142 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[August i, 1882. 



and naturally therefore my solicitor offered him the 

 retainer, as he had possessed himself of the chief 

 points of my case, hut, as Mr. Garrick refused to 

 accept it, he retained another gentleman. Some mouths 

 afterwards, when Mr. Garrick found he was not going 

 to be retained by the Crown, he called and offered his 

 services to my solicitor, who declined to avail himself 

 of them. Mr. Garrick then went to the Attorney- 

 General and offered them to him, I have no doubt nt 

 a very low rate, because he said iu open court that he 

 did not wish to be left out in the cold ; the Attorney- 

 General however was not instructed to retain bini. 

 He subsequently obtained a brief, I believe, at the 

 special instance of Dr. McGregor, the fee on which was 

 onhj £25 ; and Dr. McGregor s'ated, during the pro- 

 gress of the case, which lasted 3 or 4 days, that, 

 unless he worked harder at it, he would not pay him 

 at all. The Chief Justice allowed Mr. Garrick 

 to appear for the Crown, notwithstanding my protest 

 tliat he was well aware through reading my papers 

 what the nature of my claim would be. Such, how- 

 ever, is professional etiquette at the bar "f Fiji. 



Mr. J. E. Hedges was called as a witness for the 

 Crown, but unfortunately his evidence was taken ou 

 Commission, and therefore he was not p\it into the 

 witness-box. He would have us believe that none 

 in Ceylon knew anything about coffee planting there 

 besides himself* altnough ho admitted in cross-ex- 

 amination that he jumped at once into his magni- 

 ficent position — as owner of thousands of acres of 

 coffee property (2,919) and manager of tens of thous- 

 ands of acres (13,342)— after two years' apprentice- 

 ship to Mr. Lee. From Mr. Hedges' own account, 

 although not a chemist, he is a very good judge of 

 soil — no one betler. It was by accident he selected 

 the land for a coffee estate in MorawakKorale, which 

 afterwaids died out on account of the land beiag 

 thoroughly unsuited for coffee ; it was not an error 

 .of judgment, and because he knew nothing about soil. 

 He never visited my plantation until months after 

 the Government handed it back to me completely 

 ruined, and then from his previous vast and chequered 

 cxnerience he was able to say at a glunce, and with 

 merely a cursory examination, that the place was un- 

 suitable for coffee-growing. In his opinion the hurric- 

 ane which passed over the estate before the coffee was 

 staked his not done it great damage ; it is quite a 

 mistake to suppose that hurricanes damage unstaked 

 coffee irretrievaljly : he never heard of planting seed 

 at stake, and does not believe that trees so jjlanted 

 give stronger and firmer roots than those from a 

 nursery or stumps : in his opinion taproots would 

 rot witliin 2 or 3 inches of the surface on sloping 

 ground from excessive mositure, and draining W"uld 

 not prevent it: idtliough he admitted fiiidiuj; almcist 

 any number of taproots where they had penetrated 

 below the bottom of the orjgind hol*^, tiiia did not 

 alter his opinion, &c , &c. A report which he had 

 drawn up and signed th it morning was handed in as 

 evidence, notwitlistauding a protest from my coimsel 

 against it being received. If Mr. Herlges had acted 

 as an arbitrator he clearly shewed how thoroughly 

 his mind was made up about the matter, and that he 

 was quite prepared to ignore the chief duty of an arldtra- 

 tor (an unbiassed mind) and to give me no damages 



Dr. McGregor sivid in the witness-box that Sir 

 Joseph Hooker approved of all he had done. The 

 letter from Kew w hich wns produced in evidence was 

 dated 8th June 18S0, and no m.ention is made in 

 that of Jiyposul/ihate of soda, which was Dr. 

 McGregor's specific. This letter would reach the 

 colony just before the estate wa^ relinquished by the 

 the Government, and after Dr. McGregor's experi- 



* Mr. Hedges is not (he mnn to underestimate himself, 

 quite snrely he did not actually say this ?— fin. 



ments had proved abortive ; but it is very signific- 

 ant, after what Dr. McGregor had said. Sir Joseph 

 Hooker io silent on the point, and does not even 

 name the chemical. Moreover Dr. McGregor must 

 have written his letter, to which the one in June 

 was a reply, sometime in March, before even he 

 had decided on any special form of experiment. But 

 he will no doubt cliiim that his name shall rank 

 now with those of Abbay, Morris, Thwaites, Trimen, 

 Ward, and Schrottky. but with this difference : where 

 they have spent hundnds he has spent thousands of 

 pounds. 



To sum up what I have written above ; — The dis- 

 ease was first noticed in May 1879.* The ordinance 

 dealing with it was passed in August. The estate 

 was handed over to Government in October ; but they did 

 not commevee to attempt to cure the disease until 

 March 1880 ! And yet they agreed to endeavour 

 to stamp it out ! Nearly all the time my estate was 

 in the hands of the Government it was kept in strict 

 quarantine, and no one was allowed on to it without 

 having his clothes boiled, and his hat dusted with 

 sulphur before leaving again, when the disease was 

 at the same time all over the group. If I accept'the 

 £2,000 I shall be more than £8,000 out of pocket, 

 with a valuless estate on my hands, and having lost 

 five years of my life. 



It was suggested to me several times that the rea- 

 son Sir A. Gordon wanted to get my estate into 

 the hands of the Government was because I had 

 always been politically opposed to him, and fought 

 most strenuously, though honestly, against his native 

 policy ; and that, if they ruined it, I should be 

 ruined, and incapable of offering further opposition. 

 This suggestion was always scouted by me until, un- 

 der the direction of Sir A. Gordon's officials, and 

 with the knowledge and consent of Sir A. Gordon 

 himself (as his then Attorney-General, Mr. Garrick, 

 has several times publicly stated). I was made 1 1 travel 

 to the district in which my plantation is situated, 

 and there to Hand (a seat being denied to me) for 

 two whole days in a felon's dock to answer a charge 

 of "feloniously killing and slaying oue of ray labourers," 

 but as soon as the evidence for the Crown was closed 

 the case was dismised without my being called upon 

 lor a defence. A Governor who can descend to acts 

 such as these makes it nut impossible that the above 

 suggestion may have been an honest one. 



I have trespassed, I fear, too much on your favour, 

 but, if any of your readers would furnish me with 

 their opinons on my case, I should be extremely 

 obliged to them. I have obtained leave to appeal to 

 the Privy Council, but I question if it is a matter 

 they could deal with. — Your obedient servant, 



WM. FILLINGHAM PAHR. 



MR. STORCK ON THE COFFEE-LEAF FUNGUS 

 AND HIS PROPOSED VISIT TO CEYLON. 



Belmont Plantation, Upper Rew^a. May 23rd, 1882. 



De.\r Sir, — Hcmikia rastafrix dies hard, but whether 

 the principle of apogestation have any existence in 

 reality or no makes no difference in the value of my 

 treatment. Break the chain anywhere and if Hemi- 

 leiiv rnstatrix had as many lives as the mythical hydra, it 

 must die. 



What, for instance, became of the permanent parasit- 

 ical mycelium in the trees I have cured, and wdiich 

 are now standing for 21 months without any indication 

 of a return of the disease ? 



Jlore scientists appear in support of Mr. M. Ward's 

 statement that the mycelium of a fungus is unassaO- 

 able when once "safely ensconced" iu the tissue of 



* Just teu years after it was observed in Oeylon. — Ed, 



