January i, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



573 



To the Editor of the Ceylon Observer. 



PLANTING AND THE LABOUR DIFFICULT'^ 

 IN FIJI. 

 Alplia Estate Taviuni, Fiji, 17ih Oct. 1882. 



DearSik,— I am too bui<T just at present to write 

 you a long letter of bow things are going on. 

 I may just mention though that unfavourable 

 weather has «poilecl one of the finest blossoms here 

 I have ever seen. All the coffee was literally one mass 

 of spike when strong winds set in just I efore it 

 burst and destroyed it. I was very much disajjiomted, 

 as the previous weather was all tliat one won d wish 

 for ripening woo.!, &c. The laliour recruiting season 

 is nearly over ;m"St of the vessels chartt-red and owned 

 by private persons and Companies have returned full, 

 but Libour will nevertheles be very scarce amongst 

 small planters who have not the meats to charter 

 vessels. The Oovernment only managed to get one 

 vessel this season, which up to date has made one trip, 

 bringing in about 35 men. .lust picture tbi^ to your- 

 self and imanine what straits all those are in for labour 

 who trust, d to the Government to get them men and 

 who are unalle, as I have already remarked, for want 

 of funds, to charter vessels. Fijians fortunately are 

 engaging more freely this year and a great number of 

 the planters referred to have been to Vite Levu and 

 some of tl'e other islands, engaging them. The wages 

 given arc much higher now than they used to be and 

 the recruiting ixpeuses are more. The Government 

 have already put an adv ertisenient in the papers (which 

 I herewith enclose) informing planters there was a diffi- 

 culty in procuring vc.-els for next recruiting season and 

 also' that the passage money will, in all probaliility, 

 be higlier th.Tu it has ever be u. This year it w s 

 estimated at £16 per herd. When I came out 4 years 

 !igo it was just about half tiiis. So far as Polynesian 

 labour is concerned, it's a blue lookout indeed. Then 

 as reganls Indian, it is little better. Two vessels came 

 in this yeav, bringing a'o.ut 900 out of 1,200 applied 

 for. On application £6 a head has to be paid down 

 now and the balance cf passage money, whicli is estim- 

 ated at i'2-2 per head, on allotment. This kind of 

 labour, you will see at once, wants a lot of coin, a 

 scarce thing as a rule out here. The Indians are not 

 at all popular and would not be engaged if Poly- 

 nesans were plentiful. In view of what I have written 

 about labour, its scarcity and dearness, it seems to me 

 to be d.-iubtful whether the planters who have made 

 contracts to grow cane for the several mills which are 

 being erected, will be ablft to make a good thing of 

 it at lOs a ton for cane delivered ou the river bank. 

 12s a ton has already been offered by one firm. Leaf- 

 disease is keeping off. — Yours truly, 



A. J. STEPHENS. 



CRYSTALLISABLF, SUGAR FROM THE 

 COCONUT TREE. 

 Kurunegala, 30th November, 1882. 

 Dear Sir, — I was greatly amused to read, in one 

 of your issues .somewhere in October, an article 

 copied from the Bomhai/ Gaztlte, which claims f^r a 

 Dr. Fonseca of Goa. the discovery of crystallisable 

 sugar in the toddy of the coconut tree, whilst the 

 peasantry of Ceylon have been making it time out of 

 miuu. 



I am sending you by this day's post some sugar 

 obtained from Madampe, "here it is found in almost 

 every peasant's hut, and will leave to you to decide 

 whether Dr. Fonseca or the peasants of Ceylon should 

 be credited with the discovery. 

 73 



The process of manufacture followed by them is 

 as follous ; — 3Iera, or sweet toddy, which is made 

 from the ordinary toddy by putting a few pit ccs of 

 halpotii, the bark of tlie rateria Indica, cut small into 

 the pot that receives it frum the flower to prevent 

 its alcoholic fermentation and thus retain its sugar 

 unchanged, is boiled down to a thick syrup called 

 pent. 'V\\epeni, when cool, is poured into clean earthen- 

 ware vessels and placed on the duina (vih\a\\ unswers 

 to the hob in an English household) where u slow 

 evaporation and a deposition of crystals take place. 

 Sugar (veil hakurn) is also made in (»alle and Matara 

 from the toddy of kitool palm {caryo'n urens). By 

 using the vacuum pan and other appliances of modern 

 sugar-making, the production of " coconut sugar " 

 couhl be made a profitable industry for Ceylon, and 

 I hope this will attract the attention of our capitalists. 

 I write the above to claim for our peasants the dis- 

 covery of crystallisable sugar in coconut toddy. — Yours 

 truly, A. W. JAYEVVARDENE. 



THE CURE FOR "WHAT AILSOUbl 



COFFEE?" 



Dear Sir, — The so-called leaf-disease is from three 

 causes. The first and most grievous cause is the fre- 

 quent shocks the tree receives from the sudden dry- 

 ing-up of the moisture in the soil, tbroiigli the soil 

 not being shaded. After a spell of dry weather and 

 then a little rain, blossom commences to come out. 

 When the moisture in the soil is suddenly dried up, 

 that blossom is checked, and has to w.iit for more 

 rain, and as often as not opens in rain, and the 

 fructifying principle is washed off ; and then people 

 wonder at what has become of tlie lilossom. Ii the 

 soil was shaded and the moisture from the fiist ram 

 allowed to evaporate geutly, that blossom would have 

 had no check, but would have gone on and opened, 

 and in all likelihood the next rain would have 

 brouaht out another blossom. Again after the 

 berries have formed, any sudden change from «et to 

 bright sunshine causes a shock to the tree and 

 away drops a larjje portion of the crop. It is 

 the drying-up of the moisture in the soil that causes 

 the tree to be unable to ripen its crop and almost 

 kills it in the effort, and want ol moisture in ilie soil 

 makes the cherries hard and deficient in succulent 

 matter, and want of moisture in the soil causes so 

 many malformed beans. Is it a wonder then that 

 the nowaday planter is so often out in his estimate 

 and is it a wonder that some of the V. A 's divide 

 their estimates by three, to make sure of being some- 

 where rear the mark ? The wonder is that we get 

 any crops at all, and what we get is chance and not 

 a certainty. In former days a planter could tell, 

 even before the blossom, what crop he was going to 

 get, and he was seldom twenty bushel < out in his 

 estimate. Nowadays a planter is not certain what 

 he is going to get", till he has it in st.ire. The 

 only cure to prevent the ciffee getting such 

 frequent shocks (Ijy which disease is caused) is to 

 shade the soil, and what can we get better and 

 cheaper than weeds? If the soil is shaded and 

 the trees 1 e>'ome diseased, then the cause is impov- 

 erished soil and the only cure is manure. Another 

 cause by which coti'ee gets dise; sed is neglect and 

 with which "e ouijht to have nothing to do, as it 

 ought not to be allowed. So that the cure for leaf- 

 dis'ease is shading the soil and nianure. The foree of 

 circumetaiices of former dnys proves to us that the 

 proper way to cultivate coffee is with a carpet of weeds ; 

 the enforced cultivation of latter days [iioves to 

 us that coffee will not do without a carpet of weeds; 

 and the want of that carpet has '.rought on diseases, 

 ami is what ails our co9ee. In my last letter, I 

 asked you to get some of jour readers to try an 



