Feb ruary r, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



621 



it so liable to be swept away by the heavy rains, 

 till the poor coffee has nothing lelt to feed on, F.ut 

 given an estate clean Irom the commencement — and 

 there are many such — there can be little or no 

 substance remnved from the soil by weeds, bee use 

 there are so lew to remove, the cnffee having all along 

 got the benefit of everything that is in the soil. On 

 a well-weeded auil well-drained estate, there need 

 scarcely l)*i any lonsening of the soit, and the est 

 of 87 cent- per "cre tor weeding and siiokering monthly 

 is not niuch. The expense of hacking down the weeds 

 once or twice a year would prnbahly cost about as 

 much as the constant monthly or three weekly vvei ding. 

 If wee<i3 do no harm, why do we read of the {garden 

 of the sluggard? Why should rairtet gardeners, and 

 gardeu'.'rs of ;dl kinds of produf-e, and farmers, not allow 

 their vineyards, their oru^erics, thiir potatoe or tnrnip 

 fields, or their wheat, barley and oats to grow ujj full 

 of weeds and brambles ? I have heard some of the old 

 planters say: " I used to get first r^te crops wlien the 

 weeds were overthe coffee." "Yes," I reply, "but what 

 did your m;iinoty weeding bring the estates to? Mortal 

 grief after a few years, soil gone, and sdireely any crop, 

 and final abandonment of large areas ; whereas had 

 the estates heen kept clean from the first, and well 

 drained they might have been in good condition yet, 

 apart from the 'eduction of the crops by Hemikia 

 which no one could provide against." For any one 

 to let a fine clean estate into a mess with weeds i^, 

 I suspect, a giave error and one that will be bitterly- 

 repented of some day. — Youis faithfully, 



AUDI ALTERAM PARTEiW. 



SEED FKOM SHAVED CINClriONA TREES 



OF MATURE AGE— WHY OBJECTED TO? 

 Central Province, 3rd Jan. 1883, 



Dear Sir, — Can you or any of the readers of 

 yonr valuable paper explain the objection generally 

 entertained agninst cinchona seed from trees six to 

 seven years old, which have been shaved ? 



I have raised plants from the seed of shaved 

 trees, and have been equally successful as with other 

 seed. 



Provided the tree has renewed its bark, and is in 

 a healthy condition. 1 fail to see why it should 

 yield seed inferior to that of an unshaved tree. — 

 Yours truly, NURSERYMAN. 



[We can see no valid objection to the use of seed 

 from such trees as our correspondent refers to, pro- 

 vided they are healthy and vigorous, — Ed,] 



COFFEE AND WEEDS, 

 Dear Sir, — Was it force of cu'cumstances that kept 

 estates weedy in f oimer times ? The coffee enterprize 

 was couuneueed by a few who knew little or nothing 

 about it. After some years they got some experienced 

 coffee planter's from .Jamaica. These planters gained their 

 knowledge from the growth of experience, not of forty 

 years but nearer a century, and if they considered it 

 proper to keep the land clean, was it impossible for 

 them to do so? See what it said about "covered vs. 

 bare gi'ound" in the Tropical Af/riciilturht, vol, 1. 

 page .343. Galaha estate used to give flue crops and used 

 to be very weedy and the then owner, in opening Kit- 

 toolamtiUa intended to get better ci'ops and kept Kit- 

 toolamidla clean from the very first and even put the 

 cooly luies on the Patua, so that there should be no 

 harbour for weeds in the coolies' gardens in the estate ; 

 and yet, though Kittoolamxdla had the advantage in ')eing 

 better sheltered, stUl it never gave as good crops as 

 Galaha previous to the introduction of weeding contracts. 

 It has become the fashion ivith some people to run 

 down coffee and cry up tea. It has been stated that tea 

 pays 30 per cent and it has also been stated that tea 

 yields COO lb, per acre and that it costs 40c per lb, 

 79 



to place in Colombo ; so that tea costs R240 per acre to 

 cultivate. Now, if we could get the means to cultivate 

 our coffee as we think proper at the rate of R210 per 

 acre, would the profit be only 30 per cent. It would be 

 nearer 200 per cent, if not over, — Yoiu-s tndj-, 



G, F, HALLILEY, 



TEA IN CEYLON : WHEN AND HOW TO 

 PICK ; WITH HINTS ON WITHERING, &c, 



2<»th Dec, 1882, 

 Dear Sir, — Hoio to pick is now fairly well understood 

 in Ceylon, and but little need be said on this head. 

 Still there are a few important points that I think 

 have not been sufficiently explained in Col. Money's 

 or any other book on tea to enable herirnnern to 

 teach themselves, and it was with the hope of sup- 

 plying this d fioiency that I first thought of penning 

 this letter. First, then, the shoots should be nipped 

 off just above the third leaf, taking the latter with 

 the shoot, but being careful to leave a small piece 

 on to protect the bud at its base. A part of the 

 next leaf may also be taken by a separate motion 

 of the finger and thumb, if soft enough lo make tea. 

 Coolies are fond of picking just below the third leaf, 

 or (if warned to pick fine) just below the second 

 leaf, thus leaving a bate stem from half to one inch 

 long on the trees : this shouhl be checked as much 

 as possible. For not only do these give an unsightly 

 appearance to the bushes, but they also retard the 

 next flush, as they do not die for some time, and 

 the sap is not diverted immediately to the bud be- 

 low. But, besides this, if picked just below the 

 second leaf, neaily an inch of soft succulent stem 

 which makes as good tea as the leaves and ranks 

 with the highest (as it all goes with the pekoe) ia 

 lost to the outturn which, for the whole season, means 

 many hundreds of lb, Agiin, if picked too low, 

 the stem is too hard to make tea, and has to be 

 picked out of the made tea, and usually the soft part 

 that would have made good tea goes with the hard. 

 In either case a serious loss is incurred. 



When the leaf is brought in it should be care- 

 fully examined in the following manner : — Ist, see 

 that the shoots consist of not more than two leaves 

 (besides the pekoe tip), and that the stems break 

 the moment an attempt to break them with the finger 

 and thumb is made. If they bend without breaking, 

 they are too liard to make tea. and the coolie.* must 

 be warned not to pick so low ; 2nd, see thut the 

 separate leaves are not quite whole, but have been 

 nipped across : if these are whole, they have been 

 bodily torn from the stems and the bud at their 

 base will prohably be injured, and being left unpro- 

 tected it will take longer to develop into a shoot, 

 which will be, comparatively speaking, a weak one. 

 But it is not enough to examine the leaf when 

 brought in : the fields should be visited, at least, 

 once a day. This is necessary, because coolies are not 

 only careless in missing shoots, but they are al.so fond 

 of pickina off the small undeveloped shoots which 

 properly belong to the next flush, but numbers of 

 which are always to be seen on the bushes varying 

 from J to Ik inch long (it is these intermediate flushes 

 that maizes it advisable to go over the fields every eight 

 or ten days, whenever practicable) : if these are picked 

 in any number, much liarm is done to the trees and 

 the yield coirsiderably lessened, but they are not 

 easily recognized in the factory, unless they have 

 been bodily torn from the parent stem, when tliey 

 will have the smooth ed^ed leaf attached by which 

 they are easily recognized (the bottom, or first leaf of 

 a new shoot has not got serrated edges, bat is smooth 

 and round and quite foreiijn in appearance to the 

 ordiimry tea leaf; it is nsitally small, but M often 

 more than an inch long, and as large as an ordinary 



