September i, 1882.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 



225 



of railway from Sonsonate to the port o£ Acajulta. 

 The populatiou is ialjorioiis and peaceable, and the 

 country on the road to progress. Tlie coffee trees 

 were attacked last j'ear by an insect, but a very good 

 remedy has been found in the use of tar. 



*' Honduras so far has scarcely grown enough coffee 

 to provide its own wants, and tlie article known as 

 Honduras in other markets is Guatemala. The govern- 

 ment has passed a measure to exempt all coffee plant- 

 ations front taxation during ten years, and it is be- 

 lieved that the imports of the state, amounting to 

 0,.500,000 piastres annually, may be covered by 

 coffee exports within two years ; 5,000,000 coffee trees 

 h.ave been planted. Tlie want of hands, that is of well 

 conduoced Europeans, and the eternal political dis- 

 quiet of the country are great drawbacks. 



" Guatemala, batlied by the two oceans, and witli 

 the magnificent port of Santo Thomas de Castillo, has 

 also a fertile soil and salubrious climate. Coffee con- 

 stitutes its staple product today, and the shipments 

 are now 289,762 quintals. Before ISoo, very little was 

 grown. Several railway lines are now being surveyed 

 or in process of construction. The compulsory labor 

 of the Indian is spoken of as a legislative measure. 

 The insect enemies of the plant are numerous, but not 

 so dangerous as in other places." 



The writer attributes tlie present state of the coffee 

 market to over-speculation, chiefly the work of a 

 clique, who began operations in Frankfort on the Main 

 in 186S ; also to the overproduction in Brazil, and 

 to the effects of the commercial crisis. The fall in 

 prices in tlie United States added to the difficulty, 

 The present prices, M. Thiersant thinks will hardly 

 change for the better, unless through speculative pro- 

 cess ; " but then," he adds, " the coffee market has 

 now become a true speculative market." 



[The quintal is equivalent to 100 lb. Our readers 

 will notice the frequency with which disease iu 

 Coffee, chieily of insect origin, is mentioned.— Eu.] 



PLANTING ON THE HILLS OF CEYLON. 



THE RAIN: "TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING" — THE GUM- 

 TREE LEAP DISEASE — GROWTH OF THE TREES — " RYBIIID" 

 VERSUS " indigenous" ASS.V.M TEA — HYBRID CINCHO.NA — 

 RATS, GRUB, AND LEAF DISEASE — FRUIT TREES — FODDER 

 GRASSES. 



LiNDULA, 27th July 1883. 

 What the Scotch proverb says of the " fox's bairns," 

 viz. " the aulder the waur" (the older the worse), can 

 truly be said of the S. W. monsoon of 1882 in its closing 

 days. Good planting -weather is very good, but one 

 thinks of the inebriate who was audibly praying that 

 the Virgin would help him on to his horse. A passer- 

 by gave him such a lift that he fell over on the other 

 side. With uujuetitiable expletives he exclaimed : 

 " When yon are good you are too good !" Genial 

 rains and gentle winds are excellent, but when both 

 rain and wind unite to cause such a " pelting pitiless 

 storm" as to keep or drive planting gangs indoors for 

 days iu succession, one feels inclined to say of moisturei 

 that, like other good things, there may be more than 

 enough of it. Without moisture there would be no 

 vegetation, but moisture in excess is almost as injurious 

 to vegetation as is the liquid with which the toper 

 too frequently " moistens his clay." Disease results iu 

 each case, and the following reply to my queries as to 

 the insect or fungoid character of the blight-spots which 

 attack the leaves of the eucaljiJti up here, and from 

 the gums spread to cinchonas and other plants, 

 favours the iufereuce that excessive moisture may pro- 

 29 



duce diseased tissues, without the agency of inseot 

 or fungus : — 



"I have received your letter of the 22ud instant, 

 with various diseased leaves. The latter I have ex- 

 amined microscopically, and cannot find that their 

 diseased state is attributable to the attacks of in- 

 sects. They may have suffered in some measure from 

 fungi, but I am uncertain whetlier the injury is en- 

 tirely owing to attacks of that nature. Balfour, in 

 his Class book of Botany, tells us that ttio common 

 c.iuse of disease in plants are improper soils, ungenial 

 climates, frosts, rains, storms, parasitic plants, insects 

 and wounds of various kinds, and that plants grown 

 in au ungenial climate and soil are very liable to 

 disease. He further says that there is no evidence of 

 plants being acclimatized by a process of cullivatii.n. 

 Thus, there is a wide field for investigation. Tlte 

 rats that have made their appearance, will probably 

 not remain long. I am sorry I am unable to throw 

 more light on the subject of the diseased leaves." 

 The comfort, of course, is that a climate which in 

 particular seasons and temporarily may, from excess- 

 ive moisture for instance, be rendered unfavour- 

 able to particular plants, may, on the whole, be 

 eminently suitable to their vigorous growth. That 

 the climate here, with all its moisture, so ditffr- 

 ent to thiit which generally distinguishes the 

 arid habitat of the eucalypti in Au.stralia, is a suitable 

 one for the gums, notwithstanding occasional att.icks 

 of leaf c'isease, may be inferred from the fact that 

 around me, as 1 write, are blue gums which have 

 attained a height of over 60 feet iu live years : the 

 average rate of growth being thus 12 feet per annum 

 or 1 foot per mensem, even at au altitude of close 

 on 0,000 feet. It is not injury to the gums themselves, 

 I fear from the small pock-like spots on the leaves so 

 much as the harm done to the more delicate cinchonas, 

 especially the calisayas and ledgerianas, by the infec- 

 tion which spreads to them and which aS'ects injuriously 

 not only the leaves but the tender tops, which canker 

 off'. Tlie much more robust tea plants can take care 

 of themselves when attacked by the gum spots, and 

 even the more serious blight peculiar to themselves 

 does not seem seriously to affect their strength : they 

 lose foliage but are not debilitated like the unfortun- 

 ate coffee trees under the enfeebling attacks of 

 hemileici vastatric. To verify my statement that some 

 of my seed-bearing tea plants were over 20 ftet in 

 height, I had one of those in my seven-year old grove 

 of best Assam hybrids tested by actual measurement 

 this morning. The ascertained height from tlie ground 

 to the top was 22 feet, and there w.is near by one 

 about a foot higher, while it is believed that a tree in 

 a distant part of the estate is loftier still, probably 23 

 feet high. I should like to hear if taller tea trees 

 exist in Ceylon, and what their ages are. The rate 

 of growth established in the case of the one measured 

 today is 3J feet per annum, or say one-fourth the 

 rate at which the "Australian gums progress. I think 

 I have read of tea trees 40 feet high in the jungles 

 of Assam, but I should like the tost of absolute 

 measurement applied to trees so described. The alleged 

 altitude is certainly not improbable as my own 

 trees look as if they had by no means ceased their 

 upward growth. Some of the stems arc about 4 inches 

 in diameter, that is 1 foot iu circumference near the 

 ground. My big trees ara all from sec.l of good hybrid 

 Assam, which, with us here, has given far better look- 

 in" and more vigorous plants than those resulting 

 from seed of " indigenous " plants, charged at the 

 r.ate of K150 per mauud. I do not feel justified in 

 giving it any further tri.al, while hybiids approaching 

 the Assam parent are so superior to cither the large 

 leaved but delicate "indigenous" Assnu, or the dwarf 

 China plants, with all the varieties between. Col. 

 Money, amongst others, deplores the contamination 



