April 2, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



841P 



To the Editor of the ''Ceylon Observer." 



MR. STORCK'S CURK A FAILURE IN FIJI 



APPARENTLY. 



15th March 18S3. 



Dear SiK, — The bad opinion recently expressed in re- 

 ference to the carbolic acid cure for leaf-disease is 

 oonttrined by the following extract I make from a 

 letter lately received from an old correspondent of 

 yours, who used to bail from Maturata, and who a 

 short time ago, when visiting and reporting on a 

 number of coffee estates in Fiji, also visited Mr. 

 8torck's estate :^" I accepted an invitation from Mr. 

 Storck to go and visit his place, and see his coffee 

 and leaf-disease cure ; so off again to the island of 

 Viti Levu and up the Reva river about 50 miles ; and 

 there I saw .Storck's coffee nursery and his cure for 

 the disease H. V. He has small vessels made of tin 

 or zinc, at the bottom of which ie a little carbolic 

 acid, and floating on the acid is water. His theory 

 is, that the water absorbs a certain proportion of the 

 acid, and through that medium is passed off continu- 

 ally in evaporizatiou. He also said, in answer to mj- 

 enquiry, that there was no danger of wind blowing the 

 evaporized acid away, aa it was heavier than the 

 surrounding atmosphere, and could onlv be blown 

 about among the trees, as it would always cling to 

 the ground and not rise. This is a very pretty theory, 

 but I doubt its efficacy, as I saw disease throughout 

 all his nursery in all stages, and plenty of it. This 

 he said was a fresh dose that he has had brought to 

 his place, by coolies coming from a neighbouring estate 

 up the river. Be this true or not, the pest loaa there, 

 and whether it was a reappearance of the same disease, 

 which had laid dormant, or been inoculated in the 

 way he said, I can't say, nor can Mr. Stock." * • ♦ » 



He also says, further on, that he "found leaf-disease 

 on some coffee which was on an island to windward 

 of any other coffee estate, and to which, «o plants had 

 been carried, and the only way the place could have 

 been infected must have been through the seed : which, 

 if true, will upset Mr. Marshall Ward's theory, about 

 the seed being a non-conductor, so to speak. I al»o 

 observed a little bng but not much." This latter was 

 on another tetate, not on Mr. Storck's property. 



From the above, I suppose we are as far as ever from 

 finding out a cure for our deadly enemy H. V. — Yours 

 faithfully. A. C. T. 



LOWCOUNTRY CKYLON TEA, UNASSORTED, 



SELLING AT Is S^d IN MINCING LANE. 



Dear Sir, — The Culloden tea lately described as 

 " pekoe'' in the London sale list was the bulk from 

 the whole tea on estate, and it fetched la 84d. 

 This ie surely the highest average price got for Ceylon 

 tea yet? I write this pour encourager ks autres, 

 especially lowoouutry tea planters, this estate tea being 

 only from 150 to 600 feet above sea-level. — Yours 

 faithfully, TEKS4B. 



COFFEE LEAF FUNGUS ; WHEN DID IT 



FIRST APPEAR IN CEYLON ? 



Dear Sir, — I eee in your letter "From the Hills" 

 in your paper of 15th, you say : — "I have no belief in 

 the theory of some planters that JJemileia vaslatrix 

 existed iu coffee before 1809." I now give you my 

 experience of it. In 1863, a few days before Christmas, 

 I walked from an estate near (lampola to one near 

 Nawalapitiya. On the road there was a short cut 

 through some ootlee, which I took, aud wait surprizgd 



to find some yellow powder on my coat sleeves that 

 h«d come off the coffee. Next was on Bellfjodde estate ' 

 in 18f)6 : just after crop, the field above the store was" 

 looking shuck and I manured it with a mixture of 

 pulp ashes and chrircnal collected from the furnace ' 

 of the steam engine during crop. Aa soon as the coffee 

 was manured it got as bud a dose of leaf-disease as ' 

 I have ever seen, but the coffee recovered in a very ' 

 short time and I did not notice any more of it as ' 

 long as 1 was on the estate, till August 1869, when ^ 

 I went to the Hope estate and there it was on the" 

 abandoned patches. The crop of 1869 70 contained a 

 large number of black beans and that was what 

 attracted notice to the disease. — Yours truly, 



6. F. HALLILEY. 



Mr. C. SHAND'S TEA DRIER. 



Dear Sir, — I have read two letters on the subject 

 of Mr. Shand's tea drier iu 3 our paper, and if the .! 

 following remarks can 'brow any light on his system | 

 of drying tia I shall be glad if jou would publish,! 

 them. A machine sornewliat similar to the one in 

 question was invented about 6 years ago in Assam by 

 a Mr. Barber. It consisted of two iron or metal boxes 

 placed one above tho other, about 8 inches apart, 

 connected by a steam-pipe, and enclosed in a casing" 

 of wood ; these boxes were fed with steam from a ' 

 boiler outside. The greeuleaf was spread out on tho 

 surface of the iron cases, and was thus dried in about 

 SO minutes. I saw this machine dry tea repeatedly, 

 and also saw valuations from London on samples of 

 the same. There was nothing said about a metallic 

 taste whatever. In Mr. Barber's machine there was ' 

 no escapement of steam, the heat was not riwifl but ' 

 dry, and the valuations on the samples forwarded were ' 

 equal to those of any other teas prepared over charcoal ' 

 fires. The reason this drier was not a success was ' 

 on acccount of its not being able to fire off the green ' 

 leaf quick enough to keep even a small rolling 

 machine going. Since 1876 the "Sirocco" has been 

 invented. There can be no comparison between the 

 above machine aud this, for the reason that no steam | 

 is required for the " Sirocco" and the green leaf is 

 dried off in about one-half the time. I do not think 

 any of Mr. Barber's machines were sold, as they could 

 not compete with either Davidson's or Kinmond' 

 hot air draft invention. I have not seen Mr. Shand' 

 tea drier, but if it is simillar to Mr. Barber's, a 

 believe as good tea can be prepared in it as over any 

 charcoal fires, while it has the advantage of not 

 burning tne leaf, even with a careless fire. — Yours • 

 faithfully. ASSAM. 



NOTES FROM TEXAS, U. S. A. 



Dear Sir, — I extract the following from an ex- 

 Ceylon planter'sletter, who like 30 many more, has sought 

 for "fields new": — "I arrived in New York after an 

 ordinary winter passage. From New York, I left by 

 emigrant train for this place. You would have 

 laughed to have seen me huddled together with Poles, 

 Italians, Germans and two English females. It took 

 a week to get down here, and a week in a railway, 

 sleeping and feeding when you can, 19 no joUe. The 

 climate is perfection. I am trying to get on a ranche 

 in the capacity of what is here termed 'cowboy' 

 or in reality 'stockman.' Several people assure me 

 I need only wait a few days. There are any number 

 of people to advise, but the best advice i- I thiak 

 that gained by experience. Sheep they say pay better 

 than cattle ; no doubt they are paying splendidly, the 

 lowest rate being 15 per cent; but I have met a man 

 who as a 'new chum' rushed in to invest and 

 dropped all he had. Experientia doixt. It is a roughish 

 part, aud cases of shooting are daily reported, but 



