June i, 1887.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



829 



And the following the uumber of purchasers:— 



At Peradeniya ... 438 



Hakgala ... 16iJ 



Heuaratgoda ... 4G 



Anuradhapura ... 37 



BaduUa ... 32 



Total ... 



719 



11. — Expenditure. 

 The cost of the Botanic Gardens Department for the 

 year has been as follows : — 



R. c. R. c. 



Salaries - 18,312 78 



Gardeners' and Labourers' wages: — 

 Peradeniya ... 8,189 58 



Hakgala ... 3,0U0 



Henaratgoda ... 1,999 .58 



Anuradhapura ... 999 75 



BaduUa ... 1,496 98 



15,685 89 



Office Contingencies ... — 3,087 22 



Stationery ... — 76 47 



Travelling and Collecting — 1,997 1 



For the Pavilion, Kandy — 2,205 



41,394 37 



HENRY TRIMEN, m.b. 



JJirectoT. 

 Peradeniya, February 28, 1887. 



PLANTING IN BRAZIL: 



COFFEE— CINCHONA— TEA — SUGAR— COTTON— JUTE 

 — LABOUR. 



[I enclose you part of a letter I re3eived from 

 Mr. A. Scott Blacklaw, Brazil— by last mail. You 

 will see by it that he gives some interesting facts 

 in connection with agriculture and the labour 

 question there. — Cor.] 



I hope Ceylon has a good coffee crop this year, 

 for the price is to be high. Brazil is to give 

 a small one. The planters have no expectation 

 of getting even half an average crop. This is 

 proved to a good extent by the reports of those 

 who sell imported articles, machinery &c., to 

 planters, all complaining they can do nothing and 

 the promised orders have been postponed for a 

 year. There has been little coffee blossom. The 

 great blossom of October did not make its appear- 

 ance owing to drought in some parts and cold 

 and frosls in others. A few blossoms showed them- 

 selves in January and February but they were 

 like those that appear out ol season in Ceylon ; 

 if they come to anything like fruit they do not 

 pay for picking. 



Coft'ee is selling in Rio at present some 10 per 

 cent more than the prices of same quality in New 

 York : you know of course the market at the latter 

 place rules the price of Brazilian coffee. 



There is a talk of growing cinchona here, but 

 they want Government to take the initiative. 



Tea has been tried, but the sample was rather 

 gross and wanting in flavour, but as a proof 

 that it will grow I may mention that I pass on 

 the railway a piece of an old tea plantation which 

 was abandoned some tifteen years ago and left for 

 cattle to graze on, in spite of the neglect the 

 bushes are standing up in beautiful line, and would 

 well repay being taken care of again. 



We are an ejiterprizmg people but at the same time 

 a great protectionist people, and our eiiterprise 

 often goes in the direction of deveinping industries 

 whicli are protected by heavy import duties. Large 

 Cotton Mills have sprung up in all directions 

 and owing to the heavy duties on manufactured 

 goods these mills pay and are expected to pay 

 even with the prospect of having to import the 



raw material. There is now a rage for Jute 

 Mills and already machinery from a Dundee firm 

 (Parker's) is being put up for a number of rooms. 

 These machines are made and worked by British 

 people at first. Cotton cultivation is not extending 

 and as these industries look for their profit in 

 manufacture only protected by import duty, we are 

 not to suppose that jute cultivation will extend 

 beyond the experimental process. Coffee and cane 

 are the two products that can profitably employ 

 the agricultural labourer in this country and will 

 continue to be so. Ceylon and India need not 

 fear competition in the cultivation of cotton and 

 jute. Cwffee will hold its own for a long time 

 here, and were it not for the large export duty 

 cane sugar from this country need not fear the 

 great beet-root competition in Europe. 



The labour question is in the way of being solved 

 by the introduction of European families of the 

 country labouring class. Government pay the pass- 

 age from their homes to the place they choose 

 to settle. 



The doom of slavery is now fixed and it will 

 be at an end by the advent of the Twentieth 

 Century. Benevolent people are anticipating it 

 by liberating their slaves on condition of worldng 

 for a few years, say from three to five. Almost 

 every newspaper contains some paragraph notify^ 

 ing such charitable intention. Our Emperor has 

 been very sick for the last two or three weeks, but 

 has now happily recovered. The addresses which 

 have been presented to him since his convalescence 

 from all classes, both Brazilians and foreigners, 

 show how well he is liked and how much he would 

 be missed. A. S. B. 



TEA IN CEYLON. 



In a recent article we discussed the probable future 

 of Indian tea, a future which must be greatly influen- 

 ced by the yield of Ceylon, and we now propose to 

 specially consider the prospects of the industry in 

 that island. Some marvellous results have undoubt" 

 edly been attained iu the way of made tea per acre, 

 notably from ftlariawatte, but there are many reasons 

 for thinking, it unlikely that the average yield per 

 acre of the future, when Ceylon has settled down with 

 its permanent area in full bearing, will exceed that 

 of India. Much tea has been put down on old colfee 

 land, and on poor soil, and though the tea plant is 

 far more hardy th.'in its rivals, coft'ee and ciuchona, 

 yet it cannot for long give paying results except iu 

 good soil, or unless it is well manured. Also, though 

 as good land can probably be shewn in Ceylon as iu 

 India, yet on the whole, it is tlie opinion of such Indian 

 planters as have been over Ceylon tea districts, and 

 of not a few Ceylon planters, who have visited Indian 

 plantations and are therefore in a position to form an 

 opinion, that the average Ceylon soil is poorer than 

 that on which Indian planters work. The size of the 

 tea trees and their leaf bearing surface at Mariawatte 

 probably the best known of Ceylon tea estates, com- 

 pare unfavourably with the aspect of the tea on some 

 of the Niigiri plantations, though the yield of the 

 latter is far inferior to that of the former. The ex- 

 planation of this and of the strength and flavour 

 of Ceylon tea seems to be that the climate there 

 is perfection, as far as the tea plant is concerned. 

 But climate, though it will induce a large yieUl 

 to begin with, will not keep tea going for long, and 

 the poorer the soil the sooner will exhaustion take 

 place, so that it seems likely that, without heavy 

 iiiaiiuring, involving proportionate expense, many Cey- 

 lon tea estates will be early worked out. Of course 

 this is only theory at present, and we have no desire 

 to see it practically proved, as if ever a community 

 set an example of pluck and enterprise luuier difli- 

 culties it was the Ceylon planters when their coffee 

 was devastated by leaf disease and they turned to tea. 

 Still, there must be a, reason for abnormal yields from 



