Kov. I, 1886.] 



THE '^ttOPtCAL AG^ieULTURIS'T, 



321 



PLANTING PROSPECTS IN UDAPUS- 

 SELLAWA, CEYLON 



COFFEE EEAEINCt IN ITS OLD STYLE — CINCHONA KEEPING 

 UP — TEA VERY FINE — EOADS. 



Udapussellawa, l'2th Oct. 1886. 



The blossoming season is now well over and 

 we are in a position to ftauge our prospects for 

 the coming year. Mid and Upper Udapussellawa 

 will do very well, the eastern end of the district 

 not so well, but even there crops will be better 

 than some alarmists prognosticated some months 

 ago. The truth is that the nerves of our plant- 

 ers have been in such a state of tension, that ill 

 rumours are far too readily accepted and they err 

 in good company, for the press and the Col- 

 ombo agents too eagerly swallow any evil reports 

 regarding our old staple. The season has not 

 been a favorable one as regards weather and our 

 good crops arise from the inherent strength and 

 vigour of the coffee. Manured coffee is bearing in 

 is old style, leaving nothing to be desired. We 

 had our sharp attack of leaf-disease which did 

 some damage, but it soon passed off, and we be- 

 lieve as the area under coffee contracts, this 

 pest vrill diminish in virulence and strength. 



Cinchona, — There is still a good area under cin- 

 chona, and this crop will not be reduced for 

 several. years. Some planters are rooting out when 

 the trees arrive at four years old, that being the 

 age, when the question arises which to sacrifice, 

 the cinchona or the good coffee. Time has just- 

 ified the warnings thrown out by many, years ago, 

 that bark was only a drug and would be over- 

 produced. Had we all looked upon it as simply 

 an auxiliary, and planted it only along roadsides 

 and in odd corners, we might have kept our export 

 down to six million pounds and preserved paying 

 prices. As it is, the cultivation will never be 

 abandoned. It grows as well as ever with careful 

 cultivation, and I do not believe that the output 

 will fail below the six million lb., in a decade of 

 years to come. 



Tea is beginning to shew up and I feel sure that 

 finer fields of tea, than are to be seen on 

 Eskdale and Glendevon do not exist in the island. 

 Most of the coffee estates are getting in an appre- 

 ciable average of this product, as a secondary 

 cultivation most useful in the assistance of our 

 finances. The leaf will as a rule be sold to the 

 tea estates, Vr-hose managers are rapidly providing 

 themselves with the necessary machinery. 



Roach — Our road is beginning to cut up and 

 wants immediate attention. I have not lost faith 

 in the MacBride system as it was defined in the 

 official instructions. Unfortunately, these instruc- 

 tions have never been carried out to the letter 

 save for a short time in the face of district agit- 

 ation. If Mr. MacBride would tell-oft' two men 

 to each mile of road, to v.'atch the first symptoms 

 of breaking up and there and then to fill in and 

 blind and pound, his system would yet commend it- 

 self to the public for the u^jkeep of grant-in-aid roads. 

 As it is, all the work is done during three months 

 of the year, the men then disappear from mortal 

 ken, and the road is left to itself. For my part, 

 1 consider that the upkeep of all grant-in-aid 

 district roads should be handed over to the care 

 of a District Road Trust, consisting of the district 

 engineer and two resident planters. The upkeep 

 of roads, is no longer a branch of the engineer- 

 ing profession as in the days of Telford or Mac- 

 Adam. All that is wanted is organization and 

 persistent supervision. The work ftt present is 



done in a spasmodic fashion ; under a Trust every 

 mile would be in charge of a couple of men, 

 whose work, under a properly organized system, 

 would be seen every day, for . every planter 

 through whose estate the road passes, would have 

 a personal interest in the continuity of the repairs. 

 The old adage (a stitch in time) goes to the founda- 

 tion of what is wanted for road upkeep. 



Labour. — Many enquiries are being made for coolies 

 and a good number have left the district, having re- 

 ceived advances from other districts. Anyone 

 can foresee further trouble on this head. I my- 

 self sent a European in 1862 to India to recruit 

 for coolies. I got a mixture of engine-drivers, 

 sepoys, sailors and rift'-raff of the jails, at great 

 expense and had to fall back on the old system 

 of trusting the coolie and the kangani, and can- 

 not say that I have been victimised ; on the con- 

 trary, the honesty of Ramasamy as regards ad- 

 vances, has always seemed to be very remarkable. 



I enclose rainfall statement — for the first nine 

 months of the year from 1880-86. G. A. D. 



-XI 

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c3^- = = :s9 



INDIA AND CHINA TEAS. 



The North China Herald in discussing t'u'a 

 question says : — 



People now iu the te^ trade must lookback with re- 

 gretful envy to the time when tea was synonymouj 

 with China an! China with tea. Every year brinars new 

 competitors with what was always regarded as the 

 birth-place of the tea-p!aut, and there rire far-seeing 

 tea-merchants in China now who belii-tvii than in three 

 or at most five years more the tea-tas'ing profession 

 will be extinct in China. The first blow was struck at 

 China's pre-eminence in <hc prod u tion of tea whea 

 the tea-shrub was fouml to be in'l'genous iu Assam : 

 and there are not wanting botanists in Iniha to declare 

 that the tea-shrub was introduced into i hina from ih'i 

 slopes of the Himalayas. The second dtadly blow wa-i ■ 

 struck wben AmeriQap consumers fouml the Japan leai; 



