Mav 4, i8S;.j fm TROPICAL AmtO^tfVimBfi 



iiia^aaaacaMMiiaaan 



lammmimmmiiilSlsmim 



of the bark marltet is at the bottom of all the trouble. 

 At 1) early all the public sales of bark in London fov 

 several mouths past the representatives of American 

 manufacturers have been conspicuous buyers, bidding 

 up prices until the foreign manufacturers had to stand 

 aside and let them make the bulk of the pur- 

 chases. During all this time reports have been 

 freely circulated on this side to the effect that a very 

 large decline in the production of bark would greatly 

 redace the supply for consumption this year and 

 must inevitably result in much higher prices for the 

 alkaloid. As these reports were fully substantiated, 

 apparently, by the very convincing array of facts and 

 figures accon>panying them, they had a very decided effect 

 upon the market for a time and when prices for quinine 

 did begin to advance early in the year it was believed 

 by many to be the direct result of the causes indic- 

 ated by these reports. Now, however, it would appear 

 that the bark situation is not so encouraging as the 

 people on this side had been led to believe, if the result 

 of the last fortnightly sale is a criterion. From late mail 

 advices we learn that at this sale the German man- 

 ufacturers, who heretofore had been virtually kept out 

 of the market by the spirited bidding of the Americans, 

 were the principal buyers, and that they got all they 

 wanted at their own prices. This would indicate 

 either that the makers on this side were satisfied to 

 let the ijrice of bark drop for a time, or that they 

 had discovered new facts which indwced them to change 

 their views regarding the supply. In referring to the 

 last bark sale a Loudon contemporary says: — " That 

 the affair has been badly managed on the other 

 side there is no doubt, for it was little short of 

 madness to attempt to bull the market without first 

 of all ascertaining the prospects of East India barks. 

 As it stands the shipments are fully up to last year, 

 and the market upset ; besides which all the advances 

 in prices have been not only lost, but the unit lowered 

 without doing the slightest good, beyond putting a 

 few thousands into the Oeylon planters' pockets." 



CEYLON UPCOUNTEY PLANTING EEPOBT. 



WEATHER CHANGES .iND PLANTERS' FEELINGS — THE LIT- 

 TLE MONSOON AND TEA FLUSH —THE 'SHADOW' OF 

 BUa — CACAO. 



24th April, 1887. 



A change in the weather has a marked effect on 

 a planter's feelings ; as well as in his ideas of the 

 value of estate property. After some weeks of roast- 

 ing weather, when all growth has been checked ; 

 the ground baked into the hardness of the kiln- 

 dried brick : the mind wearied out with an unpro- 

 fitable wrestle to know the future, and the solution 

 of the questions what will the place do ? and 

 what is its worth ? then comes the rain, and with 

 it what a change. 



The soil which had looked as unfruitful as the 

 public highway, becomes a rich loam dropping 

 with fatness ; the bursting buds of promise whose 

 growth may almost be seen, fail to expand them- 

 Bcives with anything like the rapidity which marks 

 the opening of the vision of the cultivator ; and 

 where before there was but the potential grave of 

 a buried treasure or at best the scene of long and 

 unrewarded labour, there is now the site of a success- 

 ful venture— an apocalypse of a glorious resurrection 

 of buried coin. 



ItiB well we have these bright days. " Look here," 

 said a man to me the other day, " I would not 

 sell my place now for four times what it cost me." 

 I suppose he will stick to that— till he changes 

 his mind. 



Certainly thie little monsoon has altered the 

 <6C8 of things. Teft has almost vm away with 



itself ; cacao looks fit for anything ; and the 

 green of the foliage of the cinchona trees deepens 

 its shade daily. As to coffee, it has allured us 

 with blossoms so abundant that as " Tip Thomp- 

 son" used to say " you could not put another 

 spike on, even with a pair of pincers"; and there 

 is such a promise of harvest that we all are 

 ready to declare that even in its best days, better 

 was not to be seen. Bright-eyed hope is wide- 

 awake, we all look forward to fortunes, and the 

 value of estate properties has risen all round. 

 Pretty good results these to point to from a change 

 in weather. 



Of course there are shadows, and the worst is 

 the bug. What an infliction that means, can 

 sometimes be calculated by a man's diminished 

 rotundity— a loss of flesh, as well as rupees. 

 In whatever form the insect makes itself felt, 

 none is agreeable. It is the " Kismet " of the 

 planter which "sits and waits;" and is as seem- 

 ingly hopeless to struggle against as any othei- 

 form of fate before which the mind of the 

 Eastern collapses. It is not until a man has had 

 a real tussle with the green bug that he knows 

 its power and the despair it inspires. I have seen 

 it attack fields of coffee which were fit almost 

 for a place in Paradise, and in a few months 

 there was little to be seen but a howling, blackened 

 waste, and to cure it I have never known any- 

 thing do any good. When I read, therefore, of the 

 efforts which are being put forth, by those un- 

 fortunates who are but making their first acquaint- 

 ance with this p3st of pests, of kerosine, mana 

 grass, lime, sulphur, manure et hoc genus omne, 

 it is like the re-acting of your past, a revival of 

 blasted hopes— a v^asting of good coin. We have 

 reached that startling crisis which never comes 

 very kindly home to our people— that of having 

 wholly to " lippento Providence," as to whether this 

 insignificant visitor will swallow up what little good 

 coffee is left, or disappear as mysteriously 

 as it has come. Of course, there is the disposition 

 with the price of coffee rapidly approaching 100s 

 a cwt. and our trees bearing an extra fine crop 

 to be more than usually staggered at this new in- 

 flux of bug and perhaps to express a puzzled surprise 

 as to _ what Providence is thinking about ! 



It is a comfort to know that the increase of 

 COCOA stocks in London, which has had the effect 

 of lowering its price so much, is not likely to go 

 on, and that the prospects are favourable for a turn 

 in the tide in regard to selling rates. This result 

 is ours through the misfortune of the Demerera 

 men having a bad cacao crop. Cacao is lookmg 

 as if it would do its best to supply what is wanting. 



Peppbrcokn. 



^ 



COCONUT NOTES: COPEA DEYING. 



{Gommimicated,) 



COCHIN V. CEYLON OIL — WESTERN PROVINCE COPJU V, 

 NORTH-WESTERN — WHAT THE VILLAGERS DO ? — Dlff- 

 FEKENT KINDS OF COPRA — A PRAO'XICAELE COPRA DRV« 

 ING-HOUSB FOR THE SOUTH-WEST OP CEYLON. 



By last report Cochin coconut oil was selling aii 

 £;57, while Ceylon could only obtain £26. At no 

 former time has the one been so high and the 

 other so low-priced, the difference being equal to 

 45-44 per cent. It has been suggested locally, that 

 there may be a difference in the chemical constitu- 

 tion of the two commodities, but ]\Ir. Field ascribes 

 the inferiority of our product entirely, to colour and 

 smell in his report to our Commissioner. If the infe- 

 riority should turn out to be due to a chemical 

 defect there would be little hope of finding a remedy, 

 but if the colour and smell are the faults— the only 

 oue9«-tbe remedy is on the surfftce- Oeybo coeony^ 



