6i4 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[February i, iS*^. 



the £i>rm9r ia 41,507 acres on an assessment of R 

 76,rJ9 and by the latter 35,967 acres piyiug an as- 

 sessment of R6(5,440. Besides which much coffee 

 is grown by the latter on their banes (plots of forest 

 laud attached to rice fields free of assessment) and 

 cardamoms in the Orhat forests, the receipts from 

 which are credited to the he:»d of Forests, The 

 average size of each estate held by Europeans is 196 

 acres ° and by Natives 8 acres. Of the whole area 

 40,350 acres are bbaring, producing 6,125 tons of 

 coffee or on an average 3 cwt. the acre, but the 

 average yii-ld in most European estates which are 

 ranch" better cultivated thau Native estates, reaches 

 7 cwt. the acre. Taking Jthe average cost of cultiv- 

 ation at KIJO per care on European estates, and R. 

 40 on Native, each cwt of coffee costs R27. The 

 number of persons resident on European coSee estates 

 and large Native estates is 26,893 according to the 

 returns obtained in the last census which was taken 

 on the 17th February 1881, but is about 10,000 more 

 during the ijickiug season. The cost of cultivation at 

 the rate per acre assumed above comes to nearly 32 

 lakhs of rupees. Of this not less than 60 per cent on 

 an average may be estimsited as having been paid to 

 labourers in wages. Calculating that 26,893 labourers, 

 ■which is about the average number employed through- 

 out the year, received R6 each per mensem, upwards 

 of nineteen lakhs of rupees were expended for labour 

 during the year. The value of the coffee prodHced, 

 taking the selling price to be, on the average, R30, 

 per cwt. on the spot, was about 36 lakhs of rupees. 

 Owing to the demand for labor on coffee estates and 

 the necessity that exists of importing laborers from 

 Mysore to meet it, high wages obtain, the rates being 

 equal to those given in most hill-stations. Notwith- 

 standing that the famine in Mysore swept away 

 nearly a million of the class of population from which 

 labor is drawn, there was no difficulty in obtainiug 

 it throughout the year, and at times the labor-supply 

 exceeded the demand. The Public Works Depart- 

 ment had no difficnlty in this respect, although 

 their requirements were on a larger scale than usual. 

 Doubtless the famine compelled numbers of the agri- 

 cultural class, who were on the brink of poverty, to 

 seek more remunerative work as coolies, and the season 

 in IVlysore opening unfavorably numbers more were 

 induced to seek elsewhere the means of meeting their 

 land tax. Large bands of coolies came up from the 

 western coast also to do , piece work. Cariage was 

 abundant, and is likely to prove more so owing to the 

 extension of the Railw.ay to Mysore, cattle were com- 

 paratively free from murrain duriug the past year, 

 consequently the los.ses accoiiliug tu the tulukwar 

 returns were only 3,811 head or 707 less than in the 

 previous year. The realizations from Native coffee f -11 

 from R580 to K500 the tnn owing to the glut of that 

 berry in the home market. Much of the coffee ex- 

 ported to England has however realized good prices 

 there. The price of cardamoms fell from R2-5 to 

 R2-2 the lb. The price of 2nd sort rice, which is the 

 staple food of the country, was K3-7-8 the roaund of 

 80 lb. or RO 8-5 the maund higher than in the year 

 previous. Ragi and horse-gram, which are grown only 

 in Eastern Coorg, also rose from RI-9-7 and Rl-9 

 per maund to E2-0-0 and R2-1-0 respectively."— ,Morfras 

 Weekly Mail. 



FACTS ABOUT CINCHONAS IN CEYLON. 



A correspondent, loose in his chronology, wi-ote 

 to the local " Times " to state that four acres of a 

 ooffee estate were planted up with cinchona siiccirubra 

 in 1861, the very year in which the seed of the plant 

 was first introduce'd into Ceylon. Dr. Trimen, there- 

 fore, had an easy task jn showing that this con-e- 



spondent was out in his date ; — by three or four 

 years, at least, we should say. We remember visit- 

 ing Hakgala in April 1865, and Mr. MacNicol, 

 was only then producing cuttings in any quantity. 

