368 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[November i, 1882. 



articles of general use, than to spread taxation in a 

 fashion equally vexatious and unproductive. Tlie rice- 

 growera of Burma are doubly taxed. They pay land 

 tax and their produce is taxed when exported. But 

 the benefits conferred on them are more than com- 

 mensurate, if we look but at the wonderful decrease 

 in ci'ime. It is but rarely now that a young Burman 

 engages in dacoity in order to prove his manhood. 

 Happily Burma is free from those terrible curses of 

 India, child marriages and child widowhoods. The 

 people are able to marry early, however, and the 

 natural increase of population is very rapid. What 

 with this increase and the results of immigration 

 from Foreign Burma and India, the cultivated area 

 has increased in ten years from 2^ to 3^ millions of 

 acres, — the increased breadth of cultivation being at 

 the rate of 100,000 acres per annum. If the world's 

 demand for rice goes on as it has done in the past 

 decade, the next will shew a much greater annual 

 increase in rice land, while we cannot doubt that 

 the process of utilizing the hill forest lands will 

 make good progress amongst the Burmans proper, 

 while the i-apidity with wluch the Karens have ad- 

 opted, propagated and sustained the religion brought 

 to them by missionaiies from America, is without 

 parallel since apostolic days. 



♦ 



NEW PRODUCTS IN CEYLON :— LOWCOUNTRY 



REPORT. 

 LiBEEiAN Coffee — Cocoa — Cabdamon — Waxpalm — 

 Oranges — Ceara — ^Rubbeb. 



{Jubj and August 1882, in the Lowcountry East of 

 Colombo.) 



Throughout July, and especially in its latter moiety, 

 the rains were heavy and frequent for the most part, 

 accompanied by strong wind. On the 29th we had the 

 heaviest shower we have experienced since this estate 

 was opened ; it lasted for less than an hour, but it 

 proved the inefficiency of the drainage system, that 

 has been under process of being accommodated to ex- 

 ceptional storms for three years past. For example, 

 au embankment about one hundred feet long across 

 a ravine, and having an escape at one end, seven feet 

 by four feet, was, at the height of the storm, over- 

 flowed from end to end. The watershed above this 

 point contains not over ten acres, but for fifteen minutes 

 water flowed on every iucb of the surface. Up to the 

 12th of August, the same sort of weather continued, 

 and since then, though we have had almost daily r.dus, 

 they have fieen light and gentle. 



The cotiee seemed to flourish tolerably through the 

 wind and ruin, but on the return of milder weather 

 it became evident that the fungus had seriously ex- 

 tended its devastation, hiving increased in virulence 

 and spread to vast numbers of plants that had hitherto 

 escaped. 



Encouraged by the favourable planting weather, I 

 planted out about 5,000 that had not attained the size 

 that I would otherwise have waited for. The old 

 enemy, the crickets, had not as usual appeared in force 

 about the first of March, and, as they were still ap- 

 parently absent up to the end of July, I fancied the 

 putting out of even very small plants was tolerably 

 safe. I had, however to suspend operations, as I found 

 vast numbers of the plants cut every morning, but 

 whether it is the cricket or some new pest I am still 

 unable to decide. The cricket usually cuts the stem 

 below the seed leaves, but on the present occasion 

 the remarkable feature of the case is that the depred- 

 ation is in the majority of cases above that point. 

 Tnis may, however, be owing to the fact tliat the newly 

 hatched cricket has not the power of jaw necessary 

 to deal with the harder portion of the stem, and con- 



sequently it makes its way to more tender spots. Three 

 years' experience taught me to expect the cricket 

 pligue e irly in March and early in September and their 

 entire disappearance about the middle oi M^iy and 

 the middle of Nnvemher, but iny theory must be 

 lacking in pome essential point, when their first ap- 

 pearance in the year takes place in August [Their 

 breeding period aflfected by abnormal weather. — Ed.] 



I have at length a crop of cocoa on a few of 

 my oldest and best sheltered trees. I showed them 

 to an experienced friend, and he treated them 

 very cavalierly. "You must think about your 

 average," he said, "and not rest much hope oii 

 your special trees." All right and true, but when ' 

 one has been long looking for a fruit forming amid 

 a thousand blossoms, one cannot help asking a visitor 

 to come and see it. My experienced pitntiug friend 

 saw the miserable abortions as well as the pet trees; 

 saw that the former were ten to one of the latter, 

 and issued his decree accordingly. Another friend, 

 not a professional planter, was much refreshed and 

 encouraged by a sight of the same trees and their 

 crops. He has been fighting for two years to estab- 

 lish a field of cocoa, but, so far as I can make 

 out, with no very satisfactory result. He declares 

 his soil and exposure is specially suitable, and, seeing' 

 ray measure of success, he is determined to per- 

 severe till he has 20,000 bearing cocoa trees on his 

 fifty acres. I like pluck; My experience is less 

 encouraging to myself than to my friend. Out of about 

 30,000 plants first and last, I have some 3,000 alive. 

 One half of these seem to be past the worst, and 

 promising to get on in the future. Of the other 

 half, one part is doubtful, and the remainder not 

 doubtful, but certainly destined to perish. After 

 surviving over twelve months, however, their vitality 

 is wonderful. When about two feet high, the wind 

 strips all their remaining leaves, the stem dies down- 

 wards, but within six inches of the ground a sucker 

 takes up the growing, and in many cases succeeds 

 in becoming a tree. My own conclusion is that 

 cocoa will not succeed in soil where gravel prednm- 

 iuates, and it will not succeed where the south 

 west wind reaches it, either direct or deflected. My 

 best trees are on a steep face, fronting N E. The 

 south west wind is deflected round the lower ridge 

 of the hill, and strikes the other side of the valley 

 with gi'eat force, and the course it takes is dis- 

 tinctly marked by a straight line, dividing the 

 healthy and flourishing cocoa from the seedy and 

 dying. I have Cf*refully experimented on the shade 

 question, and, so far as I have got in its study, with 

 all the varieties at my command, the present con- 

 clui'ion is that none of them require protection from 

 the sun, but all require protection from wind ; 

 not only from exceptional storms, but from the 

 steady breeze of every-day weather. Instead there- 

 fore of planting shade trees among the cocoa, I 

 would leave niirrow belts of jungle, say one chain, 

 at every five chains, both ways, enclosing squares 

 of two and a half acres, the belts running from 

 north to south and from east to west. Then I 

 would reserve half a chain ah'Ug the line of each 

 belt, in which I would plant, at three feet apart, 

 the quickest growing and most valuable of our 

 indigenous and naturalized timber trees. In three 

 or four years I would clear the jungle belt, and 

 plant the space with cocoa, leaving the wind to 

 deal with the cultivated protection. 



If I had recalled at the proper time knowledge I 

 possessed when I was very many years younger, I 

 would, perhaps, have been more successful in dealing 

 with the seed of the Wax-palm entrubted to me, soire 

 months a^jo, but I am always glad to give others the 

 opportunity of profiting by my errors, anri I there- 

 fore record my experience. The seed of the wax 



