576 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[January i, 1883. 



hand, which had absolutely no feeding roots ; they 

 had been mauund, but had not sufficient vitality to 

 throw out fresh roots. 



i. — White mils. — Wherever these abound they soon 

 destroy the outer bark and get into every wound in 

 the trees, hollowing out the stems in uiiiny casee. 

 Ants eat cattle manure before it can beuedt coffee ; 

 they can be easily and cheaply destroyed with arsenic 

 mixed into balls with flour and sugar. 



5. — Weeds affect coffee more than formerly, and Ceylon 

 soil cannot support both, 



6. — Jiaih.—Ou old estates a foot of soil has washed 

 away in many places and ihe trees cannot derive projjer 

 nourishment wiih their roots exposed. 



7. — Wind causes more damage than of yore as the 

 trees are not as thick and leafy as they used to 

 be, or so depp-rooted. 



S.— Itiju-dicioiis manuring. — Many fields have ceased 

 to crop well afiir being dosed with unsuitable man- 

 ure, especially liuie. 



9.—0i>er pruiimy. — Old coffee has been seriously 

 damaged by heavy pruning. 



10. — Unjarourabk sennonn are partly to blame, but 

 not so much as is generally supposed. In many in- 

 stant'es blo.''som has not set, although the weatlier has 

 be' n favouiahle, and often when it has set well, 

 the trees liave not sufficient vitality to mature the fruit. 



\\.—titui-vation.^O\A. coffee cannot be expected to 

 I rop well without manure, alter being accustomed to 

 it. lint it is doubtful if it pays nowadays to manure 

 oM C'ffie, as the returns are so very uncertain and 

 uusritiilact'iry. Last year's manuring has, in many cases, 

 gM.u no returns whativer. The appearance of un- 

 iiianni' d colfee on many places is just as fine as 

 tliat_ which was manured last year. 



12. — Bad seidf and plants are partly to blame. In 

 the new disiricts, where there was a difficulty at first 

 m getting plants, village stumps with diseased centres 

 were obtained sometimes from long distances. How can 

 trees so heavily hundicapped at first starting off, be 

 ex|)tctedto last for ever ? 



13. — A larje area of one product ia always attacked 

 by some fungus or insect. Brazil's turn will come. 



The moral to all this is that we slioald not wasle 

 time and money lu vainly trying to cure leaf-disease 

 and to reuov ite old coSee, but to cover our coffee 

 fields with cinchona and tea, from end to end, as 

 soon as possible, or cocoa where it will grow. The 

 fact must be recognized that coffee, as a rule, cannot 

 be depended on to give paying crops, year after 

 year, for an indetinite time to come. It must be 

 superseded by tea, which grows like a weed in almost 

 any soii and already ranks superior to Indian tea in 

 the London market. There will still be a good deal 

 of money wasted over coffee, in the vain attempt to 

 bring it round, by old fogies, and men lately out 

 from England, who cannot realize that most old coffee 

 on the Kandy side is played out, when it looks 

 green, these men will regret that they did not go 

 in for new products, when it is too late. Agents and 

 Mortagag"es should insist on new products being 

 planteil largely on all estates upon which they have 

 enc money. FOREWARNED IS FOREARMED. 



WEEDS ON CO I- FEE E.'^TATES. 

 (From the Madras 31ail.) 

 SiK, — It is pleasing to note, from the letter signed 

 "High Cultiv.ation," that a small glimmering of com- 

 monsfnse should still exist amongst those who try 

 to grow coffee successfully. To most people who 

 !iave been fairly successful in this line, the advant- 

 ages derived from the system of clean weeding are so 

 palpable, that a difference of opinion was a thing 

 unthought of. When men with a scientific training 

 like Mr. Harman, begin lo advooata such views as 



are pronounced in his letters to your journal, it is 

 surely time to show up the hollowness of such reason- 

 ing. It will be time enough for Mr. Harman, when 

 he has had some more experience, to talk of the 

 comparative advantages of his or other sytems. The 

 system he advocates has been tried long enough in 

 this part of the world, and has been found to 

 be a most woeful failure. It is not because of this 

 sytein that Ihe Ouchterlony valley has proved to be 

 so fertile, and thtit this fertility bas been so lasting. 

 It is in spite of tliat system that this is ihe case. 

 How is it that we hear of poor fields, and bare 

 patches which are being plant(d up with cinchona, 

 if this is such a perfect system, for even in this 

 favoured locality (O.V.) these are said to exist ? The 

 argument put forward in sup:ort of weeds prevent- 

 ing wash is such a lu'ile one and so contrary to 

 my experience that 1 should have thought it might 

 be completely ignored. As jour correspondent ha» so 

 ably deinolisheil it, there is no use following it up. 

 To those who advocate the gO'.'d it does to the soil 

 to have the weeds returned to it, 1 would su£{geet 

 that they should grow the two croiis separately," and 

 at the time most advantageous cut down the weeds, 

 and then carry tli- ni out, and apply tbeni to tluir 

 trees, and their soil. We believe in this part of the 

 world that the best way of covering the ground so 

 as to keep the sun's rays from doing ii'jury to the 

 soil, is to cultivate our coffee trees to such an extent 

 that they may act as a screen, and to effect this it 

 is not by allowing weeds of any one kind or another 

 to come up and assist. I go further thau your corre- 

 spondent, and say that weeds are ''ad for ;he coffee, 

 in whatever quantity they are grown. If they are 

 bad in a greater, then according to the " litness of 

 thmga " thry are injurious in a lesser, degree. 

 28th November. Expeeientia Docet. 



Papier-mache Tea Chests. — What we recently 

 recommended, tea chests made of paper appears to be 

 tin fait accompli. We quote from the lndi<jo Planters 

 Oazette : — We hope that those of our readers, wlio have 

 given the invention a trial, will favor us with iheir 

 opinion of "Cantwell's patent tea-chests," and the 

 " paper-macbe lea chests," lately advertised by the 

 inventors. 



Mr. W. G. Sandi.son, a well-knov^Ti Rakwana, 

 Maskeliya, and latterly Kuruvitte (Adam's Peak) 

 planter has returned to Ceylon from a rather curious 

 trip: he and Mr. J. Morrison started for Northern India, 

 via Kandy, Aiiaradhapura, Trincomalee, MuUetivoe, 

 Jaffna, Tuticorin, Travancore (inspecting the coffee, 

 tea and cardamom plantations there), thence back 

 through Tinnevelly, Madura and Trichinopoly to 

 Madras, whence steamer was taken to Calcutta. Mr. 

 Sandison was much pleased with the Darjeeling tram- 

 way wliicli does the transiDort work of the tea- 

 planters admirably, he thinks, and pays 7J per cent 

 on cost. Mr. Sandison saw no piece of tea cultiv- 

 tation in the Darjeeling district equal in appearanc 

 and promise, to that on Hayes estate, Morowaka, 

 and he does not see why tea in Ceylon should not 

 do better than in India. Mr. Morrison got a place on 

 a tea garden, while Mr. Sandison has brought back 

 specially selected seed to plant on the side of Adam's 

 Peak, and, while this is growing in his nurseries, 

 Mr. Sandison starts off liy next French steamer to 

 visit the Straits, Clima, Japan en route home by 

 America. We shall probably hear of this indefatig- 

 able planting traveller (who has already beeu down 

 the Abyssinian and Arabian coasts, visiting Mocha, if 

 not Mecca), as exploring Borneo and, perhaps, running 

 through New Guinea before passing into civilization 

 again ! Mr. Sandison promises to send us some leaves 

 from his diary. 



