694 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[March i, 1883. 



especially as my own trees will yield ripe pods in 

 about six months. 



I am not yet prepared to say, how much CearA 

 rubljer a cooly can collect in a day ; my trees are 

 probably not old enough yet, to give a fair trial, 

 but tlie sample of five ounces I send herewith took 

 nearly a whole day of my own labour, and that is 

 not very pioniising. The operation can only be carried 

 on in dry weather, but the trees may be tapped all 

 over, stem and branches, as often as may be con- 

 venient, but it is the branches that yield mOot freely, 

 that is to say such as are from three to six inches 

 in diameter and not old enough to have become rough. 



I visited the Government Gardens a few days ago, 

 with the view of picking up hints. The Liberian cofl'ee, 

 tliough not entirely free of fungus, has sulfered little 

 or nothing ; the tapped trees cover nearly all the ten 

 by ten feet allotted to them, and many of those that 

 have been allowed to I'un up are nearly t'wenty feet 

 high. The cocoa with tlie same space is a regular 

 or rather an ii-regular thicket, but the later planted 

 patches have been allowed more room. The Hevea 

 rulilier has attained a height of forty feet, and the 

 stems are in some cases a foot in diameter. The 

 Landolphia Kirkii, of which a suigle plant was pointed 

 out to me, very greatly resembles some of our indigen- 

 ous jungle vines ; it seems to approve of its quarters, 

 for it is in vigorous growth. The nutmegs may be 

 considered a failure, and with cloves only a partial 

 success, the somewhat stiff lowdying ground they oc- 

 cupy is probably not suitable for either. I know very 

 little about tea, but the patches of that iiroduct 

 did not strike me as particularly flourishing. I saw 

 nothmg in the whole garden, flourishing like the card- 

 amoms : tlie crop is very large, but it appeared to 

 me that the dense sliade in which they stand was too 

 iiuR'li for them, and that they would need more light 

 and ail', to ripen their abundant fruit, much of which 

 is rotting on the ground, before it is mature. In 

 my judgment, the tarifl' of prices at these Gardens 

 mars their use to the public, as only the boldest ex- 

 perimentalists will venture the first cost of such 

 new plants as they cannot obtain cheaper elsewhere. 

 While other countries otter large rewards for the 

 initiation of new, and the extension and improve- 

 ment of old industries, the Ceylon Raj throws every 

 possible impediment in the way. [The system seems 

 to be to hold on for high prices until no one will 

 buy, and then to give away ! — Ed.] 



PLANTING IN CEYLON : MATALE NORTH 

 REVISITED. 



Old and New Products. 

 What the Matale district could do in its prime 

 may be illustrated by the experience obtained of the 

 well-known Aluwihare estate, situated above the rock- 

 temple of that name close to the North road a few 

 miles out of Matale. One of the first planting reminisc- 

 ences of the writer is comiected with a visit paid to the 

 Jlcdamahanuwara district in 1864 with Mr. Richard 

 Rudd : great was the delight of this gentleman on 

 then learning that an old chum, Mr. Wni. King, who 

 had worked as hard as any man in the cc .ntry, had 

 sold his Hangranoya estate, Ambagamuwa, for £14,000 

 sterling to Messrs. Dickson, Tathani & Co. Hangran- 

 oya was a carefully cultivated proi^erty of perhaps 

 SOO acres of coffee, and 100 acres reserve, lying at the 

 Irack of the Baharundra estate, Kotmale, and there 

 for many years, Mr. King had practised tlie high 

 cultivation along with his assistant and future partner 

 Mr. Alex. Ross, which the latter atteiM-ards carried 



out with so much success in Matale. A cattle es- 

 tablishment of 120 head was maintained, bonedust and 

 guano imported, and the place systematically worked, 

 so that when the purchase was made, Hangranoya 

 presented as fine a sheet of coffee as any in the 

 country and bore a crop of nearly 2,000 cwt. in the first 

 season for Mr. Tathani.* Before this time Mr. King 

 purchased Aluwihare block of 260 acres and visited 

 the spot to settle with Mr. Ross how it was to be 

 opened. The first clearing (planted in 1862) was one of 

 90 acree and the maiden crop came in the 2nd year : 

 the report of prospects was so glowing that Mr. King 

 wi-ote out to strip blossom — Jrd was taken oft', and 

 still the estimate of croj) from what remained, ranged 

 from 4 to 7 cwt., the highest estimate being that 

 of Mr. Keith MacLellan. What was the crop ? 

 Why before tlie trees were 2 years and 4 months old, 

 Mr. Ross had shipped from the 90 acres no less than 

 820 cwt. of coffee or at an average of over 9 cwt. 

 per acre ! But still more important, tliis same clear- 

 ing now 17 to 19 years old is still the best on the 

 plantation.t The soil is, of course, exceptionally good ; 

 the exposure all that could be desired ; the lay of 

 land rather steep, but so intersected by huge boulders 

 as to afford the perfection of shelter and support for 

 the coft'ee. Suitable manure judiciously applied tells 

 at once and high cultivation here, if anywhere, has 

 been systematically carried out, the expenditure ris- 

 ing to £20 and even £22 (includmg cart road, *c.) 

 per acre perhaps for 15 years with crops of a not less 

 average than 7 to 8 cwt. per acre. The minimum crop 

 has not been below 1,200 cwt. while as much as 2,400 

 cwt. have been gathered in one season. 



And yet Aluwihare, like its neighbours the Kowda- 

 polella group farther north, is in a fair way to be- 

 come a cocoa, as well as coflee, estate. Cocoa 

 freely interspersed though the coft'ee, has succeeded 

 admu-ably under the slielter of the latter, and al- 

 though not so thickly planted as elsewhere will 

 soon appear dotted all over above the coffee. 



Now, it may be asked why interfere with good 

 coffee where high cultivation lias been systematically 

 adopted and could still be continued both here and 

 in the Northern Matale gi-oup. It is true that for several 

 years after the advent of Hemilria vastatrix ( 1869) no 

 fear was entertained of the pest, but about five years 

 ago Mr. Ross began to see that even ' ' high cul- 

 tivation " was unduly weighted by the persistency of 

 the fungus and that if prices of coft'ee fell, it might 

 be found impossible to cultivate at a profit, while 

 without manure it was quite evident, cofl'ee could not 

 keep up against the leaf disease. The wise decision 

 was therefore arrived at that "new products" must 

 be added to the old staple and that some of the ex- 

 penditure hitherto put in manure, should be devoted 

 to the planting of cocoa, Liberian coffee and rubber. 



* This was followed, we believe, by even larger re- 

 turns, up to a cop of 3000 cwt., but the area 

 under cultivation was extended. The system of 

 cultivation observed on Hangran-oya was : — top. 

 dressing every year when crop coolies came in, 

 with rotted ravine soil and scrub, the coolies of 

 the previous year had collected into heaps in the 

 ravines and swamps. Top-dressed also with pulp ; and 

 mud from old lints— top-dressing with any of 

 these, equalling any manuring — but the first gave 

 great crops of ageratuin as well. Mr. King manured 

 also extensively with ashes collected ofi the clearings 

 after the burn-off. (Systematic draining nas begun. 



+ The favourite uianure for Aluwihara was 1st 

 cattle, goat and pulp with a little bones super, 

 phosphate and guano mixed ; 2nd bone dust, castor 

 cake, superphosphate and guano and latterly a chemi- 

 cal compound made up after having got the soil specially 

 analysed. 



