262 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[October i, 1884. 



TEA PLUCKING. 

 At a general meeting of the Maskeliya Planters' 

 Association on the 15th August, the following paper 

 was read by the Chairman (Mr. T. N. Christie) -.— 



Gentlemen, — The few remarks that I have to make 

 on the subject of tea plucKing, particularly as regards 

 the merits of fine plucking, are based on the ex- 

 perience of one whose name, were I at liberty to 

 mention it, would go far towards carrying conviction 

 to your minds. The question as to which is the 

 best method of plucking is, I suppose, the most im- 

 portant we have to consider in the cultivation — even 

 more important than the pros and cons of heavy prun- 

 ing. Coarse plucking and fine plucking, in all their 

 degrees, have advocates in Ceylon at the present 

 moment, but the fine-pluckers are in the large majority, 

 although many of those who form that majority have 

 inward qualms as to whether they are doing right or not. 

 The coarse-plucker says : "You are plucking your 

 bushes to death, your estate will be worked out in 

 no time, and your yield is much less than mine." 

 The fine-plucker says: "My yield is good enough, 

 and my prices are 30 per cent better than yours, 

 and as it costs almost as much to land a pound of 

 tenpenny tea in London as it does to land a pound of 

 fourteenpenny tea, my profits per pound are more thau 

 twice yours." I was myself told by many Indian planters 

 that the high position which our teas attained last year 

 (and from which I regret they have this year slightly 

 receded) was due to our Bhort-sighted, short-lived 

 policy of fine-plucking. Anyone, they told me, could 

 make high-priced teas by sacrificing the quantity of 

 their yield and the permanency of their plants. I 

 did not, however, consider what plucking I saw in 

 India as being very coarse, and I fancy the Indian 

 planter has of late been plucking finer than he used to 

 do half-a-dozen years ago. At first sight, fine plucking 

 does strike one as being more likely to exhaust our estates 

 than coarse plucking, but when we look more closely in- 

 to the facts the likelihood is much less apparent. As re- 

 gards exhaustion of the soil, I think it is evident that 

 Bay, 300 lb. of tea will take just as much, 

 or just as little, from the soil whether the leaves 

 equivalent to that quantity are 10 days or 15 days 

 old. As regards exhaustion of the plant, perhaps more 

 might be said in favor of coarse-plucking, but even 

 in this aspect it may be doubted whether the 

 physique of the plaut appreciably benefits by leaving 

 on the immature leaf for few days longer. The leaves 

 from which we manufacture are all soft growing 

 leaves, leaves that have not reached; the stage of per- 

 forming the functions of foliage, and their removal a 

 few days sooner or later cannot make much difference 

 to the plant one way or another. You all under- 

 stand, gentlemen, that the same leaves are plucked 

 Under the two systems which we are considering, only 

 in the one case they are plucked a few days earlier 

 than in the other. What little difference the eailier 

 removal of the flush may cause can easily be made 

 up if the fine-plucker allows his bushes to "run" 

 for an extra week or two before and after his pruning. 

 We should aim at getting foliage below the pruning 

 level, and this can be obtained by topping- back our 

 plants at an early age. The information which I have 

 received shows that the loss in quantity by fine- 

 plucking is not nearly so great as the coarse-plucker, 

 particularly the Indian coarse-plucker, thinks On an 

 estate where the plucking, although never very coarse, 

 Was much coarser than it has been during the past 18 

 months, one patch has been plucked line for t wo-and-half 

 crops, one field for two crops (and this field has kept 

 up the quantity of its yield from the time it was 

 plucked fine), and the whole estate plucked tine for 

 one-aud-half crop. None of the buBhes are in any way 

 harmed, and, now that they are being pruned, they 



look well for the coming crop, having plenty of fine 

 clean " pipes " of young wood to grow new flushes on. 

 From the primary shoots that grew on the wood 

 left after pruning, only the bud and one leaf 

 were taken, and the yield in the beginning fell 

 behind the previous year's yield at about 4,000 lb. 

 tea, but since then the yields have run alike, and the 

 yield for the year will not be more than 4,000 lb. 

 under the previous years yield, which was the largest 

 the estate ever gave. Besides, the fine tea made 

 from the first plucking left far more profit than would 

 have accrued from the larger quantity which would 

 have been obtained, had another but harder leaf been 

 taken. The crops from the same average of tea, in full 

 bearing all the time, have been :— 



1S84 ... 350 lb. tea per acre — plucked fine through- 

 out. 



1SS3 ... 392 \ ,, ,, most of the estate 



plucked coarse for 

 half the year. 



1882 ... 311 „ „ | , , . 



1881 ... 360 " „ i P llicke d co " s e. 



These figures, gentlemen, I believe to be amongst the 

 most reliable we have in Ceylon, and the experienco 

 so far is that, practically, diminished yield has not 

 followed fine-plucking. A larger force of coolies has 

 been required, and the cost of plucking has been 

 much more, although but a trifle compared to the 

 increased value obtained in the market. Another 

 estate, which with the old style of plucking was estim- 

 ated to give 600 lb. per acre, yielded with fine-pluck- 

 ing 560 lb. per acre. I trust that any gentlemen 

 present who have experience, however limited, in 

 plucking will give us the benefit of their opinions. 



REPORT ON THE GOVERNMENT CINCHONA 



ENTERPRIZE IN JAVA FOR THE 2nd 



QUARTER 1884. 



(Translated for the " Ceylon Observer,") 



April and May were characterized by incessant rain. 

 The long-continued wet was not conducive to the reg- 

 ular progress of things. Although a large number of 

 plants could be put out, the harvesting of bark was con- 

 siderably delayed. Then when at the beginning of June 

 the dry monsoon suddenly set in, the labor began to fail 

 as speedily, needed as it was for the picking of coffee 

 and for the very large paddy harvest. During the long- 

 continued rain the available labor force was employed 

 chiefly in thoroughly working the soil, with the view rather 

 to promote the formation of bark than to gather the 

 product, which is obtained in unfavorable weather at so 

 much greater expense. Although therefore the harvest of 

 bark in the first half-year of 1884 will be smaller than 

 that in the corresponding period of 1883, the prospects of 

 the produce, so far as relates to the quality, are certainly 

 better than in the previous year and will not be behind those 

 of 1883. The harvesting was confined almost entirely to 

 the thinning out and pruning of those trees which had 

 become thickly entangled with one another. Very little has 

 as yet been done in the removal of inferior varieties for 

 the substitution of Ledgerianas and sueoirubras. Of the 

 bark gathered during 1883, 78,624 Anist. lb. were dis- 

 patched last June to Batavia. 498 lb. were reserved for 

 the local military medical service. In the packing-houses 

 and on the estates there are still about 40,000 lb. of bark 

 a great part of which is waiting for the needed pack- 

 ing materials. The so much higher prices which pharma- 

 ceutical barks unbroken, and especially long quills, at pre- 

 sent fetch in the European market make it desirable 

 to dispense with tho ordinary packing in jute bales and 

 to give the preference to export in cases. The uecessaiy 

 perparations are being taken for carrying this out, and 

 meanwhile the bark quills remain heaped up in the pack* 

 ing-houses. The results of a thorough and deep work- 

 ing of the soil, which is now being generally practised 

 on all the estates, are making themselves more and more 



