4o8 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[November i, 1884. 



Citronella Grass fields in the neighbourhood of 

 Galle are said to be going out of cultivation, 

 through exhaustion of soil probably ; but how is the 

 large and increasing export maintained ? There is no 

 doubt a wide extension of the industry in the Matara 

 district. It is said that the grass usually exhausts 

 the soil in about ten years, necessitating a fresh 

 planting on virgin land ; the profit is generally deemed 

 to be very small, but with the keener demand of late 

 the margin may be better. The wonder is that men 

 with experience in distilling the citronella and cinna- 

 mon oils in the lowcountry do not attempt to utilize 

 the highly scented Mowers which grow so luxuriantly 

 in the hill-country, often in considerable expanses — 

 for instance, roses, sweet-scented verbenas, patchouli, 

 geraniums, &c. The experiment is worth making. 



Ansell's Separating and Winnowing Machine was 

 tried at the Kollupitiya Mills, Colombo, with satis- 

 factory results. Two chests of Windsor Forest, giving 

 an outturn of 77 lb. unassorted tea, were used, and the 

 working gave : — 

 No. ■ 



77 



This shows a very satisfactory proportion (about 56 

 per cent.) separated of the better sorts, and several 

 experts who were present were much pleased with 

 the result. Ansell's tea Sifter, which we saw at work 

 at Messrs. Lee, Hedges & Co.'s store, Kollupitiya, 

 is at the same time simple and efficient. Our 

 previous experience had been with Jackson's mach. 

 ine, which has given satisfactory results, sorting 

 the tea into four different sizes at the rate of 400 

 or 500 lb. per hour, while a cooly could only do 

 100 lb. in a whole working day. Ansell's machine 

 is calculated to sort into five sizes a quantity of 

 tea ranging from 4 to 6 maunds, that is, 320 ta 480 

 lb. per hour. It has the advantage over Jackson's 

 of fanners, by means of which the dust and light 

 stuff is at once separated from the tea-leaf. A 

 portion of a box of Windsor Forest mixed tea was 

 operated on, and it was striking to compare the 

 beautiful tippy broken pekoe which came out at one 

 orifice with the coarse congou which was collected 

 at another. In a factory where large quantities of 

 tea are prepared, such a machine as Ansell's (which 

 amongst siftfrs holds the place which Jackson's 

 machine does amongst rollers) must be of great use. 

 If the price demanded is one fairly moderate, we 

 cannot doubt there will be a good demand for the 

 patent sorter. 



Planting Notes from Kotagheery : 6th Oct. — 

 Prospects have brightened considerably during the 

 last few days. Good steady rain seems to have set 

 in, and what remains of our crops may be considered 

 safe, though the proportion of light coffee this year 

 will, I am afraid, be very great. Outturns will be 

 dreadfully short. Many estates had good blossoms, but 

 only those in the best condition have carried their 

 crops through the worst drought we have bad 

 for some 16 or 17 years. Still it has hardly 

 been so bad as some ignoramus represented in a local 

 paper, where I saw a statement to the effect that 

 Kotagherry had had no rain tor ten months ! My 

 gaug on the ghaut gives a return of just 17 inches 

 for this year, not counting the fall of the last three days. 

 An estate here was recently valued taking prest nt 

 prices and crops, the profit expected this season lui g 

 put aB 10 °/o 0I * ne value. At this rate many of the 

 best estates iu Southern India are worth nothing 



(take the Ouchterlony valley for instance), simply 

 because they will give no profit this season. The 

 valuer was an experienced planter, and 1 mention it 

 just to show to what depths poor coffee has descended. 

 Tea is beginning to flush well, now the high winds 

 have dropped, than which I know nothing worse for 

 keeping back flush and spoiling it when it does come. 

 Cinchona baa stood the drought very fairly on the 

 whole. We are having our yearly try at reducing 

 curing charges. With present prices it is rather too 

 aggravating to pay 50s a ton f. o. b. in cases and 

 to see your Colombo rate of 35s advertised in every 

 C. O. Some of our leading planters think of making 

 overturestoa Colombo firm, asking-them to set up a 

 branch at Mettanollium, Coimbatore, or Beypoie, on a 

 certain number of tons being promised them. Anyone 

 curing at '35s would cut out every curing firm in 

 South India. Labour is cheaper with us, as far as I 

 know, than with you ; so why should it not be done ? 

 The firms here say they cannot reduce rates and have 

 a profit, and one firm assured me that the Colombo firms 

 would have to raise their rates again. I think it will be 

 the other way, and our friends will have to lower theirs, 

 if they wish to keep their patrons. Nous verrons. 



The Coconut Palm. — The king of low-country pro- 

 duets is, of course, coconut. What coffee was to the hill- 

 country coconut is to the seaboard districts. Indeed, it may 

 lay claim to the sovereignty of the whole Island ; for the 

 aggregate value of all the varied products of the coconut 

 tree exported cannot, we feel sure, be of greater value 

 than those consumed locally in the shape of food, oil 

 poonac, thatch, coir-goods, fuel, timber and articles of 

 domestic use. [The proportion of local consumption of pro- 

 ducts of the coVonut (as well as of the palmyra) palm must 

 be immensely greater in value than the export. — Ed.] 

 If coconuts never gave proprietors the magnificent profits 

 which coifee at one time yielded, they never, on the other 

 hand, involved them in magnificent losses. Not that coco- 

 nut cultivation has not its enemies, like other products. 

 White-ants and porcupines and wild-pigs are, at times, 

 formidable to young plantations, and so are beetles and 

 lightning to established ones ; but history refers to no 

 scourge which ever devastated coconut plantations in the 

 way that hemileia vastatrix has ruined coffee estates. No 

 natural laws are violated in its cultivation ; for the tree is 

 allowed to grow at its own sweet will, without being hacked 

 and hewed to promote fruitfuluess ; and Nature makes re- 

 turn in longevity and regular crops. These may further 

 be regarded as the reward of patience, and the subjec- 

 tion of the desire to hasten to be rich. Thus has it come to 

 pass that coconut estates have long been regarded in the 

 light of a safe, if slow, investment, as distinguished from 

 a speculation ; but, we fancy, during last year proprietors 

 of estates in full-bearing derived an income from them 

 larger than any other Island product has yielded. The 

 oil shipped up to the 30th ultimo aggregated 424,000 cwt, 

 against 306,000 the previous year, and only 184,000 in the 

 year 1881-82. Not only are the shipments far in excess of 

 those of any previous year, but the prices which have ruled 

 — about £30 a ton on an average — although only about 2-3rds 

 of the figures reached in the fifties — have given satisfact- 

 ory profits to the grower. It does seem strange that an 

 oil locally produced in abundance at small cost, should be 

 superseded by an imported article brought thousands of 

 miles iu secure packages ; but it is yet the fact that Kero- 

 siue has largely displaced coconut oil, not only in house- 

 holds in towns, but even in many of the villages among 

 natives. Nothing is more common than to see villagers 

 returning to their homes by train or on foot with attractive 

 little Kerosine lamps and a bottle of the cheap oil. For 

 reading, coconut oil is decidedly preferable, as giving a 

 softer and cooler light — it has also the advantage of stand- 

 ing gusts of wind better than its mineral rival — but it cannot 

 be compared in cheapness with the product which the 

 bowels of the earth yield in such plenty iu America and 

 Russia. It is not, however, for lighting purposes that 

 coconut oil is chiefly exported, but to be used in the 

 manufacture of soaps and lubricants, and to some extent 

 of candles; and for these the demand will continue. — 

 " Examiner." 



