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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, [June 1, 1887. 



comparatively poor soil, and as far as can be seen at 

 present that reason is a forcing and, consequently. 

 an exhausting climate. 



It is difficult, then to believe that tea will pay in 

 Ceylon to the extent that some of its sanguine sup- 

 porters imagine, though, given proper cultivation, the 

 Oeylon planter should in no way be worse off than 

 the best of his Indian brethren. He has had a good 

 start which is a great thing. Partly through judi- 

 cious advertising and partly through its own merits 

 Ceylon tea has taken the fancy of consumers, and is 

 steadily making its way on the Continent, a note- 

 worthy point. True, its average price has fallen to 

 Is Id. per lb. from the Is 3|d of 1885, but, consider- 

 ing the increased supply, this is only in fair propor- 

 tion to the fall in other teas, and the highest aver- 

 age price on the London market is still held by a 

 Ceylon estate, Blackstone, which obtained an average 

 of Is O^d per lb. for 20,000 lb. sent home during 1886. 

 The group of estates represented by the K. A. W. 

 mark reaiizfid Is 3|d per lb. for, 300,000 lb. the largest 

 (juantity sent home under one branii, and Mariawatte 

 obtained Is 2|d per lb. for 137,000 lb. shipped during 

 the same period. As to the acreage now under tea in 

 Ceylon, planters themselves seem to have but little 

 idea of what it is, and extensions are still the order 

 of the day. No deduction can be drawn from the 

 export of tea, as might be done were the plantations 

 in full bearing, for the greater portion is still im- 

 }nature, so there is nothing to go by except Oeylon 

 estimates of future yield, (and how these are arrived 

 at it is hard to say), bearing in mind that of two 

 estimates it is safest to take the lower. This brings 

 us to the figures given in our recent article on India 

 tea as to the probable yield of Ceylon,— 35 millions in 

 1890. and beyond this it is idle to look at present. 

 "With a poorer .soil than India, a forcing climate, and 

 no annual period of rest, such as the old season 

 ensures in the north, cultivation expenses must be in- 

 creased if the trees are to live and thrive, and unless 

 this is speedily recognised by those who are ru.shing 

 into tea in Oeylon they will have to face, later on 

 e. congested market and lower prices, both of which 

 may be expected, with a reduced yield resulting from 

 exhausted trees. — Madras i[ail. 



COFFEE AND GEEEN BUG— AND THE 

 NEED FOE LOOKING AHEAD. 



We publish elsewhere three letters on this sub- 

 ject from planters of very long experience in the 

 colony. The fact that these letters have reached 

 us ahnost together within the past few days 

 is a simple coincidence ; for, even if known to 

 each other, the writers, one in the Northern, one 

 in Uva and the other in Colombo, could have had 

 no knowledge, each of what the others were doing. 

 This preliminary remark may be needful, because a 

 reader of the letters would suppose that the Uva 

 and Colombo correspondents had sat down to dis- 

 pose of some of the very sweeping statements of 

 " An Experienced One." This gentleman's " ex- 

 perience " has, we believe, been confined to dis- 

 tricts north of Kandy, where, undoubtedly " green 

 bug" has done all the mischief he specifies; but 

 we do not see sufficient warranty for this very decided 

 pessimist goin;^- on to generalize, that, as it has 

 been in Matale, Kelebokka and the Knuckles, so must 

 it be in Bogawantalawa, Agrapatana and the Uva dis- 

 tricts. As a matter of tact, we believe, the comparison 

 or generalization has failed already. We think that 

 the period which was sufficient for green bug to 

 practically kill out what coffee, leaf-disease had 

 left in the Northern districts, has already been 

 exceeded in reference to the other districts with 

 green bug from time to time, visible, and yet no 

 such " killing-out," so far as our information 

 goes, has been experienced in any of the divisions 



we have specified ? We are by no means preach- 

 ing tne permanency of " coffee," nor have we 

 based a single argument for railway txtension 

 or any other work on such an idea. We have 

 said and repeated it again and again, that, for every 

 acre of coffee that may disappear in Uva for 

 instance, the full equivalent— and more than the 

 equivalent— will come into cultivation of other pro- 

 ducts suitable to the climate, soil and other conditions. 

 Whatever value may be attached to our Northern 

 correspondent's views regarding coffee, there i.q 

 absolutely no justification for his closing para- 

 graph, seeing that the success of tea in the great 

 and fertile districts of Uva is now an assured suc- 

 cess, and that to make it fully and financially 

 successful, the Uva planters just want the railway 

 facilities which the cisalpine districts enjoy. The 

 one great railway blunder of the Oeylon Government 

 was the making of the Matale line hffore the exten- 

 sion toHaputale. The latter would have paid hand- 

 somely all through the bad years and would now be 

 affording an increasingly handsome income, rising 

 year by year, as all the Uva traffic was gradually 

 absorbed by it, and as the hidden valleys and 

 resources of this most fertile province became 

 more fully developed,— whereas the poor results of 

 the Matale branch and of the abortive Nanuoya sec- 

 tion have done much to damage the credit of the 

 colony. We are free of responsibility for this result, 

 for we preached in and out of season, to show where 

 the really profitable traffic lay. I3ut this is all 

 by the way. It is a fine commentary on the pessi- 

 mist letter before us that the writer should stand 

 in the way of Uva having a railway after seeing 

 his own district served, and at a time when Eail- 

 way progress in the rule in nearly every British 

 Dependency — in Dependencies even from whence old 

 Ceylon planters are returning, for the reason that 

 there is more life and activity here -more pros- 

 pect of prosperous times than in the very coun- 

 tries where railways are going ahead at a rate 

 which covers with shame the Downing Street 

 autocrats who liave stopped the completion of our 

 main line all these years. 



To return to green bug and coffee, it is 

 absurd to tell planters with fine fields 

 of the staple product which is becoming so in- 

 creasingly valuable — and in a year when good 

 crops are the rule, — that if green bug is seen on 

 their bushes, they are do nothing, save • to grin 

 and look on until their coffee is swept out of 

 existence, meantime putting in the fitting sub- 

 stitute. " One Experienced" laughs at the idea of 

 "lime" being of use, or indeed anything else. 

 Now we stated the other day, on the authority 

 of a proprietor (name given) — a gentleman who 

 is not in the habits of making rash statements, 

 — that on his estate caustic lime had been proved 

 to be very effectual in checking and driving 

 away green bug. Tliis was in Uva. Is our 

 correspondent prepared to say that what did 

 not do with him north of Kandy, is to prove 

 equally useless in a different climate with soil 

 and coffee trees it may be very superior to the 

 best even under his observation ? As regards 

 Uva generally, we believe green bug was noticed 

 on several estates both in Haputale and Badulla 

 more than a year ago. Has it then killed out 

 coffee there ? Was it not rather seen on some 

 estates which last season gave one of the heaviest 

 crops they ever bore? If so, there is this characteristic 

 about green bug in Uva which, we believe, was not 

 observable in the old Northern districts, namely 

 that the attack comes and goes— it does not, in Uva, 

 as in the North when once it lias appeared, march 

 steadily on, killing out all before it. There is 

 therefore not only room, but much reason for en- 



