April 2, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



777: 



To the Editor of the Ceylon Observer. 

 COFFEE IN FRANCE. 



London, Feb. 7th, 1883. 



Dear Sib, — I send yon a few lines for your paper 

 on the Brazil coffee ; they are puahiua it ou in France. 

 The dealers feel tlie effect of the mixtures, lu some 

 of the hotels tbe muck you get drives the people 

 to tea. In some of the eating-houaes the coffee is 

 also bad, and I overheard " rows" going on as to the 

 bad flavour. This would not have happened two years 

 since.— Yours truly, T. CHRISTY. 



Sir,— I attended the Paris Exhibition of Agricult- 

 ural Produce aud Implements, which is held yearly, 

 and through yourmedium I would like to inform coffee 

 growers ot what is being done by Brazilian merchants. 



Upon entering the building in ihe Champs Klys6ea 

 there were bags of Brazilian coffee stacked up ou 

 either side witb special marks upon them, and re- 

 ference shewing tliat they came from Brazil. lu one 

 of the I'ooms m the gallery there were several men 

 stationed, distributing books and offering anyone who 

 chose to apply for it a cup of coffee and also 

 samples. TlJe Brazilian residents in Paris were in- 

 vited to attend, and bring any friends that they 

 could muster, so as to give greater 6clat to this sys- 

 tem of advertisement. The result of this pushmg 

 of trade is that at all the shops Brazil collee is 

 being asked for, and the sale is increasing enormously. 



No effort is being made by the Colonial Institute 

 or colonial merchants to counteract this demand 

 which is setting in for Brazili'in coffee. If Brazilian 

 merchants can organize such a system as that adopted 

 at present in Pans, and also an exhibition similar 

 to that held lately at the Crystnl Palace, surely some 

 Society could be formed in London to introduce pure 

 coffee. Small coffee mills were exhibited at this Paris 

 Exhibition, to try and induce people to grind their 

 own coffee, and so avoid buying the adulterated 

 trash which is palmed oft' upon the French and 

 British public as coffee. 



To shew you that this movement is reacting in society 

 in Paris, at the hrst-class restaurants now the long 

 metal coffee pot has disappeared and given place to 

 earthenware coffee pots, which are replenished from 

 time to time, and brought up with freshly made 

 coffee.— I am, yours truly, THO. CHKISTY. 



155, Fencburch Street, London. 



COFFEE CULTIVATION: WANTED DISTKICT 

 VISITING AGENTS.' ' 



Maria, February 22nd, I8S3. 

 Dear Sir, — When the merchants follow my loug- 

 advised plan to have the ht^t superiutendeuts they may 

 have in each district to look after their interest, in that 

 district, only in lieu of ap|)ointing one man to go 

 over all I he country and wUl give the outlines of 

 expeT\i;litui e allowed, letting him direct the time when 

 ami instruction how to lay out the money to the best 

 advantage, then they will tind estates pay. No 

 visiting agent, however good he may be as a planter 

 on a group of estates, and I know some very good 

 men, can do mucli good by going all over the country. 

 Mauy get contused in their iile.is and bicause a plant 

 thrives well in one district they think it ought to 

 grow everywhere. Even rainfall is very deceptive. Two 

 estates adjoining eai'h other may have the same 

 raiufall. Yet the soil of one will retain m^iisture for 

 a longtime, when the next estate's soil being porous 

 will soon show by the drooping of tin loaves it busiest 

 its moisture. One estate would grow tea to pay, when 

 the other would not ; one would grow cinchona when 



the other would not ; one estates should be manured 

 in rainy weather when the other could be manured 

 even in dry weather, &o. 



How much money has been wasted on sulphur and 

 lime, carbolic acid powder and carbolic acid, when 

 woodash and country lime would have kept leaf-disease 

 equally in cheek and at the same time nourished the 

 trees. Try any eiperinient on a very small scale uutil 

 found a success, but do not import or father on 

 planters a lot of useless (medicine) stuff to kill leaf- 

 disease when manure, cattle, bone, K»h, poonac, to 

 the tree with limu and woodash over the tree wouM 

 have kept your trees in hiart and given you crops. 



Weeds.— To let an estate grow into heavy weeds 

 means t.aking so much nourishment out of the soil, 

 is your soil rich enough to stand this ? If a poor 

 soil you will soon find your coffee getting yellow leaves 

 and to look sickly. Should the trees stand it and you 

 are able to cut and let the weeds lie on the suiface 

 for sometime, the soil will again get strengthened by 

 the decay of the old weed and the power to draw 

 nitrogen by the new, that in one or more year's time 

 if weeded up and all the weeds buried with some lime 

 and surface soil iu long deep trenches, you will give 

 a new lease of 5 to G ycirs to all trees which re. 

 mained in heart during this treatment. I have treated 

 Gavatenne estate in 1859 and 1860 to 18C1, and Raxawa 

 in Dolosbage in this way with great success. 1 know 

 a good many of the visiting agents and respect most 

 of them and I aiu convinced that one and nearly all 

 will admit, if theywere in harness themselves on one 

 estate in one district and had the supervision over a 

 number of estates in that one district, they could do 

 more justice to themselves and their employers than 

 being obliged to travel all over the country and not 

 having good oversight over the superintendents, some 

 of whom have very little experience aud require a re- 

 feree close to them. 



You will remember me as one of the first to agitate 

 to have District Planters' Associations which have been 

 a success, and I am confident District Visiting Agents 

 will also be a great help just now when we must take 

 advantage of every little change of weather and check 

 the first symptoms of any disease ou coffee, tea. &c. 

 —Yours faithfully, J. HOLLOWAY. 



THE FIRST CINCHONAS PLANTED OUT IN 

 CEYLON. 

 ICirimadua Estate, Haputale, 24th February 1883. 

 Dear Sir, — I have just seen the January number of 

 jour valuable periodical, the Tropical AijrkuUuriiit. At 

 page No. SS2 you have a short notice of "the oldest 

 cinchona trees iu Ceylon" and quote a short note from 

 Mr. G. A. Dickof Kirklees estate, Udapusellawa," which 

 letter I quite agree with ; but I claim to be the pioneer 

 of cinchona planters, as myself and the late Mr. G. B. 

 Carson were the first two persons who purchased five 

 plants each from Mr. McNicol at the Hakgala Gardens 

 (all auccirubras) in October or November 1862, for 

 which we paid_/?i'e shillhigi each plant and sixpence for 

 a little pot they were grown in, about the size of a 

 goose's egg. No applicant was at that time, so Mr. 

 McNicol told us, allowed more than two or three plants 

 each, but, as I was Uiejirst applicant, he said he would 

 ' ' stretch a point" and let me have TJfe plants for os each 

 and 6d extra for the pot. Mr. Carson was travelling 

 with me to Nuwara Eliyaat the time, and theu asked to 

 bethe "wcoHrf applicant, " which poor McNicol acceded 

 to, saying they were all he could spare then. Two of 

 these first plants, put out by me, may now be seen on 

 Gonamotawa estate, in this district, covered with blussom 

 and they are 1 believe constantly or perpetually blos- 

 soming, but bearing no fruit or seed pods : so I was 

 informed by Mr. Orchard, the preseut manager o£ 



