140 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[August i, 1882. 



Up to the time leaf-disease liroke out I had always 

 had upvai-ds of -00 permanent Liboiirera on Great 

 Amalgam, but I soon saw from the number Go- 

 verumeut employed in what manner they wtre goirn; 

 to carry out their acjreement. Tbe agreement itself 

 was not actnally signed until thelltn Oetober, but 

 on the 1-t October, Dr. McGregor, unknown to me, 

 sent the whole of my labourers off the estate, and 

 put it into quarantine, although the Government la- 

 bourers were nuable to be put on to it until the 18th 

 October, the weeds having thus all this time to get 

 a firm hold. I ouj;ht to mention that on the 1st 

 October it was all but impossible to discover a weed 

 on any part of the estate, and that I have never 

 lived on the plantation, but in Levuka, which is on 

 another island and 40 miles distant. On the 18th 

 October fifty coolies were sent by the Government on 

 to Great Amalgam, and until the 15th January 18S0 

 this was their full force; it will be readily seen there- 

 fore how utterly impossible it was for them witli so 

 few bands to carry out all the works agreed upon, 

 as well as to attempi to cure leaf-disease. The estate 

 had not up to this time been drained, for the reason 

 that we liad two very dry seasons, and the eoil being 

 very friable it had not suflfered in consequence ; but 

 I was about to drain the whole of it when the Go- 

 vernment took over charge. 



I may state here that in November 1870 I ob- 

 tained a valuation of my estate from Mr. Stephens, in 

 which he values the two year old coffee at £ii5 an 

 acre, the year and a half old at £40, and the year 

 old at .£25 an acre, or the 3.55 acres at £11,700. 

 He specially mentions the attack of le:if-disease, but 

 says he sha'U adopt the best remedies known to eradic- 

 ate it, and adds ;— " The remedies that are to be ap- 

 plied, -VIZ., liming and sidjihuriiig, will greatly benefit 

 the estate." 



Under the Ordinance which was passed onthe22ud 

 Au-nsi 1879, Dr. McGregor was appointed Chief Com- 

 missioner and Director of Ceremonies, and no one can 

 accuse him of not putting jjlenty of energy into his 

 work. He determined, in order, I presume, to assi.st 

 the operation of stamping out, to destroy all the coffee 

 on the Rewa river on which the disease could be 

 Been ; but during this process, and notwithstanding 

 all precautions, I believe, be carried the disease with 

 him to those places which before were free from it. He 

 burnt off, or caused to be tdirut off, a number of most 

 valuable nurseries, one containing upwards of 500,000 

 strong healthy plants, a patch of about 14 acres of 

 magnificent two year old coffee, and Mr. .Storck's 

 plantation of about 30 acres.* No compensation has 

 yet been paid by the Government for any of the 

 hi^s thus occasioned, and none would be asked for, if 

 it was thought the work had been hcmestly done for 

 the benefit of the colony ■ * * * The natives' 

 nurseries, which were full of disease, were situate within 

 a sliort distance of some of the above, but they were 

 not destroyed, for the simple reason that the Govern 

 meat were positives/ afraid to burn them! ! "What 

 is sauce for the goose is " not " sauce for the gander " 

 in Fiji ; yet 1 know of a small plantation belonging 

 to a European which was not even visited by Dr. 

 McGregor or any of his assistants, and it was diseased. 

 On the 11th Dtcember 1879 a hurricane visited Fiji ; 

 the strength of the blow registered by my anemometer 

 was 56^ miles an hour, although some of the puffs 

 were doubtless strcnfier. At this time not a tree had 

 been stakeil, as there was no labour t" do the work ; 

 yet, although the end of January was the time 

 by whieii the wh'Ie of the staking was to be finished, 

 it it had been L'onimencod as soon as the estate was 

 handed over, some 192 acres sh juld have been com- 



* 'Ihis must have been helnre Mr. Storek had thought 

 of carbulic acid fumes as a remedy for hcmiUia vaitatrix.— 

 Ed. 



pleted by the 11th December, and the b dance of the 

 coffe being small, and a great deal of it unsupplied, 

 the remainder would not have been affected in so 

 serious a deuree. To this hurricane I attribute in the 

 first instance the ruin of my estate ; but the sub- 

 sequent action of the Government, or really of Dr 

 McGregor, as Mr. Stephens was entirely under his con- 

 trol, will account for a great deal of the damage. 

