336 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[October i, 1884. 



all carry bottles and bring me thousands of them. 

 There are other insects th»t eat Caracas cacao leaves, 

 such as the ladybird aud grasshopper : but I do 

 not fear them at all. 



Cacao planted in forest shade has done well in every 

 place that I have seen it in Johore, but I would re- 

 commend anyone planting in forest shade to dig round 

 the young trees every six months or so to keep the 

 roots as much back from the cacao as possible till 

 they are a couple of jears .Id, and then they seem 

 to get on well wilh nearly every tree. Johore is 

 «oin',' ahead now with Liberian tort e, and there is 

 no doubt that it grows well here, but most of what 

 has been planted by the Malays about Jobore Bahru 

 (the capital) is in lalang land, and will of coarse 

 have to be kept manured after the first crop or so. 

 It could not possibly look better than it does at 

 present, and Johore can supply enough manure for 

 the acreage at present in cultivation about the town. 



I am making an experiment on a picked tre<s in 

 the Maharaja's garden which I have had fenced in. 

 On '27th July I picked cherry off it which gave 

 me four catties of dry parchment coffee, aud this day 

 week I received cherry from the same tree which 

 has given me 4i catties of dry parchment coffee, 

 and I believe that this tree will give from 10 to 

 12 catties within the year. Of course this is an un- 

 usually good tree, but there are hundreds as good 

 as it iu H. H.'s garden, and [ did not go 50 yards 

 before I told the gardener which tree I wanted to 

 experiment on. This tree is as hea'thy as it possibly 

 could be, and has had no manure for seven months, 

 when it had a basket of cattle. When I go into 

 Singapore I constantly no out to see Mr. Chasseriau, 

 who is going to plaDt up all his tapioca estate with 

 Liberian coffee ; he has already done over 100 acres, 

 and such a magnificent sheet of young coffee or a 

 more creditable piece of work I have never seen, 

 and he has grand facili ies for manuring. I have 

 now got 500 acres of sago planted, of which 150 

 acres are now over two years old. It is certainly 

 a cheap thing to plant, but anyone who wants to 

 do it with success and get a good even estate will 

 find that they have more to do than stick the 

 plants in and keep out the pigs. Sago plants when 

 young grow slowly, and the grass and young jungle 

 growth must be cleared for three feet all round them 

 for a couple of years. I estimated my upkeep to 

 cost one man per acre p a r month. It always raises 

 my heart to walk through the sago estate, but it 

 is a long time to look forward to. 



I look back on my Ceylon days with pleasure, 

 aud hope soon to hear of good times there again. 

 —Yours faithfully, W. W. B. 



TEA LEAVES AND TEA STUMPS. 



Pussellawa, 21st August 1884. 



Dear Sir — By this tapal I am sending you a tea 

 leaf which caught my eye this morning. It was grow- 

 ing on a tree which was put out as a stump last October, 

 and, though inferior in size, perhaps, to the prodigies 

 of the lowcountry, will show you that we have got 

 the right kind of article in this part of the world. 



Apropos of stumps, my own experiei ce has been that 

 they are far preferable to plants, especially if the latter 

 are very big. .some plants I put out a month later 

 than the stumps are nothing like their s ze, though 

 they began by having the advantage by a couple of 

 inches or more.— Yours faithfully, T. 



[The leaf sent is a very fine specimen indeed: 9J 

 inches by 4. We got one 10J inches long, but that 

 was on virgin soil. All we have ever seen were 

 eclipsed, however, by the foot-long leaf from 

 Mymensiug indigenous, grown on SSomerset estate, 

 Gampola. — Ed.] 



MR. ARMSTRONG ON TEA PLUCKING. 

 23rd August 1884. 

 Dear Sir,— With reference to my friend Mr. 

 Christie's remarks on tea plucking at the Maskeliya 

 Association meeting on the 15th instant, I am sorry 

 I differ from him with regard to fine plucking. I 

 do not believe in too coarse plucking, which is s icri- 

 ficing both quantity and quality. But 1 do believe 

 in "medium fine" as against "tine": the former gives 

 us boi-h quantity and (t;ood enough) quality -A/ow w ith 

 regard to fine plucking, in the eases quoted by Mr. 

 Christie, will he kindly consider the following :— What 

 is the difference in cost of manufactured tea between 

 his tine and his coarser plucking ? Has he tried field 

 against field, in the same season, as to difference of 

 yield ? as the mere fact of his showing us a loss of 

 only 4,0001b. in tine plucking, if he has not done so, 

 proves nothing. Supposing his garden to he at a high 

 elevation, with a heavy and constant rait. fall, this season 

 was entirely in its favour; and I think, if such is the 

 case, his yield as against last season, with bushes 

 in good order, as I understand they were, should 

 have given better results in quantity and not less, 

 although finely plucked. Premising this, then, his loss 

 with regard to quantity would have been far greater 

 than he proves it to be. Will his higher average 

 (he certainly should get a higher average price with 

 fine plucking) as against higher cost and loss of 

 yield, to say nothing of the strain on his bushes, 

 compensate him ? I think not. With regard to exhaus- 

 tion of the soil, I do not think there is any difference, 

 as Mr. Christie says, between tine or medium or coarse 

 plucking, but, with regard to exhaustion of the plant, 

 I think there is every difference in favour of medium 

 as against fine. I must not omit also to draw atten- 

 tion to the fact that when 392^ lb. per acre were 

 obtained as quoted, as against 350 fine plucking, coarser 

 plucking «as only continued for half the year ; had 

 it been continued throughout, I fancy the difference 

 in yield would have been double or 8,000 lb. instead 

 .f 4 000 lb , or 432 lb. per acre as auainst 350 per 

 acre fine plucking. Time will not permit nit to dilate 

 on this subject, a most important one to us all, and 

 1 trust Mr. Christie's wishes will be complied with 

 and that all who can will give us their experience 

 of l lie two modes of plucking : fine or medium. 

 Coarse pluck'ng, unless bushes are very young when 

 it must be d ne, i.'e., leaves must be left till they 

 are almost fully developed, is quite out of the 

 question, giving us neither yield nor value. 



It is well to bear in mind that the highest averages, 

 pleasant to see, do not necessarily mean hu'heHt profits. 

 —Yours truly, C. SPEARMAN ARMSTRONG. 



EINE TEA PICKING. 



Maskeliya, 27th Aug. 1884. 



DEAR Sir, — It would be presumption on my part 

 to attempt to enter upon a "tea" discussion with 

 Mr. Armstrong. I therefore only answer his letter 

 to i x plain what, apparently, I had not made plain, 

 and to elict fu'ther information upon the subject. 

 The facts ami figures quoted ii the remarks which I 

 made at our District Planters' Association meeting 

 were supplied by one of our most experienced tea plant- 

 ers, the deductions from these facts were my own. 

 The estate referred to is not in Maskeliya, and Mr. 

 Armstrong «as wrong in assuming it to have " a 

 heavy aud constant rainfall." 



When Mr. Armstrong suggest! that the excess of 

 4,0001b. in the 1S83 yield would have been doubled 

 had the coarse plucking been continued for the whole 

 year, he overlooks my antecedent statement that 

 "the yield in tin- beginning foil behind the previous 

 year's by about 4,000 lb. ot tea, but since then the eldg 



