520 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[December i, 1882 , 



Hemileia. — The spreading of the fatal fungus, 

 during these two months lias been heart-breaking ; 

 I need not attempt description, every one who has 

 seen a Liberian coffee field badly touched with hemi- 

 leia (and alas they are not few) knows what it is. 

 Two months ago, I had as fine a lot of nursery 

 plants as heart could desire, today I have hardly one 

 out of 20,000 unaffected. 



The Mole Cricket. — I thought I had during past 

 years become well acquainted with the seasons and 

 habits of this pest. In past years, they appeared in 

 March and September and continued to operate for 

 ten weeks, on each occasion, while the remaining 

 months were entirely free from them. This year they 

 did not come iu March, but began the campaign in 

 July, just as 1 had planted out 6,000, and now at the 

 end of four months they have not ceased to cut 

 plants, some with stems as thick as a goose quill. 

 On some spots they have made a clean sweep and 

 altogether I have lost more than two-thirds of tlie 

 plant- put out, on one side of the property, while on 

 the other, I have not lost above seven or eight per 

 cent. It is not only coffee plants that have suffered 

 this season, ninety per cent of the cocoa plants put 

 out in July were destroyed, and of large strong 

 plants put out in October, a large percentage have 

 been out already ; out of 300 Peruvian cotton plants, 

 I have lost nearly one-half, and getting up a kitchen 

 garden is utterly out of the question. 



Cocoa. — About a score of the oldest, and best 

 sheltered trees are bearing, from one to fifty pods, and 

 some hundreds are promising to do something in the 

 course of next year, and since the winds have been 

 moderate, the plants are pushing out fresh leaf, 

 and when they once get into form, they get on 

 rapidly though on some exposures, and on some 

 soils, their cultivation seems hopeless, I am laying 

 down fresh nurseries as the pods come ripe. I have 

 heard it suggested that the youth of the trees may 

 be a drawback in respect to the vigour of progeny, 

 but I can see no good reason why it should be so. 

 If I find a good large pod full of plump firm nibs, 

 I cannot see any reason for rejecting it, bucause it is 

 the first fruit of its parent tree. 



I have down a Nutmegs nursery of 800 seeds that 

 are just beginning to come up, and a large proportion 

 of them seem to have germinated. I am preparing 

 land for them by leaving a good deal of shade ; if by 

 and bye it should be found they do not want it, 

 it can be removed. The survivors of a few plants 

 I put nut on another place, three and a half years ago, 

 have been flowering for the last three mouths, but only 

 male flowers have yet appeared. 



The Wax Palm is a very slow coach, six months, 

 and only uiie leaf like a large blade of grass. What 

 the plants may be doing underground I do not know, 

 but above ground they are precisely where they were 

 two months ago, a few germinated seeds of this (ilant 

 that were sent to me, all perished, though the greatest 

 care was bestowed on them. 



Since I sowed (upwards of twelve months ago) there 

 has been no six days without rain and the Cardamom 

 plants have continued to perish, they died in the 

 seed beds under a roof, they died in the sheltered beds 

 outside to which they were transplanted, and they 

 have continued to die when put out, under moderate 

 shade. Five per cent, of the lot survive, and the 

 strongest have thrown out a multitude of shoots from 

 the root, all taking an angle of forty-five, nud all 

 rotting off before they get a foot above the ground. 

 I chose a piece of ground on which the jungle ginger 

 (a kindred plant) grew naturally. I do not like any 

 plant I take in hand to baffle me and I will still 

 fight with it, though the battle is not always to the 

 brave. 



The different species of the Citecs family do well 



here, if they can be got up to a height of eighteen 

 inches, but it is extremely dilfioult, to rear thein 

 out of danger ; what with the variety of pooohies, 

 that prey on them, I think mvself lucky if I rear 

 one in twenty of the seedlings. The Rambutan 

 thrives well, and seems hitherto insect-proof. I have 

 got some fifty of them about the field, getting on 

 much better than I expected. 



Six months ago I mentioned, that I was inclined 

 to try if the Pepper Vine would cling to the bare 

 rock. I had never seen it do so myself, but some of 

 my Singhalese neighbours assured me it did. I put 

 myself into their hands, they brought six coolie loads 

 of vines, cut them into one foot lengths, and planted 

 them in handfulls at the base of the boulders. I 

 demurred to the quality of the cuttings, as being 

 mostly too old, and to their mode of treating them, 

 but they assured me they knew what they were 

 about, and I left them to their own devices ; for 

 months not a bud appenred, and I gave it up as a 

 failure, but lately a few of them have taken a 

 start, and are getting on. They show some reluc- 

 tance to attach themselves to the rock, and seem 

 rather inclined to trail along its base. I am, how- 

 ever, coaxing them to climb, and hope to succeed, 

 in clothing the multitude of bare boulders with 

 profitable foliage. It is a curious fact, that on some 

 of the cuttings that have never opened a bud, 

 there are strings of fruit, that seem likely to ripen. 



Vanilla seems to take well with our soil and 

 climate, the cuttings put down in April, are (some 

 of them) three feet high, and I think that cultiva- 

 tion is likely to succeed, if it be found worth 

 while to extend it. 



Nothing grows like the Ceara rubber ; in twelve 

 months it is twenty feet high, and shades with its 

 branches a circle of equal diameter ; were it not 

 that the seed is the most intractable in the vege- 

 table kingdom, it would soon be a weed, as com- 

 mon r>s lantana itself. The grand question still to 

 be solved, is, whether the produce will pay for col- 

 lection. I suspect it wants a drier climate than 

 South-west Ceylon to render its sap rich enough, 

 to discharge the cost of labour connected with it. 



ASSAM HYBRID AND CHINA TEAS IN CEYLON. 



In response to the "Assam Planter" whose 

 letter appears below, we may say that there is some 

 good China tea on Abbotsford from seed which 

 came from Darjiling, and which we declined to uproot 

 when advised to doso. But the vast majority of the plants 

 are first class hybrid, mainly from seed from the Assam 

 Company and nothing can be more satisfactory than 

 the growth and yield, which an Assam planter who 

 recently visited the estate will testify. Our corre- 

 spondent must remember that an average of 5,000 feet 

 within 7' of the Equator, is a very different thing to 

 27° away from it. An altitude of 5,000 feet in Ceylon 

 is about the equivalent of a little over 3,000 in Dar- 

 jiling, with reference to mean temperature. 



TEA; 



ITS PRESENT AND FUTURE IN 

 CEYLON. 



Sir, — A correspondent, recently quoting from Col. 

 Money's 3rd edition of " Tea Manufacture and 

 Culture," speaks ag.iinst the planting of tea at high 

 elevations. I have not myself had the pleasure of 

 reading any one of Col. Money's essays, but from all 

 I hear they are well worth perusing ; yet at the sams 

 time I do not hold with that gentleman. His re- 

 marks, that tea will not do at high elevations, are 

 disproved by the cases of Darjeelintr, NyneeTal, Almora, 

 Dhera Dhoou, etc. These are places where tea has 

 been long cultivated, and, if the yield of these places 

 were put before the public, acre per acre, it will be 



