Sept. r, 1886.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 



171 



moist leaf — whether this may not to a very great 

 extent account for this falling-ofi' in quality ? 



Colonel Money in his Essay on Tea says there is 

 nothing more injurious to tea than iron coming 

 into contact with it iu its manufacture. 



ENGINEEE. 



HOW A COOLY IS TO GET IN AN AVEEAGE 



CEOP OF TEA? 



Ambagamuwa, 2nd Aug. 1886. 

 Sill, — In answer to your footnote to Mr. Burnett's 

 letter in Saturday's issue, let us take the re- 

 cognised task of a cooly and see how he is to 

 get in an average crop. Say the cooly works 

 20 days a month for \) months in the year at pluck- 

 ing=180 days. By " M. P. A." answer to this 

 questions, made-tea costs 12 cents per lb. ; green leaf 

 is 3 cents ; and the coolies' task is 12 lb. green leaf 

 average which gives him 30 cents' pay per diem. 

 So we have a cooly getting 31b. made-tea for 

 180 days=5J:0 lb. per acre, an average crop ? But 

 then average cost per lb. of made-tea per acre does 

 nat exceed 12 cents per lb. v/hcn the yield is only 

 200 lb. per acre. So surely with 510 lb. he would 

 pluck double the quantity of green leaf, say an 

 average of 24 lb. = 6 lb. made-tea (at 1 J cents and 

 G cents per lb.) and a yield of 1,080 lb. per acre an 

 average crop, Mr. Editor? and if with 510 lb per acre 

 he can pluck 21 lb. how much more, and so on. 



INFINITUM AD ABSUEDUM. 



ALLEGED DETEEIOEATION OF TEA. 



Eookwood, Hewaheta, 3rd Aug. 188(3. 



Dkar Sir, — To supplement mine of yesterday, 

 a friend lately out from home tells me he was 

 assured, by a City tea expert, that the cause of 

 the deterioration of Ceylon tea was due to the 

 exhaustion of our soil, and to prove it, produced 

 a sample of Eookwood, as one of the old marks^ 

 manufacture perfect, yet showing a poorish thin 

 liquor. Now we know it has been stated by some 

 few of the Indian planters that our teas would be 

 but a flash in the pan. We had no soil to work on. 

 " Worn-out and washed-out coft'ee estates turned 

 into tea gardens, with no future before them," 

 as remarked by the garden manager, then in 

 London, to his directors a few years ago in answer 

 to questions by them, the Lebong Tea Co., I 

 think, but I am open to correction. And again tea 

 existing on a thin covering of surface soil, formed of 

 decomposed vegetable matter, subject to rapid ex- 

 haustion, and entire loss from wash on our steep 

 land. Now with regard to the " actual proof " 

 from its liquor, of the exhaustion of the Eookwood 

 soil. How sudden this must have been ! Up to the 

 very last invoice before pruning we find its liquor 

 commended, and the usual average price obtained 

 as for that season. Invoice 1 of the new season — 

 /, (', after pruning, shows liquor proving exhaus- 

 tion of soil — how rapid I Poor Ceylon, truly we have 

 no future before us ; but how will our City man 

 account for the sudden resuscitation of soil (not 

 manured during the interval), six months after his 

 sage remark, for if with good manufacture, but 

 with persistently thin liquor, in invoice after in- 

 voice we have proof of exhaustion of soil, what 

 will sudden improvement in liquor with the same 

 style of plucking ana manufacture go to prove ? 



Exhaustionof soil will take place without manure, 

 but with tea this is so gradual as to be almo t imper- 

 ceptible to our generation. I cannot discover it with 

 tea twenty-one years old, it is not apparent in 

 its luxuriance of growth, and its liquor is as good 

 now as it was ten years ago. Some of our Indian 

 friends ([jractieal Indian planters who have travelled 

 through our various districts know better) think 



we are dependent on surface soil and worn-out 

 coli'ee estates. Any real planter knows tea thinks 

 but little of the surface soil, when it has ®nce got 

 hold of the ground ; and while admitting that a 

 very few of our worn-out coffee estates have been 

 planted with tea, I do not think the proprietor 

 himself, or the most sanguine of us expect them 

 to last at a paying rate with increased age, and 

 a lower market, whatever they may do at present; 

 but their loss in the future will not affect our 

 exports a decimal point. As for the rest, our coffee 

 estates, — carefully selected land, always well worked, 

 and with but little exhaustion from crops, and 

 that little from the surface that we do not 

 actually require for our tea, — will yet prove some 

 of our best gardens. The very peculiarity of tea 

 is our best safeguard, its taking its nourishment 

 from where coffee never reached : it is, in fact, 

 even in an old coffee estate growing, so far as it 

 is concerned, in virgin soil. Wash we had to 

 guard against with coffee, and if successful then, 

 how much more so can we be with tea, where we 

 can cut our drains closer, as we have not to be 

 so careful of our surface moisture as with coft'ee. 

 With ordinary care in selection of site, and with 

 ordinary cultivation to follow, I can see an ever- 

 lasting future before us, now as ever. Some of 

 us. I believe myself among the number, have been 

 accused of bombast, but I do not think we deserve 

 this ; a'l we wish for, I am sure, is, that the truth 

 should be known concerning us, and if, before 

 condemning our soil and prophesying our speedy 

 downfall, those doing so had honestly inspected 

 our various districts, and seen our tea growing, 

 they could not have made the sweeping assertions 

 they did, and publicly too. This letter may seem 

 to apply more directly to my own garden. I do 

 not mean it to do so in any way. It so happened, 

 my own garden was brought forward by an expert 

 in tea to prove exhaustion of our soil was the 

 cause of the falling-off in our teas. I have en- 

 deavored to show the folly of this statement, which 

 affects the whole island. I yesterday accounted 

 tor the temporary " falling off' " in my liquor ; add 

 the market to this, the near future will prove I 

 am right; and I would conchide by saying 



1. Exhaustion of soil cannot be so sudden or 

 so general as it must have been in Ceylon this 

 year to be the cause of poorer liquor from young 

 and old gardens alike. 



2. It would show itself in the general growth 

 of the bush and in yield as well as in liquor, 



3. Without cultivation, i.e. manuring — and there 

 has been none worth noting — exhaustion would con- 

 tinue, showing worse results as the season works 

 on, and not better. — Yours faithfully, 



C. SPEAEMAN AEMSTEONG. 



COFFEE : SPEING CEOP PBOSPECTS IN 

 HAPUTALE. 



4th August 1880. 



Sir, — Your issue of last evening giving late re- 

 turns of rainfall in Ilaputale, signities another 

 disastrously short crop there, uiilens the weather 

 takes up at uiice. 30th July report is as follows: — 



"We had a spell of 'fine' dry weather till the 

 28th when it rained at intervals nearly all day. 

 It has been dry since then, and I hope it will 

 continue so ; otherwise I fear we must expect 

 aaiother bad crop." Since then, the reports by 

 telegram (vide Post Office list) mention nothhuj 

 but rain, heavy rain ! ! 



The " Ultima Thule " correspondent (nil desijer- 

 andinn) who writes so confidently of coffee being 

 yet "King" again, as regards ^jro/i/^-, must try and 

 explain the change of seasons when he writes 



