43^ 



THE TROPLCAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[Jan. I, 1887. 



luhrest on Investments — 

 Keceived, ... £3,G39 3 11 

 Zess Accrued at 31st 

 August 1885, 1,756 ,0 5 



Accrued to date, 

 In Arrear, 



£1,8S3 



3 6 

 818 14 9 

 1,723 19 9 



lieturn from Estates in Company's 



possession for 1885-iS6, 

 Bank and Deposit Interest received 



and accrued. 

 Discount and Exchange, 

 Eegistratiou Fees, ... 



4,425 18 







2,764 13 9 



2G1 9 8 



170. 18 



2 7 



£8,370 9 4 



WIRE TRAMWAY TO CARRY ESTATE 

 PRODUCE. 



(From our London Correspondent.) 

 There has been shown to me very lately a 

 drawing which fully illustrates a design for a wire- 

 rope tramway to take down the produce from a 

 Ceylon estate. For certain considerations, it is 

 desirable that that estate should not be named. 

 It is, however, one of many similarly situated as 

 regards difficulty of transport. Its greatest elev- 

 ation, and that on which the machinery of the 

 estate is situated, is some 1,200 feet above the 

 cart road, while the distance of the curing estab- 

 lishment in which machmery has to be worked 

 is fully three miles from the river where water 

 power to work it is obtainable. Very considerable 

 previous experience has been had by the pro- 

 prietors of the estate with similar tramways (I 

 doubt that being a proper term) on other estates ; 

 but in all such cases the distance over which the 

 wire-rope has to be actuated is very much less, 

 the greatest distance hitherto absolutely worked 

 with, being, I believe, oneand-a-quarter mile 

 only. It was asserted to me that very close 

 calculation, based on the experiences above referred 

 to, shew that fourteen horse-power can be 

 relied upon to give all the motive-power re- 

 quired for the greater length of line, to over- 

 come all its friction, to perform its duty, and 

 yet leave a sufficient residuum of force to 

 work the machinery of the curing house. This 

 amount of power, it is said, can be readily obtained 

 from an overshot water* heel t© be worked by a 

 stream running at the base of the hilly range on 

 the summit of which the estate under reference is 

 situated. The engineer who designed the rope-way 

 shares in my own view that watcrwheels are pre- 

 ferable to turbines in this and similar cases. 

 Although the former are not so fully economic in 

 their nett results as the latter, they are less liable 

 to frijtional wear in positions difficult to get at 

 for repair as are turbines. It has, therefore, been 

 decided to use the waterwheel. About 8 horse- 

 power, it is determined, will suffice to carry the 

 burdens and overcome the friction to be imposed 

 upon the rope, leaving 6 horse-power available for 

 •driving the machinery of the factory. If this design 

 is carried out, as I am assured it will be, and the 

 limits of power assigned shall be found to be suffi- 

 cient, it would, we think, give great impetus to the 

 use of such means of conveyance on Ceylon estates. 

 But it must be confessed that the spaces between 

 the standards supporting the rope look somewhat 

 alarming. One of these is fully a quarter of a mile, 

 and we all know what a tremendous power would 

 be necessary to stretch a wire rope over that span, 

 quite independently of any load which may be 

 imposed upon it. The catenarian curve, one 

 would suppose, must prove so great that at some 

 point or other between the supports the ground 

 must be touched. We are told that such a sup- 



position need not be entertained ; but we shall 

 undoubtedly feel more satisfied than we are when 

 such an assurance has been justified in practice 

 an ounce of which — we proverbially know— is of 

 more value than a pound of theory. The names 

 associated with this scheme incline us to attach 

 weight to the probable efficiency of the design. 

 Should it prove as reliable in practice as is 

 claimed for it, there seems no reason why in the 

 end a system of th^se rope-ways may not super- 

 sede any scheme of subsidiary tramways as feeders 

 for your lines of railway in the hills. There 

 would be a fine opening for some of your indepen- 

 dent engineers— Mr. Grinlinton for example— to start 

 a Company to establish lines of such carriers to 

 tap the base of certain groups of hill estates. 

 Subsidiary lines for each individual estate might 

 well remain in the hands of their owners. If 

 three miles prove capable of being worked by 8 

 horse-power, there seems little reason to fear, 

 but that a line of ten miles could be worked 

 between fixed points, and the transference of the 

 boxes as they came down from individual 

 estates to the principal ways could readily be 

 arranged for. There can be no want of water- 

 power at spots to be selected to drive a rope of 

 ten miles, and supposing this rope to start from 

 one of your railway stations, and take a course 

 up a valley on the hillsides of whiah numerous 

 estates are situated, such a line would prove to 

 be of incalculable benefit to estate_ owners, and 

 must pay well the enterprizing nien who may 

 start it. This suggestion is thrown out for what 

 it may be worth ; but it is due to a careful in- 

 spection of the design referred to, which is 

 guaranteed to bear a practicable character. Of course, 

 the value or otherwise of such a suggestion muit 

 be dependent upon such a guarantee being de- 

 monstrated by actual experience to possess worch. 

 Presuming that to be established, however, it seems 

 to those of us w-ho have considered the question 

 that there will be an opening of great public and 

 private value for some of your public-spirited men 

 to take up. It is probable, we hear, that the 

 estate line named will be working before the first 

 six months of 1887 have expired, and necessai'ily 

 it will provoke intelligent observation. Upon the 

 result of that observation should depend the decision 

 whether the more extended application of the 

 system might not wisely and with profit, be under- 

 taken in Ceylon. 



^ 



THE TEA PLiNTER'S MANUAL. 



Mr. Owen, who is already well-known to those en- 

 gaged in tropical agriculture from bis Cinchona Planters' 

 Manual, ha< now written a similar treatise* on the 

 present leading Cevlon industry, which is — though 

 written principally with regard to the conditiuns exist- 

 ing in that island — likely to prove very useful to all tea 

 planters. He has been well treated by his publishers, 

 who have issued his book in a neatly printed and handy 

 form, at a moderate price ; the index and table of con- 

 tents, too, appear full, so far as we have had occasion 

 to use them. Amongst the attractions of this volume 

 are two lithographed plans of factories which may be 

 commended as the subject of a happy dream to the be- 

 ginner in tea ; thej' are said in the advertisement to be 

 " worth the whole charge," and, to do our little fault- 

 finding at once, we may i)rououuce thetn very elegant, 

 but totally uiisuited for a work of this kind. The first 

 is to be built of iron, and the second of wood ; suppo.iing 

 water power available, and therefore no steam power 

 wanted, and the requisite timber procurable on the 

 estate, the cost, including machinery, is, respectively, 

 K3:i,0()0 and K22,()0J. " There are also," we are told, 

 " numerous little lU'tails in the fitting up of a factory for 

 which it is quite impo.ssible to estimate accurately." 

 Now Indian planters will willingly admit that Ceylon 



