506 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[January i, 1885. 



secure remunerative returns on capital invested for a 

 series of years, but who plant on the chance of a " boom 

 in tea" in order to sell at the earliest possible date. We 

 have no doubt the day is approaching when there will 

 be a brisk enquiry for tea property in Ceylon. We 

 need only refer to the several intimations in our 

 London Letter today in support of thisview ; but we 

 truBt that when the good time does come that capital 

 will be freely available for the purchase of Ceylon 

 tea estates, intending purchasers may be ou their 

 guard, to examine and enquire most scrupulously into 

 the history of the tea seed and the plauts on the 

 plantations offered to them. Proprietors who heed- 

 less of the quality of the seed, or the vigour of the 

 plants they use, are "planting to sell" miy 

 however, inflict a very serious injury on their 

 brother planters and on the colony at large. "S." 

 makes rather sweeping inferences from his observ- 

 ation of the coffee leaf disease ; but he is certainly 

 right that coffee trees grown from immature 

 seed fell easy victims and in turn became 

 prolific nurseries of the leaf disease. No readier 

 means of developing serious enemies to the tea-plant 

 can be devised than by covering large areas with 

 weak plauts grown from poor tea seed. From this 

 point of view too we do not at all regard with satis- 

 faction the prospect of old coffee districts being trans- 

 formed into uniform expanses of tea, even if the 

 seed and plants used should be all that could be 

 desired. It was in the diversity of products which 

 was henceforward to rule in our planting districts 

 that one great safeguard against the appearance of 

 another serious plague or epidemic was found. Let 

 all decent fields of coffee be maintained ; let 

 cardamoms or other minor products be tried ; 

 and let everything be done to encourage the planting 

 of estate and road boundaries as well as isolated 

 patches with cinchona, so that we may never again 

 see unbroken expanses covered with one and only 

 one product for many square miles in the hill-country 

 of Ceylon. 



We have no fear that our remarks will cast any 

 shadow over really sound and judicious enterprize in 

 the extension of tea cultivation in Ceylon. The ex- 

 perimental stage may be said to be already past. 

 Capital is becomingly increasingly available not only 

 from London, but from Glasgow and Melbourne for 

 needful investment in tea gardens or in the forma- 

 tion of tea properties in Ceylon. Practical plant* rs 

 from India hive already proclaimed our tea industry 

 as established generally on a sound basis and visitors 

 of experience " in tea " from "the city" portion of 

 the metropolis express themselves delighted with our 

 prospects. We have just had the report of Mr. Curtis 

 of Darjeeling who after a round of some of our tea 

 districts, leaves tonight by the S. S. "Nepaul." Mr. 

 Curtis travelled up by Hewahatte and Matmatta to 

 Nuwara Eliya, tbence down through Lindula to 

 Pundhuloya, back to Dimbula and Dikoya and down 

 through Ambagamuwa and Dolosbaga. The finest teas 

 he saw were made on Loolconduia and Galboda, and he 

 was much pleased with the soil on the latter pro- 

 perty as well as on Mariawatte. But he maintnins 

 that labour in Darjeeling is far cheaper (at from 2 

 to 5 annas per day for men of the independent hill 

 tribes, strong hardy Ghoorkas, <Sic.) than cooly 

 labour in Ceylon and that the returns in crop 

 from choice estates in India have not yet been 

 beaten. The age of gardens in India is counted 

 from the sowing of the seed, and not as in 

 Ceylon from the planting out, making nearly a year's 

 difference. In Darjeeling, tea has given at three years 

 from seed being sown (within two years of planting) 

 560 lb. per acre over 150 acres. So much for com- 

 parison ; but quality even more than yield will have 

 to be studied by the planter who would make tea pay 



in Ceylon, and it may be a question whether a planta- 

 tion like Loolcoudura averaging four to six maunds 

 per acre per annum, may not in the long run prove 

 the most profitable on account of the uniformly 

 high reputation and splendid prices realized for its 

 teas. 