 After the blow the trees were put upright and earth 

 trodden around them, but a very hot sun had scorched 

 the roots before they could be replaced ; and, as nearly 

 all the taproots were twisted and broken, and the fibrous 

 roots torn otf, the estate never recovered the shaking 

 it then got. 



No cure for leaf -disease was attempted until the 

 Government had the estate in their hands for six or 

 eight months, for, although any number of native 

 labourers were at their disposal if they had requii-ed 

 them, they professed to be unable to get the lime 

 burnt although coral reefs were situate within afew miles 

 of the plantation. This dilatoriness on the part of the 

 Government is merely another instance of breaking their 

 agreement, by which they agreed to endeavour to stamp 

 out the disease. 



It must not be supposed that I was a passive 

 spectator of all this inactivity. I was continually 

 writing and urging the Government to act up to the 

 agreement, to stake, drain, supply, &c., and partic- 

 ularly did I in December point out that 50 men were 

 totally incapable of carrying out the whole works of 

 tbe estate, aud I said 150 were the least number that 

 could do so ; and I several time^ gave them notice 

 that I should insist upon certain matters forming sub- 

 jects of arbitration. No supplies were put in ; no 

 drains were cut until just before the Government re- 

 linquished charge, and then only done in a most per- 

 functory manner ; no stakes were put in until February, 

 aud then only on the hilly and exposed places ; aud 

 a troublesome weed was allowed to get a firm hold. 

 All this time the estate was kept in str'cl quarantine, 

 although the diseaBe was nearly all over the group ; 

 but I shall never believe, through reading Mr. Ste- 

 pliens's letters, that quarantine was so strictly enforced 

 for any other reason than to prevent the public know- 

 in" what experiments were being tried, and observ- 

 ing how Dr. McGregor by his treatment was ruining 

 the estate. 



Dr. McGregor and Mr. Stephens, assisted by one or 

 two other embryo botanists, previous to May 1880, 

 had tried many dozens of exijeriments ; and Morris's 

 lime-and-sulphur remedy having .at th.at time proved 

 a failure in Ceylon, they doubless felt they were justi- 

 fied in experimenting on their own account. After 

 all tlieir trials there was but one which they thought 

 could prove efl'ective, and that was carried out as fol- 

 lows : — A coolie went up a low carrying a bucket- 

 ful of boiled arrowroot, lime and sulphur, with which he 

 paiuted every part of the stem and wood of the tree. 

 Another follow ed with a basin containing hyposnlphate 

 of soda and water into which he dipped every leaf 

 and bram.h, and a third with caustic lime dusted 

 over the tree and ground. Although the cost of an 

 experiment of this kind would have been enormous, 

 cost was' not tnken into consideration. Some two or 

 three weeks after Mr. Stephens had commenced this 

 experiment, Mr. Storek paid him a visit to attend to 

 my imported phints ; and, b ing invited by Mr. Stephens 

 to inspect the oiierations, Mr Slorck shewed him the 

 disease r appearing ihioush the starch like paint, aud 

 in fact overtaking the operators. 



Mr, Stephens then told Mr. Storek tliat he was cert- 

 ain it was usciess to continue the experiment.-, .and 

 he wrote to Dr. McGregor tlie same dav and told him 

 so. Although at this time but a comparatively small 

 expense had been incurred in chemicals and materials, 

 Dr. McGregor told Mr. Stephens to continue the 