 But we are prepared to believe much more wonderful 

 stories than that of 4 acres planted with succtrubra 

 in 1861, if a former member of our mercantile com- 

 munity, who recently returne d to Ceylon, can prove 

 what ho has asserted that Mr. John Armitage, senior, 

 planted cinchona trees on Kh'klees estate, in Uda- 

 pussellawa, some score of years earlier than the 

 4acre date. Our m orning contemporary having some- 

 how succeeded in placing Dr. Trimen on the horns 

 of a dilemma, the leanied Director has writ- 

 ten a letter for the double purpose of re- 

 lieving himself from an uncomfortable position 

 in the domains of logic and vindicatmg the reputa- 

 tion for purity of cinchona auccinibra. Tlie plants of 

 this species, originally raised at Hakgala were from 

 seed collected in America by Spence and forwarded 

 through Markham. We are surprised to learn that 

 any one should charge succimbra with being the origin 

 of hybrids, in any other way than by the influence 

 of its poUeu on the blossom of C. officinalis when 

 that species had been introduced and had flowered 

 and seeded. Personally we have never heard a 

 planter affirm that cuttings supplied to him from 

 Hakgala as succimbra, turned out anything but 

 veritable red bark, pure and simple. The reputation 

 of C. officinalis is very different, and the power of 

 a strong sporting propensity denied as equal to the 

 production of the robust intermediate cinchonas, now 

 so much in favour, it seems to us that there is no 

 escape from the position that some of the seed which 

 came to Ceylon as the seed of C. officinalis, if not 

 some of the plants, were the offspring of hybridized 

 trees on the Andes. We knew that, generally speak- 

 ing, the various species of cinchona have their habit- 

 ats widely apart, but considering the vast extent of 

 the American cinchona region, all the probabilities 

 are in favour of succirubra trees having been within 

 infecting distance of crown bark trees from which 

 seed was sent to India and Ceylon. It is certainly 

 a fact that amongst the earliest batches of so-called 

 officinalis cuttings received from Hakgala, planters 

 found when the plants became trees, eveiy variety of 

 the hybrids to which Dr. Trimen wishes that the provi- 

 sional name of robiista should be applied. It is also a 

 fact that the hybrids wliich Mr. Gammie has cherished in 

 British SikhUn and three varieties of wliich promise to 

 be so valuable, appeared in nm-series sown with seed sent 

 by Dr. Thwaites from Ceylon. Of coiu-se the seed, it 

 gathered from Ceylon plants could have been hybridized 

 here, hut it does not seem as if that could be the 

 case ^rith the officinalis plants the first cuttings from 

 which produced every variety of plant from the small 

 and sharp-leaved angnstifolia to the broadest and 

 roundest-leaved robusta, the lanossa and pubescens of 

 poor Maclvor. If he called any of his hybrids moiini- 

 folia, we confess to ignorance or forgetfulness of the 

 fact. The true cinchona magnijolia is a beautiful flower- 

 ing shi'ub, but in medicine utterly wortldess. Even if 

 it is asserted that our original V. officinalis came to us 

 from India and got hybridrized there, the answer is that 

 the tii-st plants of this species propagated from cuttings, 

 were grown by themselves on Dodabetta, the nearest 

 sHccirubra being at Neddiwattum a full score of miles 

 distant. It is true that officinalis and suceu-ubra and also 

 calisaya are gi-own together at Neddiwuttum, but when we 

 saw the officinaUs plantation on Doddabetta ui 1877, 

 there were no succirubras in or near it. 



Dr. Trimen has, no duubt successfully vindicated 

 the vhtue of C. succimbra as it originally reached 

 Ceylon. Can he say as much foi C. officimlia ? As a 



