4i8 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[November r, 1884. 



have fully explained and illustrated in reports on the 

 subject. 



1 shall feel obliged if you can tind room for the-e 

 nit '3 in your valuable paper. Annex d is the una- 

 1 y s i * of the cinchona samples alluded to. — I am, sir, your 

 obdient sonant, ROBERT CROSS. 



Nos. 



Analysis of Samples. 



1 True " red hark C. succi- 

 rubrateja var. one year 



old renewed bark ... 5"32 



2 True "red hark" teja 

 var. two years old re- 

 newed bark ... 4"40 



3 True "red bark" C. sued- 

 rubra pata var. one year 



old renewed bark ... 568 



4 True " red bark" pata 

 var. two years old re- 

 newed bark .■ 5*82 



5 " Crown" one year old 

 reoewed bark ... 260 



C " Crown" two years old 

 renewed bark ... 3' 10 



7 " Crown" three years old 

 renewed bark ... 7't>4 



S " Crown" four years old 

 renewed bark ... 8'80 



9 " Crown" apparently or- 

 iginal bark tree twelve 

 years old ...1230 



10 True " red bark" pata 

 var. from tho roots of a 

 tree twenty feet high ... 4 , fi8 



11 A variety of " Crown" 

 bark with very small 

 leaves the Paramo bark 

 of Loxa collectors three 

 years old renewed bark... G'28 



4-6'J 1-03 0-48 31 



CACAO, PEPPER, LI BFRIAN COFFEE, AND 

 CARDAMOMS GROWN NEAR THE SEA- 

 COAST, CEYLON. 



Mr. T. S. Djbree has been giving us a favourable 

 account of the enterprise in new products in the 

 TJdagama district (Galle) which he so pluckily and 

 laboriously initiated and fairly started. Mr. Dobree 

 laid the colony under an obligation by almost leading 

 the way, among colonists, in the lowcountry cultiv- 

 ation of pepper and cardamoms, besides cacao, tea and 

 Lib rian coffee. Of the last-mentioned product 200 acres 

 ■were under cultivation, and on 80 acres of these, a very 

 good crop is now ripening, the leaf-disease apparently 

 g viug less trouble the older the coffee grows, but 

 bug" this season has perhaps checked the 

 Some 50 acres of the "coffee" are to give 

 tea, but the rest of the 'Liberian' will it is 

 hoped continue to crop and pay the proprietors, more 

 e-p cially if the price improves. We found our Phil- 

 adelphiun "Friend Morris " very eager to get 'Ceylon 

 Liberian' unhusked— as he gets the African kind,— the 

 cherries being allowed to wither into ripeness and 

 perhaps to fall before being gathered and shipped. 

 After being " hulled " in America, a very high price 

 is got for this fine flavoured coffee, and the husks are 

 sold for more than the freight and incideutal expenses 



' black 

 fungus ! 

 way to 



of the whole ! Mr. Dobree doubts however if this plan 

 could be followed in our wetter and more uncertain 

 climate where a heavy shower would dash half-ripened 

 berries to the ground, anH to dry the Liberian cherry 

 in store would ensure an unpleasant flavour 

 the beans. — The Cardamom crop on Udagama 

 is most satisfactory and yet such trouble as there 

 was in getting this product underway ! Out of 

 of the first thousand bulbs from Matale, perhaps 100 

 were got to start. Now, all is plain sailing, only ex- 

 perience shows that to guard against the effects 

 of a dry season, planting on the edge of rav- 

 ines or otherwise in moist situations should be 

 preferred. As elsewhere, the difficulty is to 

 say when cropping is to stop even after estimates are got 

 in during the present season. — Tea is to do well at Uda- 

 gama and on Monrovia (Capt. Ray ley's property) and if 

 the railway i< sent on to Bentota and Galle, most 

 certainly a great deal of produce will come from the south 

 to Colombo, while the railway would entirely shut up 

 Galle as a port of shipment. — Pepper is one of Mr. 

 Dobree's most interesting new products, and further 

 expeiience would lead him to amend in some res- 

 pects the hints he gave us not long ago as to its cult- 

 ivation. He would have cotton trees planted out 

 in good 2-feet holes two years at Icist, to 

 be ready for supports, before taking the pep- 

 per vines from the nurseries. — Cacao grows 

 well in the sheltered hollows in which it has 

 been planted in Udagama, having no enemy but white 

 ants ; but they do prove a real and terrible 

 toe both to the cacao and cotton trees, while 

 never touching the Liberian Coffee. " Supplying " 

 the cacao walks, has to be constantly carried on to 

 counterbalance the loss by white ants. — Altogether 

 though the operations on the Udagama properties in a 

 multiplicity of products have passed from the stage 

 of preliminary experiment into one of almost assured 

 success; the great advantage is economy in working, 

 the labour beiog chiefly Tamil and the cost of keep- 

 ing the place as free of weeds as a conservatory never 

 exceeding 75 cents an acre. For such contract work 

 as cutting roads holes, drains, &c. Sinhalese are 

 employed ; but they cannot be depended to work for 

 more than two days at a time. 1 he work of super- 

 vising, cultivating, cropping and curing the variety 

 of products is of course far more responsible than the 

 old easy routine of the coffee planter ; but it is also 

 far more inteiesting. and we are ghd to learn that 

 the health of Superintendents and lab Hirers in tho 

 Udagama district has been uniformly good. 



Tea at Kalutara. — xhe growth of tea in this 

 district (from sea level to 300 feet a titude) is 

 such as to occasion alarm among old plauters a< to 

 whether the plant is not to become uncontrollable and 

 carry all before it like lantana ! All the way down the 

 coast towards Galle and Matara there is plenty of 

 room for tea, and the Sinhalese are beginning to 

 cultivate, more especially on little plots of laud which 

 they buy adjoining the larger plantations. The 

 object here would seem to be to force the big pro- 

 prietors to buy them out by-aud-bye ; but tea is 

 scarcely so available for the depredation of thieves 

 as coffee, cacao, or even cinchona. Tea leaf 

 plucked haphazard at night would not be worth 

 much, nor could it be sold like parchment coffee or bark. 

 The railway still carries very little of the supplies 

 to or the produce from this district. Even tea is 

 sent by boat, while all the rice supplies so travel. 

 Water carriage is of course very cheap, but for tea, 

 speed and safety from moisture ought to count. Here 

 again, the aid of an experienced planting or mercant- 

 ile member on a Railway Board of Management 

 would be invaluable, to point out how new business 

 could be secured. 



