December i, 1884.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



453 



VARIOUS PRODUCTS IN CEYLON. 



12,000 RUPEES FBOM FOUR AOEES OF CARDAMOMS — NEW COM- 

 PANIES CONNECTED WITH CEYLON — ESTATES RISING IN VALUE 



THEFT OT TEA LEAF NOT A PAYING SPECULATION — MORE 



THAN ENOUGH OF RAIN— OUTTURN OF COFFEE IN COLOMBO. 



Let me chrouicle the best I have heard that 

 cardamoms have done. Four acres produced in one 

 year the princely sum of twelve thousand rupees, I 

 write it out in full, rather than put it in figures, for 

 it would appear only reasonable to any ordinary 

 proofreader to delete a cypher, and, even then, thiuk 

 the thing not more than presentable. All the same, I 

 have no reason to doubt the correctness of the sum 

 stated, or question the veracity of my informant. 



We are soon likely to have more Companies started 

 with Ceylon as the field of their operations. A mem- 

 ber of one of the Colombo firms went homo a little 

 while ago at the call of some Glasgow capitalist, with 

 the intention of promoting a Company for the cultiv- 

 ation of tea, and there is another gentleman at 

 present flying about the country trying to buy up 

 estates for a new Company which he is keeping dark. 

 He wants them cheap, and he is likely to get them. 

 Nevertheless, those that have a good thing hang 

 on to it : witness a Matale estate of the Lanka Com- 

 pany which they now value at three times the 

 amount they paid for it, so well is the cacao grow- 

 ing there. An estate in the Hantane district which 

 changed hands this year is likely to cover the price 

 paid for it by its coffee crop alone. Anyhow, if 

 that does not do it, the cinchona bark will easily 

 make up the difference. 



My critic " Ex Kihilo Nihil Fit," in your issue of 

 the 24th ultimo, has, I think, got himself into a 

 state of quite unnecessary alarm regarding the < fleets 

 of the natives going in for tea. If ho were to con- 

 sider for a moment what a coaly picking tea can 

 manage to bring in for a day's task, working ten hours, 

 he will see at once that the old game of reaping 

 where another has sown, endeared although it be to 

 the native mind by many a sweet association, won't 

 work in a tea garden. I suppose that 161b. of green 

 leaf per cooly is a very good average, taking all the 

 year round ; tome indeed can't work up to this, and 

 the value of that at a tea factory will be at 10 cents 

 a pound the munificent sum of Rl'60. This too, re- 

 member, the result of ten hours' work, and under the 

 most favourable circumstances. How different there- 

 fore must be the returns of tea stealing as compared 

 with that of coffee stealing. Among heavily bearing 

 coffee trees a thief might fill a sack in an hour's 

 time, stripping ripe and green as he goes, and its 

 value would be, even in those days of minous prices, 

 five times as much as the value of the green leaf 'gathered 

 by a cooly in a day. You can't strip tea in this way. 

 My critic must Iry again, and think of some other 

 reason why the native should not grow it : the fear of 

 having raids into his garden is unfounded, and his 

 alarm is unreasonable. Appuhami is willing to risk 

 something when he is out on the prowl, but I flunk 

 he is likely to try everything else befoie he turns 

 his ingenious mind to tea stripping. 



The weather is trying to make up for the lack of 

 rain we formerly suffered from, for now we have more 

 than enough of it. Every afternoon it deluges us, 

 trys our drains, washes our roads, leaks in at the 

 roofs of our bungalows and now and again stops work. 

 This afternoon, in an hour-and-a-half, 3'16 was re- 

 gistered. Not bad that: only when it comes down in 

 that way it has changed its character somewhat from 

 the beneficent to the destructive, and you would rather 

 see less than more of it. 



