowing industry. The light pressure of taxation 

 There has thus made it possible for planters to do 

 what is beyond the reach of their fellows in 

 .lava. Abroad, people have been astonished at 

 the enormous quantities of cinchona bark unex- 

 pectedly thrown upon the market from Ceylon all 

 at once. Tlie explanation must be sought for 

 in the hasty planting of cinchona often between 

 standing coffee trees, or their stumps and in 

 equally hasty cropping, so that bark is actually 

 shaved off from small trees barely a few feet 

 high from below in consequence of eagerness to 

 make money and take advantage of a rising 

 market. At the outset, the favourite varieties 

 were those styled Officinalis and Succirubra, but 

 latterly great activity has been shewn in cUre- 

 fullv laying out I.cdgcriana estates with plants 

 raised from seeds procured in Java, which 

 found their way to Ceylon in spite of the 

 hindrances laid in the way of their export from 

 fear of competition abroad. In Ceylon, tea cultiv- 

 ation has been taken in hand with not less 

 thorough-goingness and energy. Within the five 

 years since that form of cultivation was under- 

 taken, six hundred thousand rupees w-ovth of tea 

 seeds were bought in India. This branch of 

 planting industry also has been carried on with 

 an overhaste natural under the circumstances. 

 Deep loosening of the soil, terracing, &c., were 

 ne"lected. Tea also has been of ten planted among 

 coffee and occasionally among cinchona as well. 

 Plucking operations too quickly begun and too 

 often repeated cannot have a favourable effect 

 on the life of the plants. In spite of these 

 drawbacks, the area under tea increased last 

 year from 13,500 to fully 100.000 acres. Mr. Mundt 

 held that reports from Ceylon bearing upon estim- 

 ates of crops are sometimes misleading from a 

 desire to influence capitalists. In his opinion the 

 80 millions of pounds of produce expected to be 

 gathered in within the next few years may be 

 safely reduced to 2.5 millions, that estimate being 

 high enough for all practical purposes. There was 

 also every prospect of tea in the long run f(?eling 

 the harmful effects of the washing away of the 

 thin layer of culturable soil loosened by weeding. 

 Generally speaking Mr. Mundt felt no alarm at 

 the prospect of Ceylon competition with Java, so 

 far as regards planting enterprise, but as regards 

 fiscal burdens and means of transport and the 

 silver difficulty the balance of advantages was on 

 the side of Ceylon fr^m hardly any taxation at 

 all falling on estates. He concluded his observ- 

 ations by noticing cocoa cultivation in Ceylon -which 

 yielded 100,000 hundred weights in 1885. This 

 form of enterprise also bore the mark of the same 



eagerness for speedy profits in order soon to re- 

 turn to Britain with a fortune, which charactei-- 

 ised Ceylon planters generally, and has been all 

 along a source of harm. Sometimes in this way 

 shade trees were cut down to secure a larger out- 

 turn of cocoa with the result that insect pests 

 grew rife and the trees had to be replanted. — 

 Straits Times. 



[Some of Mr. Mundt''- '"; ^ures, if correctly I'e- 

 ported, are very wonderful, like the 100,000 cwt, 

 of cocoa : we have not got to 10,000 yet ; and 

 who estimated 80 million lb. of tea? In taking 

 25 millions as the estimate for a few years hence, 

 Mr. Mundt is merely following the " Ceylon 

 Directory." We put the export for 1887-8 at 20,- 

 and for 1888-9 at 30 millions lb. Mr. Mundt is too 

 hasty in condemning the Ceylon modes of planting, 

 though his criticism on a few points is deserved — Ed. j 



" Market Gardsners " upcountry in Ceylon 

 ought to be encouraged by the advertisement 

 which appears regarding the requirements of 

 the Military Commissariat for Colombo and Mount 

 Lavinia. Were tlie railway running into Uva, 

 there would not be the slightest difificulty in re- 

 ceiving a perennial supply of vegetables of all de- 

 scriptions and of cheap, good fruit in abundance. 

 But Nuwara Kliya and Dimbula can do a good deaf. 



Japan Tea. — The Japan Herald translates the 

 following from the Bulila Shinqw : — '-' If the price 

 of the first tea of this year be compared with that 

 of last year there is a difference of some $30. The 

 cause of this diff'erence is the carliness of warm 

 weather and tea leaves coming out very early in 

 various districts, especially at Surnga province. 

 The amount of the new tea transported to Yokohama, 

 before the 24th instant, when the American mail 

 left with the first teas, reached 15.000 catties, and 

 until the Kiyofjaira-marn entered the port with 

 new tea, the price was about ^70. But just before 

 the American mail left foreign merchants offered 

 low prices, and holders afterwards agreed -to sell. 

 Indeed the first price, is not a real price at all, and 

 it is usual at the time of the second mail for the 

 price to fall to about $40. Now in this year the first 

 tea showed the second price, on account of the 

 great amount transported to Y'okohama at the time 

 when the first mail left. Therefore in this year 

 there may not be any great diff'trence of price at 

 the time of the second mail. 



Coffee in Uva ix the Old Days. — A correspondent 

 writes as follows : — * * * Eeferring back to old 

 memories which Mr. Irvine's letter has " brought 

 to mind," the finest native cofi'ee in all Uva was 

 grown in the villages behind Ella and about 

 Leangawelle. (By the way, how few Europeans of 

 today have seen the site of the old Ella Fort and 

 the grave of a European officer who died at his 

 post, name lost and unknown.) This coffee weighed 

 much heavier than any other coffee in Uva or in 

 Ceylon : the traders who bought the coffee by 

 measure and sold it by weight ma'e at least 

 10 lb. on every cwt. as compared with ordinary 

 native coffee. I recollect well the wild coffee trees 

 in the strips of jungle, now the outlying fields 

 of Broughton estate ; these trees were upwards of 

 20 feet high and were fully 5 inches in diameter 

 at the bottom and tapered like a fishing rod, the 

 villagers used them for rafters. These trees were 

 not indigenous ; the seed had been carried by wild 

 animals from the villages and where the forest 

 shade was not too dense the whole ground was 

 carpeted with coffee seedlings. When coffee stumps 

 or plants were required for planting, the coolies 

 sent for plants were simply told to go and bring a 

 thousand plants which they easily got, not in the 

 villages but in the forest. * * *—Cor. 



