S90 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 



[January i, 1883. 



climate is all that is implied in the facts that while 

 Daijeeling aud the Dooars are in the interior of a vast 

 continent and ou or at the foot of the most gigantic 

 mountain system in the world (its very name signify- 

 ing ■' 'J'he Abode of Snow,") and 27° north of the 

 equator : Ceylon is an island, twenty degrees near 

 the equator than Darjeeling and the Dooars and in 

 the track of both monsoons. The climatic conditions, 

 theiefore, so far from being identical are about as 

 opposite as well can be. Warmth and moisture are the 

 prevalent characteristics of our Ceylon climate. Frost 

 is so rare a phenomenon, even on the most ele- 

 rateil forest-land on which tea is cultivated in 

 Ceylon — (iliiiliant estate, above Nuwara Eliya, to wit — 

 as to lie not worth taking into account, while 

 devastating haUetorms, such as frequently play 

 havoc with tea in Northern India and Assam are 

 utterly uIlkno^vll in Ceylon. Such cold aa we experience 

 at this season of the year is powerless to check the 

 gi'owth of tea and om' winter, as far as tea is concerned, 

 is in the heavy rains and strong winds of the South- 

 west moonsoon months, June — August, when the Lushes 

 are pruned. Wilde in most of the tea districts of 

 India the vast bulk cf their rainfall occui'S in from four 

 to six months, ours is faii'ly distributed over the year. 

 Indeed the objection oli'ered in the expeiimental era 

 of the tea enterprize in Ceylon was om' chronically wet 

 climate, and there can be no doubt that m a good 

 many places, on the hUls, the process of "withering" is ren- 

 dered clifficidt by the prevalence of rain and mist. This is 

 a ditBciUty not unknown in Darjeeling in the months, June 

 — September. Had the etlitor uf the Tea Oazette claimed 

 for DarjeeUng and especially for the Dooars, a more fertile 

 Boil than Ceylon can generally shew, we could better 

 understand the argument. Dut we have good tea soil in 

 a healthy climate. Into the Terrai at the foot of the 

 Darjeeling hills the debris of the Himalayas have been 

 poming, perhaps for thousands of centimes, so that the 

 rich black soil is, in places, forty feet deep. The Dooars 

 have much the same conditions of soil and, unhappily of 

 climate. All places at the base of moimtatus in India 

 are insanitary, and even up to 3,000 feet, fever is the 

 frequent result of a climate made up of half the year 

 very heavy rain and for the next half practically none 

 We are now at the connnencement of our ih-y season in 

 Ceylon and om' hill climate is simply delicious, being 

 kept healthy by genial showers of rain at intervals rarely 

 or never one month apart. In soil alone, thevefore, if 

 even in tea sod, is ley Ion inferior to India. Ex- 

 perienced Indian tea planters, like "C'/sa," have after suffi- 

 cient comparison, given the palm of superiority to Ceylon, 

 and Ml'. Sandisou, after having cultivated tea and con- 

 tracted fever in Assam, and visited Darjeeling and all 

 the other great tea districts of India, states decidedly 

 that he saw nothing better than what exists in Ceylon 

 for successful tea production. 



NEW PRODUCTS IN THE LOVVCOUNTRY 



OF CEYLON :— GENERAL REPOBI'. 

 From an Estate Near HEHiRAXcoDA, I2th December 

 18S2. 

 There was something like a failure of the November 

 rains. There were indeed a few heavy showers at 

 intervals, but nothing like the usual fall in this 

 monih; besides that, the dry season tet in fully a 

 fortuight before the usual time. The Coffee fungua 

 has for the time done its worst. There is not a 

 dozen trees of two yeara and upwards that have en- 

 tirely escaped, but the effects are exceediugly various. 

