July i, 1882.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



45 



VICISSITUDES OF THE PLANTING ENTERPRISE 



IN CEYLON :— THE TROPICAL SWING ; 



DEPRESSION AND PROSPERITY. 



Nothing succeeds like success. Tlie timeworn apliorism 

 has been marvellously illustrated again and again, in the 

 history of planting and the e.xperience of planters in 

 Ceylon. Men mth no special superiority of judgment, 

 prudence, or ability, have been carrie<l iu on the full 

 tide of prosperity to competency aud fortune which they 

 would not have dared to dream" of but a few years pre- 

 viously ; while then- neighbours, missing, through no 

 fault of theii- own, this rare good luck, have ere long 

 found themselves stranded high and dry, watching the 

 ebb-tide as it receded from them. Men have bought 

 and planted land together, with the same care and 

 judgment ; one it may be distrusting fortune has sold 

 prematurely at a moderate profit and afterwards been 

 called a fool for his pains ; a second has not had the 

 chance of selling until the i^eriodical inflation and 

 "rush" have set in and then he acquh-es "fame and 

 fortune" without asking fortliem; while a third who 

 has never had a good offer so being perforce com- 

 pelled to stick to the land, finds himself ruuied m 

 reputation as well as pocket when .the cycle of depres- 

 sion, distrust and poverty of capital sets in. This is a 

 picture of experience where speculation not cultivation 

 was the primary object in view. Or, agam, we have 

 had the bona fide planter ojiening forestland and trying 

 in vain to sell that in which he had lost faith, m order 

 to possess himself of property in another and, for 

 the time, favourite district. "Trying in vain " to sell 

 his much-depreciated venture, to his great good-fortune ; 

 for a few more years shew that the once "favourite" 

 district is a delusion, while his own despised proj^erty 

 proves a perfect gold-mine to its owner. Such ai'e some 

 of the vicissitudes of recent years, and they are no 

 mere idle sjieculations, for our illustrations are based 

 ou actual occurrences now in our mind's eye. A very 

 sliort time ago the most prosperous coftee plantation 

 "of the (past) season " was condemned in our hearing 

 by some of the oldest and hardest-headed planters in the 

 country, as never likely to do anything for its owners, 

 while other places now worth not half its value were 

 cracked up to the skies. Two of the most practical of 

 managers and inspectors decided together about a dozen 

 years ago that the Dimbula cofl'ee plantation which is 

 probably to give the best crop of the coming season — 

 and which has yielded satisfactorily if not handsomely 

 ever since it was opened — was not worth having in 

 forestland at £2 per acre. Again the district which 

 is at present deemed worthy of chief condemnation by 

 financial and mspecting critics was but a few years 

 ago in everybody's mouth as shewing the finest eofi'ee 

 in the island, and among its chief depredators are 

 some who, while carraig their o\vn fortunes out of 

 it, were loudest in its praise. Need we say that 

 Maskeliya is refen'cd to, or remind our readers of the 

 exuberant language used by plantuig visitors, usually 

 chary of their words, to describe the clearings on 

 " Peria Maskeliya," under Mr. Jardine's care, when 

 the Peak Valleys were being felled on all sides. In 

 the present writer's twenty years' experience he can 

 recall no such unanimity of opinion among planting 



authorities as was fomid less than ten years ago in 

 reference to the suitableness of the quarter referred to 

 for coffee, and if tlicre were any of the then author- 

 ities and pioneers who in their heart of hearts had 

 no belief in the coffee they were plantuig, being a 

 success, surely these men above all others are woiihy 

 of condemnation ? 



The dark days of depression, wet seasons, leaf-disease 

 and grub have wrought a woeful change. Estates sold 

 not many years ago for prices then deemed well within 

 tlieir value, and on which cultivation has been kept 

 up and extended, leaf-disease fought and grub repelled, 

 are now estimated at from one-thiixl to one-fourth the 

 previous selling price, aud no doubt taking the probable 

 crop of the coniuig season, and the returns of the 

 past two or tlii'ce years as a guide, no other result ' 

 could be arrived at. Nevertheless ill all probability 

 it is the thing we have seen ui the past, which (malgri 

 all the enemies of coffee) we shall yet see in the 

 time to come. In 184.5, wild speculation, followed 

 by a heavy fall in the price of the ben-y and a 

 collapse of credit, an'csted planting enterprize in 

 Ceylon for a time, and when from the ruins a fair 

 and promising industry began to be established, it was 

 gravely argued by the chief scientific authority of the 

 day that "bug," then (in 18.50) almost universally pre- 

 valent, would never quit tlie coifee tree and would wear 

 it out eventually iu Ceylon.- A period of prosperity 

 ensued however to be followed by a smart financial 

 shock in 1855-6 (the eleven years' cycle) which shock, 

 after another prosperous run, was repeated with even 

 greater effect in 1866-67. In the latter years, com- 

 mercial and planting disaster prevailed to a consider- 

 able extent, aud the most striking picture of woebe- 

 gone misery to be found in Ceylou (accordmg to Mr. 

 Boustead, Senior) wlieu he visited the island aljout that 

 time, was " the man who o^vlled a coffee estate " ! The 

 financial crisis and period of depression which com- 

 menced, after the usual interval, in 1878, has proved 

 to be more trying and prolonged than any of its pre- 

 decessors, save, perhaps, that of 1845-50, and the few 

 " wise men" who, takuig Josh Billings' advice, prophesy 

 after the event, have had a great innings, building up 

 reputations for keen sagacity and foresight on perhaps 

 the ruin wrought among their neighbours by the failure 

 of crops and pressure of the times. No doubt a stem 

 lesson had to be read to check speculation, and to 

 teach men what they had failed or refused to learn 

 from any of the previous successive crises, namely the 

 unwisdom of turning hundreds of miles of a mountain- 

 ous country with varying climates and soils into cultiv- 

 ation vrith one product, when others equally profitable 

 and more suitable were offering for then- acceptance. But 

 all the same, it is too much to find "professionals " who 

 themselves did notliing to lead the way in ' ' new 

 products," denouncing in uiimeasuied terms "the 

 mad folly " of the planters on whom they are now 

 sent to sit and report. To persistently cry down planta- 

 tions and the work of a dozen years back as useless 

 seems to us, parallel to the case of the man who having 

 murdered his father and mother, appealed to the Court 

 for mercy because he was an orphan. No one having 

 a due regard to past experience, and to the many 

 advantages which attend the planter in the present 