Coffee is turning out shockingly bad in Colombo, 

 and when that is added to the low prices it is very 

 unfortunate. Chetty estate and garden parchment is 

 taking from 6 to 7 bushels to the cwt., and estate 



coffee which used to average considerably under 5 '00 

 is taking from 5 '25 to near 6 CO. There is no use 

 crying out : you see the uutoward Btate of things ere 

 the coffee leaves your store, but all the same it is 

 deplorable, and takes a good deal of the heart out 

 of working. Pepper Corn. 



DR. TRIMEN ON HELOPELTIS. 

 The letter we have received from Dr. Trimen on 

 the subject of HdopeltU Antonii is reassuring, inas- 

 much as the Director of the Royal Botanical Gardens 

 states that an insect indigenous to the country ; s 

 less likely to do great and widespread mischief than 

 one recently introduced. Still we must vigilantly 

 watch this new enemy to the planters, which, we 

 trust, may not find our tea to its taste. There can 

 be no question that the most effectual remedy lies in 

 the destruction of the eggs. If Signoret's paper in 

 its integrity is not in the island, we should think 

 that, at least, in recent editions of Kirby & Spence 

 and Westwood, or similar works, there may be refer- 

 ences to it, including, what would be specially inter- 

 esting, an account of the source whence the French 

 naturalist received his specimens. If any possessor 

 of books on entomology finds the desiderated inform- 

 ation, we hope he will communicate it to the press. 

 We greatly regret the misprints to which Dr. 

 Trimen refers, but the only way to prevent such 

 errors in a country like this, (where compositors can 

 only do their best and editors are not scientists) 

 is carefully to write proper and scientific names in 

 clear print hand. What with Dr. Trimen's local re- 

 searches and the publications of Messrs. Van Gorkom, 

 Moens, Peal and Wood-Mason, we are by this time 

 pretty familiar with the life history and habits of 

 Helopeltis An'onii. Our business now is to wage such 

 incessant war against this destructive insect that ere 

 long it may be difficult to procure a specimen even 

 for scientific purposes. With weather such as we 

 are at present experiencing, the pest is more likely 

 to decrease than increase. 



We append Dr. Trimen's letter :— - 



THE EGGS OF HELOPELTIS. 

 To the Editor of the Ceylon Observer. 

 Royal Botanic Gardens, Peradeniya, fith Nov. 1884. 

 Sir,— In a letter signed " B " from South India inserted 

 in your paper of 25th October was a question as to the 

 size of the egg of Helopeltis, which I see I am asked to 

 answer. This is easily done. The eggs are by no means 

 " microscopic " as you suggest, hut, as I stated in my re- 

 port (par. o), large for the size of the insect ; in fact, they 

 are fully l-24th inch long and in themselves by no means 

 inconspicuous, though so carefully concealed. 



The extracts from Mr. Wood-Mason's treatise on Helopeltis 

 in Assam which you have lately reprinted from Indian papers 

 are of much interest. I have not had an opportunity of 

 seeing this book as yet. Mr. Wood- Mason's description 

 of the eggs agree with my own above referred to, as 

 also that of their position in the young shoot. These 

 points are not novel, being only confirmatory of Van Gor- 

 kom's observations on Cinchona in Java. The proceedings 

 of Helopeltis are clearly identical on Cinchona, Cacao, 

 and Tea, and what I have stated with reference to Cacao 

 applies 'mutatis mutandis to the other plants. From the 

 observation of only two eggs in situ I ,did not like- 

 having no pretensions to any entomological knowledge or 

 training— to generalize as to their position in the shoots, 

 but in par. 12 I recommended the removal of the latter 

 in cases whero the presence of the eggs could be de- 

 tected ; it is to be hoped that Mr. Wood-Mason gives 

 some help as to how this is to be done. 



I may add that the eggs observed by " B " in a slit 



in the bark are not those of Helopeltis, but of some 



Orthopterous insect (Locust or Grasshopper Hhe females of 



which possess large sabre-like blades to the ovipositors. 



When writing my report, I had no opportunity 