 Willie eome have spots on every leaf, yet they have 

 dropped very few leaves, some of those, with the largest 

 crops, have lost none, while great numbers with iutle 

 or >'0 crop have hardly a leaf left ; eome heavy 

 copped trees, v^hile showing only a few spots, have 

 dropped all their leaves ; while others, equally heavily- 



laden, have lost none. Indeed the attack and its effects 

 seem to have followed no rule except in the cas.i of 

 ore variety : that in evury case is reduced to skeletons, 

 and in the nurseries nut one plant has escaped. 



While the coffee has been suffering so very 

 severely, I am glad to be .-ible to report that the Cocoa 

 has taken a start, and plants, that have lingered 

 between life and death for two yeara have set about 

 making up for lost time. This encourages me to go 

 ou planting, and to this end I am putting down fresh 

 nurseries, as the pods ripen. 



1 said in my last that I did not know what ht. 

 Wax Palms were doing under ground ; I know now 

 I attempted to take them up, with a transplanter, 

 but they refused to be so treated, and on examina- 

 tion I found tliey had sent down a single strong 

 root, witliout a side fibre, to a depth of 18 inches; 

 so, as the dry weather had set in, I e'en left them 

 alone, till the next planting season. 



I was in hopes that nearly all the Nutmegs I had 

 put in the nursery ivould grow. This hope is now 

 rather damped, and I have reconciled myself to a much 

 less favourable result. A few plants are now sixiuches, 

 but eight-tenths have not yet shown above ground. 



I have been troubled in a few cases with nests of black 

 ants among the roots of my trees. The largest establish- 

 ment was attached to one of my finest cacao trees, 

 round which a large circular mound was raised, with a 

 hole in the centre, going down to aa unknown depth. 

 Again and again I tilled in the earth, and trod it down, 

 and again and agriin the pit was opened and e'llarged. 

 Finally I tilled in, to within two inches of the surface, 

 and (lustL'd a pinch of Paris purple on the surface and 

 filled in the earth. In a few days Ifound the intel- 

 ligent creatures, had removed their works from round 

 the stem to a distance of six inches. An unusual bill 

 of mortality was presented among the workers in 

 the mine, and without the investigations of a scientific 

 committee, or a grant from the treasury, they at once 

 elid the right thing — opened a new shaft. Knowing now 

 the weak point of a clever foe, wecau deal witli him. 



A box of pink powder was sent to me, to apply 

 to my Orange plants. I have applied it but as it was 

 not the season of either crickets or caterpillars, I 

 can give no report on its effects. The delicate nerves 

 of moths may be affected to avoidance of a fa- 

 vourite food for its youug, by carbolic fumes, but 

 the cricket stomach is too robust to be turned by 

 any such trifle as carbolic acid in whatever form 

 administered. Like the cacao, the orange is rather hard 

 to get up, and only a small percentage of the seedlings 

 ever get into form, but such as do, grow with 

 sufficient rapidity afterwards. 



A box couiaining seeds, packed in earth, has reached 

 me, but what they are, or if there is more than one 

 kind, I have received no intimatiou. I have however 

 put them down, and will wait till they grow, to lind 

 out what they are, if I learn nothing in the mean- 

 time. [A letter followed the sago seeds from Singa- 

 pore and the talipot seeds from the Superintendent 

 of the Tropical gardens, Heneratgoda,] 



There would have been no great coffee crop, ou the 

 present occasion, even if the fungus had not made 

 such a raid. On the two-year old coffee, there is a 

 mere sprinkling, and, though the few hundred older 

 trees have a good — in many oases a heavy — crop, 

 estimated from two to five pounds, of clean coffee, 

 miny of them are left without a lenf^ before a cherry 

 is ripe, and we can only wait and see what comes 

 of it. According to "W."the leaf is of very little 

 consequence, and it can make little iliffereuce, 

 whether it falls a few mouths sooner or later. It 

 is true I have hitherto held a deep rooted preju- 

 dice in favour of a fair allowance of healthy leaf, but 

 I am ready to give a fair hearing, to any comforting 

 theory in the preseut sorrowful circumstanots. 