CEYLON UPCOUNTKY PLANTING REPORT. 



TEA PLANTS AND INSECTS— TEA CLEARING ALL BEFORE IT — 

 COFFEE AND BLACK BUG— WESTLAND'S SIEVE PLATE— THE 

 EISE IN COFFEE AND ITS VICISSITUDES— PLANTINO LITER- 

 ATURE. 



2nd December 1884. 

 There is something very pathetic in the way planters 

 examine their young tea plants and report at once the 

 presence of any new insect, malformation, or indeed any- 

 thing out of the common. The fell enemy which ruined 

 the coffee enterprize and brought about so much loss and • 

 disappointment was so trifling, so despised at first, and 

 yet in the end so all-powerful for evil, that the attitude 

 of the planter towards anything on tea is natural enough. 

 It is earnestly to be hoped now we have got. after much 

 hunting about, something really suited for Ceylon, and 

 which is likely to do much towards pulling the place 

 round, that this promising product may long be preserved 

 from enemies of any kind, and go on flushing with re- 

 newed vigour from day to day. 



Everything is going down before tea : coffee, good, bad 

 and indifferent, is mercilessly taken by the head and pulled 

 out; even cardamoms, of which so very much has been 

 said and which have really done wonders in favourable 

 positions, have in some cases been ousted for the new 

 favourite. This last seems passing strange, for when carda- 

 moms pay, they pay well, and, as long as the soil is suitable, 

 and they are healthy — well, of course every man judges for 

 himself. 



That coffee should go is no wonder, for I hear more and 

 more deplorable accounts of the ravages of black bug. Its 

 presence on an estate in that intense form, " which blackens 

 every spot," meuns really sudden death. Leaf-disease which 

 is still with us is a mere flea-bite, as compared to the 

 remorseless gangs of black bug. The former did leave some 

 room for repentance, and gave a chance to cover the ground 

 with something else ere the coffee was altogether worthless, 

 but black bug which has attacked what leaf-disease has 

 spared leaves its victim sucked out and dry — a hideous 

 and depressing sight. 



We used to say, that, if leaf-disease woy.ld but finish 

 the coffee at once, planters would have the worst, and know 

 what to do. "Well this is just what black bug has done. 

 Acres of coffee which at the beginning of this year looked good 

 enough to be able to fight their way until re-iuforced by 

 better prices are now only fit to be abandoned or turned out 

 to make room for something else. I make bold to say, that, 

 unless this pest be checked by climatic or other causes, 

 it will altogether put out the old dethroned king and cause 

 his name to be forgotten in the country where he has 

 reigned so long. I am sorry I know of no cure for this enemy. 

 Formerly it would appear in a damp corner or quiet spot, 

 and, if left alone, would go away of its own accord, leaving 

 more or less of its evil effects behind ; but in these days it 

 spreads over acres, climbs any shade trees and blackens the 

 ground all about and refuses to be doctored. Lime, ashes 

 niana grass, &c, have been tried and failed. Probably there 

 may be a cure, although I do not know it. North and im- 

 mediately to the south of Kandy, the black bug and fungus 

 have done their very worst, and it is to be hoped that it 

 won't travel up to Dimbula and Dikoya or into the Uva dis- 

 trict ; for, if so, they have a rough time before them, and 

 can hardly be expected to fare better than the sufferers of 

 today. 



Westland's sieve plate is, I hear, doing great things, almost 

 entirely abolishing tails. Except that it lets a good n_any 

 skins through, it would be perfect ; but thin skins can 

 easily be floated off during washing. Had this sieve plate 

 been in the field ten years ago, it would have proved a 

 small fortune to the inventor. As it is, let us lio e 

 his ingenuity will not pass unrewarded. 



Moneyis coming to the island for iuvestment in tea. A 

 Glasgow Company is said to have placed at the command 

 of one of our local firms the sum of £50,000 for the 

 furtherance of the tea industry. — Pepper Corn. 



