7o8 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[March i, 1883. 



^mtt}spixniXenc$. 



To the Editor of the Ceylon Observer. 



PLANTING MEMORANDA FROM MUNZER. 



ABAD (MYSORE) 



January lOtli, 1883. 



Dear Sir, — I cauuot help thiukiug that, however 

 economical Ceylou planters are trying to become, yet so 

 long as they are tied to an expensive system, economical 

 endeavours in various details will not reduce ex- 

 penditure to its proper level. Here they have things 

 on a ooloasal scale as to acreage (or we shall say area 

 as acreage is not considered), aud nature is soothed 

 and coaxud aud o.ijoled aud encouraged and assisted ; 

 and the coy maiden is thus induced to do her part 

 with smiling willingness. But in Ceylon you have 

 treated her cruelly. The rush of capital mt i Cey- 

 lon over-balauced it, so that nothing will set Ceylou 

 right till the bulk of tho men leave and only those 

 remain vrho prufer to fill the purse (of the osvner of 

 the soil) than to please the eyo (of the V. A. and 

 the manager), and by working on less scientific and 

 elaborate soheraes. Those essays on building sliould 

 hare been written for a lot of wealthy experimental 

 planters who wished to spend their money, and not 

 to acquire more — something of the type of the eo- 

 called " gentleman farmer " at home. 



Our worthy " A. G. K. B " and otliers have a fine 

 chance of working in the style here, * which has 

 paid. That's the chief argument in its favour. Set 

 Sinhalese to cut the uudergiowth of forest, taak them 

 by a yard-stick board aud «o many yird-atickg long 

 straight up ihe hill, l.iy the cut material in lines so 

 that you cnn check the task, put in oarlmon bulbs 

 or plants or eeed and let nature do thj n'.st, till the 

 the cardamoms come up. No expensive lining 

 aud trimming the stools, no expensive roadin;,' and 

 fencing, no expensive weeding. Keep at lliis till you 

 get rounil yjur acreage of forest. Then have men 

 coming behind letting a big tree come crasli down, so 

 as to make a good hole in the roof and help to make 

 a pi-oper amount of chequered light — "cheetah spots" 

 at midday. Weed once in 12 months and encourage 

 every cardamom seedling to spi-out Never break up 

 a atool or pull up a bulb — let your neighbours do 

 that — you can benefit by their shortsighted greed. 



Do not aim at beautiful avenues wiuiliag through 

 the moas-grown stately stems of the forest giants, 

 don't love t) gase at reyulir lines of cardamom stools 

 whose graceful fronds bend majesticall)- down and 

 whose stems are trimm'^l like a dandy'8 moustachio, 

 don't sigh for £70 an acre nett over 5 acres, but 

 have your I 000 acres of forest cheaply aud gradually 

 converted iuto cardamom land aud judge results 

 not by expenditure per acre but by amount of pro- 

 duce per ton. Surely if our worthy friend of the four 

 initials mentioned above, or any lirge owner of land 

 uupi-ipular :imoug the coffee 'kiu^s, could send his card- 

 amoms home by the ton he wouldn't want to be 

 very sure of his acreage.^ V. A.s, Colombo agents, 

 weeding contractors and mortgages h;ive all combined 

 to keep up worthless acres of land and monthly 

 thrown awiiy valuable rupees. You could Kot imagine 

 any grosser outrage on nature than the system of the 

 bulk of Ceylon estates, .and yet " W." comes wandering 

 round with ghostly footsteps and peering visage, search- 

 in after vague shadows, " What ails our coffee ? " 

 What indeed but the same thing thut ail-i the pale- 

 faced girl who erstwhile beamed brig'it with health, 

 but wboie fresh complexion ami sparkling eye 

 are mined by night after ui^ht of Ihe gaiety of a 



» In Jilysore. — Ed. .^i 



f If cardamoms were sent home in tons upon tons, 

 we should sec prices going down below,paying level. — Ed. 



Loudon season. "What ails our coffee? " Cultivated 

 to death and weeded out of existence.* The cause is 

 to be found in Colombo offices and V. A. s portfolios, 

 and estate cheekrolls aud ledgers. Ah! but a new 

 kind of ledger has arrived. Let me beseech Ceylon 

 planters not to aim at landscape gardening, or orna- 

 memal plantation growing— to drop those fanciful ideas 

 that are too common among Ceylon planters. Why 

 should you buy an improved mangle, beoauae Ist, it 

 13 called a cinchona peeler, 2nd, it is patented, and 3rd, 

 it does prettier work than a couple of alavangas or 

 sticks. ABERDONENSIS. 



[We shall await the further experience and com- 

 munications of our clever corre- spondent "Aberdo- 

 nensis " (" a regular chip of the old block") before 

 we attach the importance he desires to his radical attack 

 on the way thej' do things in Ceylou as compared with 

 the rough and ready system of planting operations pract- 

 ised ill the jungles of Mysore. Let our correspondent 

 wait and see whether, good as the present Mysore returns 

 are, some more roads cleaning, weeding and machinery 

 would not make them even better !— Ed.] 



DOES HEMILEIA VASTATRIX NOT AFFECT 

 THE COFFEE BEAN ? 



Coppah, India, 21st Jan. 1883. 

 De.^r Sib, — I notice a letter with the above head- 

 ing in your Overland issue of the 22ud tilt, from " D. 

 O. N." of S. Travancore. From my experience, I 

 say it does affect the bean, especially on badly at- 

 tacked trees. In these parts I have seen sheets of old 

 coffee with the berries simply covered with the yellow 

 powder from the leaves, which eventually dry up 

 without ripening and are therefore useless. I have also 

 seen young coffee — that is to say four or five years 

 old — severely attacked, the berries of which do not 

 properly ripen, but only get a yellowish colour with 

 a slight tinge of red and when washed a largo per- 

 centage turns out light. In reference to your footnote 

 to my letter on digging, allow me to say that by 

 opening up the soil you would allow the sun to ex- 

 tract your excess moisture easier than when covered 

 with a hard surface. Try a few acres first before 

 sayiug digging won't do for Ceylon, and I believe you 

 would find that it will answer the purpose. 



J. R. C. 



CADSES OF THE DECADENCE OF COFFEE? 

 Uva, 2,5th January 1883. 



Dear Sir, — As a little chap 1 can well re- 

 member translating from my Latin Delectus 

 "Great is truth and it will prevail," and it is be- 

 cause I believe in that motto that I believe in 

 the future prosperity of the various planting enter- 

 prizes in Ceylon. Let us always have the truth aud the 

 whole truth in planting matters. 



By a consensus of opinion amongst planters the 

 great coffee planting enterprize culminated when it 

 vielded one milliim cwts. of plantation coffee: its 

 meridian splendour has now passed away — never to 

 return. " W." in his truthful letters to you stated 

 the reasons for the premature decline of the 

 coffee enterprise in Ceylon.t I will recapit- 

 ulate, thiit we may have the facts always at the end of 

 our digits. 



1st, A very large area of coffee was irretrievably 

 injured when the first hnrricane wave of disaster 

 spread over the coffee enterprize in Ceylon and 



* This is not the opinion of — Ed. 



t" AV. " certainly has not professed to do this. On the 

 contrary, he demands investigation in to causes which he 

 deems occult, denying the sufficiency of rungus attacks and 

 consequent loss of foUage to account for the ailment of our 

 coffee. — Ed. 



