October i, 1882.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



3^9 



^otiif^spondeno^. 



To the Editor of the Ceylon Observer. 

 KOLA NUT AND COCA. 

 155, Fenchurch Street, London, E.C., July 27th, 1882. 



Dear Sir, — The kola nut (Cola acuininata) which I 

 Introduced into Ceylon is likely to answer well. The 

 price on the west coast of Africa has now gone up 

 to £100 the ton for the nuts, and a house in London 

 have found that they can use them with advantage 

 and would gladly purchase any that they can find. 



The leaves of the Erythroxylon coca are now 

 in demand, but your article in the last Tropical Aijri- 

 cullurist shews that the leaves very soon lose their- 

 active principle. It was for this reason that I have 

 had a preparation made for me in South Amei-ica from 

 the gi-een leaves, and this has entirely convinced the 

 physicians in the country of the great value of the extract. 



As there are plants in the Botanical Gardens in 

 Ceylon, no doubt you will get a supply of seed from 

 them as well as cutitngs. — Yours truly, . 



THOS. CHRISTY. 



WHAT AILS OUR (CEYLON) COFFEE 

 TREES ?— No. IV. 



Sir, — Orub has been declared by some of our 

 planters to have been a more potent factor in the 

 failure of our c. flfee crops than even the ubiquitous 

 hemileia ! Let us then inquire what part it has 

 played of late years in our plautations. 



Grub has been known and recognized amongst the 

 enemies of the coB'ee tree since the earliest iiifancy 

 of the coffee enterprize. Its incursions, in former 

 times, were confined to particular spots of verj" small 

 area. Groups of 10 to 100 trees were attacktd, 

 and always with fatal effect, on estates in every 

 distriot of the country. Occasionally several such 

 plots would be attacked siraul aneously in diffi rent 

 parts of the same estate, and, in such cases, they 

 would Decision serious temporary alarm. The worst 

 of these attacks were, however, of brief duration, and 

 they never proved a permanent discouragement of the 

 enterpnze 1 am not aware uf any instance, until 

 the last few years, in wliioli any breadth of land was so 

 affected. Even now, the cases in which lar^e areas 

 aro .Tttacked occur, I believe, in only three of our 

 coffee districts. Elsewhere, so far as my knowledge 

 and observation serve me, ttie modern incur-ious 

 CO'tinue to be uf the same limited (Xt>iit as formerly ; 

 and they have become, I think, less frequent now 

 than lliey were .SO years ago. 



It is |irobable that the insects which hare com- 

 mitted the re>ent depredations on such an alarming 

 scale in the districts of Dnnbubi*, Dikoya and Mas* 

 keliya are not of the Si>me speiies a^ those formerly 

 known, and which continue occasionally to visit the 

 otiier districts. Tneir attacks differ, not only in 

 extending over vastly lai-ger anas, and enduring ftr 

 amnch longer period, but they are fortumtely much less 

 fatal. The attacks of our old enemy Wire generally 

 discovered and recogn zed by the suddt-n death 

 of their earliest victims ; whereas the grub whii h 

 infests the large young districts specilied, rarely 

 kills the trees oui right, and never with the -udden- 

 nes «hich characterizes attacks of giub elsewhere. 

 Nevertheless the formidable nature of its depred- 

 ations places it in the very foremost rank of the 

 enemies of our enterprize. It has undoubtedly ag- 

 gravated the evils of the decade to a most serious 

 exteiit ; still the fact must not lie overlooked that 

 even in the districts where it has committed such 

 hayoc the infeitility of the coffee trees has not 

 been cuuiiutid to the infected parts, but baa mani- 



fested itself universally, and has been subject in 

 these districts, as elsewhere, only to the same kind 

 and degree oiexceplion as has oeonired so unac- 

 countably in the oldest and worst districts ! 



A local expert is of opinion tliat the grub which 

 has infested these young districts has been attracted 

 by a fungus on the roois of the trees, which, if 

 correct, would prove the pest to be of a secondary 

 or consequential character. In any case, however 

 there is no such coincidence between the attacks of 

 grub and the infertility of our coffee trees, as 

 would establish the relation of cause and effect. It 

 is impossible therefore that grub can have orioinated 

 the universal failure of the fruit-bearing po°ver of 

 our coffee trees, or have had any primary connexion 

 therewith. 



The clearing of fo^e-it land has, at one time or 

 other, been brought forward, in almost every country 

 whe;e it has been extensively carried out, as a suffici- 

 ent reason to account for almost every evil that 

 has afterwards beset the agriculture of those countries 1 

 And it is now adduced as the primary cause of the 

 ailment of our coffee trees ! •Weeds must, therefore 

 that it should take its place along with other al- 

 leged originators of our discomfiture in this discus, 

 siou. It is a vexed question, and one which crops 

 up continually in agricultural circles, with ' its 

 youth renewed for each fresh advL-nt ! It seems 

 always at hand ready to answer for anything 

 or everything that concerns the welfare or the 

 discouragement, alike, of the agriculturist. It meets 

 yon at every turn of your quest, whether you 

 be in search of an old friend that has disappeared or 

 a new enemy tliat has entered the field 1 ' 



When God sent man upon the earth, He commanded 

 him to " subdue anil replenish" it. This command, if it 

 had any meaning at all, signified that man was to 

 convert it to his use. Accordmyly, man has cleared 

 away the noxious and unproductive vegetation that 

 oumbird the ground, and has rc/dmis/ied, fiot denuiled, 

 it; tuiniug its wastes into smiling fields, and re cioih- 

 ing its unwholesome junges with fiuitful and salubri- 

 ous . vegetation ! Wherever man, in obedience to his 

 divine mission, has subduid and replenished the earth 

 tertility, salubrity and p Oi|.erity have rewarded his 

 labours, and wasteful growths, rttadly clim.tes and 

 barrenness linger still in the yet unsubdued and un- 

 replenished wilds of the world. The Btatement made 

 by a correspi udent, that a long list uf countries, which 

 he enumerates, have been ruined by the mete clearing 

 of their forests, is opposed to world wiiie experience 

 to tlie history of the human race, and to the oider of 

 Providence. If, indeed, they have been i uiued, their ruin 

 cannot be attributed to a cause whicli, in all the range 

 of human experience, has proved to be hnneficent alike 

 in its operation and its origin. Let those who make 

 snch statements prove them. As for me, I repudiate 

 them as contrary to oommoiisense, and dishonouring 

 to divine authority. 



It is not denied thai climates have changed, are chang- 

 ing, and must ever change. Change is life ; stagnation 

 dtalh. The maintenance of life demands unceasiog 

 change, and when the cycle oi life-chan(jen ciase?, a cycle 

 of corruptive changes inaugurates new life in other forms 

 So, conmic life maintains itself by change inces-ant but 

 ever obedient to laws ordained by Him who bade 

 his creature, man, microcosm, subdue and replenish 

 His e.ii th. There is no conflict in His laws, and thougu 

 their harmony may not be evident to our poor 

 vision he would be a fool mde.d who would dis- 

 trust God's wisdom on no higher testimony than that 

 of his own judgment. The arid deserts of the earth, 

 not less than its most fertile plains, owe their cou-' 

 dition to meteoiological laws, wholly independent 

 of the sandy carpet of the one, as of the luxuriant 

 ierbage of the other. 



