430 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[November i, 1884. 



coffee into a tea field is a comparatively inexpensive 

 operation. 



I have now seen perhaps the finest tea fields in the 

 island, but I have seen no growth of the same age to 

 equal that on this place, about 300 ieet above sea-level. 

 I do not however deceive myself as to the comparative 

 value of an acre of tea in Lindula, and the Siyane 

 Korale : the former will probably be as good a century 

 hence as it is now; the latter will, with equal probability, 

 require manure in less than a decade if it be found that 

 manuring will then pay. There is little doubt that ten 

 years hence the price of tea will be ao low that ouly 

 large crops and low expense? will enable producers to 

 keep the field, and in this respect Ceylon has a decided 

 advantage, but our lowcountry soils are not inexhaust- 

 ible, however forcing the climate may be. A leaf crop 

 is less exacting on some of the elements of fertility than 

 a fruit one, but that which it does require is not in un- 

 limited supply on the great bulk of our lowlands. 



Cinchona bark has become, for the present, more of 

 a drug than ever, but it is far from being a defunct 

 industry. A period of low prices fosters demand for a 

 product that has an expanding market. In this case, the 

 small body of quiniue manufacturers have thought it more 

 to their interests to combine against the producers and the 

 consuming public than to let competition have free scope; 

 but where capital is free to seek the most remunerative 

 investments, the artificial enhancement of the price of 

 the manufactured article, as compared with that of the 

 raw material, can only be temporary, and there is a good 

 time coming for cinchona planters who can afford to wait. 



PLANTING NOTES FROM BADULLA, (CEYLON). 



THE WEATHEB, AND CEOPS — VICISSITUDES OF COFFEE 

 ESTATES — A BELIEVER IN COFFEE. 



Picking of autumn crop is going on fairly, some estates 

 getting as much as one and a-half box per ennly per diem. 

 The sample is turning out pretty fairly on estates above 3,000 

 feet elevation. Not so much light coffee as might have been 

 expected after the long-continued drought of this year ; 

 ten per cent would about represent the average of light 

 coffee, but beyond this a good proportion of deficient beans 

 and triage will be found after the parchment goes through 

 the hands of the Colombo" peelers. " I once heard it .said, 

 and that many years ago, that we planters only " skin " 

 the coffee upcountry, but the "peelers" doubly skin it 

 in Colombo, meaning that they take off both parchment 

 and silver skin; but that this implied or meant a little 

 more, many a poor struggling proprietor learnt to his cost 

 when he got " the peelers' " account and looked into his 

 crop account at the end of the year. Tea planters of a 

 future generation may thank their stirs that they won't 

 have a peeling account, but let them take care that they 

 are not all rolled into " dust " by too many brokers here 

 and at home. 



I see that you have quoted from your morning con- 

 temporary " the vicissitudes of Gomera estate in 

 the Kunckles," which I have no doubt went through 

 many a skinning, peeling, and whittling account in 

 its day, which helped to bring that fine estate on its 

 last legs. That the soil is not to blame for the collapse is 

 evident by the new purchaser giving R2O,O90 for the land 

 in order to turn it into a tea garden I cannot help think- 

 ing that these celestials' ideas of exhausted and washed- 

 out coffee estates making fine tea gardens will end in poor 

 mortals' moonshine and that many a proprietor will run 

 the day he dug out his fine coffee bushes to make place 

 for the mania "tea." I see some estates round here doing 

 this on a somewhat large scale. I am still the humble 

 servant of and firm believer in old King Coffee, and that 

 it will still pay and pay handsomely too, if it is only 

 faithfully and generously served and tended. As an illus- 

 tration and reason for my fath in coffee paying well, I 

 will mention, not " the vicissitudes," but the certain success 

 of Ury estate, the property of the late Mr. George 

 Morice, who died a few mouths ago leaving a valuable 

 property and several thousands of pounds to his heirs. The 

 late Mr. Morice, as you are perhaps aware, arrived in 

 Ceylon a very poor man in the year 1842. After years of 

 hard toil on the Kaudy side as an assistant superintend- ut, 

 he came up to Uva in 185U or 1857 and opened Glen Alpine 



estate for Messrs. Brown and Stewart,, annually laid by a 

 portion of his small salary, and a few years after, in part- 

 nership with his employers, bought a piece of land and 

 opened it as Ballagalla estate, the third share of 

 which he sold again in 1SG3 for R18,000, and, retiring 

 from the partnership took employment under the 

 Messrs. Worms and planted Keenakellw estate, and, 

 when these gentlemen sold all their property in the 

 'island, he took charge of Wewesse and Debedde, the pro- 

 perty of Mr. Cowasjee Kduljee, on a moderate salary and 

 commission on crop, these properties afterwards being sold 

 to Mr. Woodhouse for R400,000. In 18(J9 Mr. Morice 

 bought another block of land, and opened Ury estate, the 

 very year when leaf -disease first made its appearance on Gal- 

 oola estate in Madvlsima^ and to which pest have since been 

 attributed all the curses and misfortunes which have be- 

 fallen coffee estates. At this time (1869) Mr. Morice had by 

 great; frugality and thrift laid by a sum of about R30,O0O. 

 With this capital in hand he set to work, never bor- 

 rowing a cent from agents or anyone else, and, for the 

 last eight or nine years of his life, lived on and managed 

 (in the right good old style) his own property, clearing an 

 annual profit of R 10,000 to R15,000 ! Never making a loss 

 from the day the estate came into bearing! Besides a sum 

 of u ready cash" in the hands of his Colombo agents, he 

 has left Ury estate unencumbered, there being 200 acres 

 of fine coffee and cinchona of the oldest and best trees 

 in the district, and another 200 acres forest and patana. 

 Value the property at what you like, all I wish to point 

 out by the above account is, that coffee estates, even with 

 leaf-disease, no manuring and dear transport, even in this 

 district can be made to pay by good management, pro- 

 vided one can steer clear of agents and mortgagees, 

 " necessary evils " they have been to those who have unfortu- 

 nately dropped into their hands. In this respect a warning 

 should be got from the way in which money was scattered 

 about in 18/0-8, bankers lending money often to men in 

 buckram, speculators, and inexperienced young men, who 

 did not know the difference between a coffee tree and a 

 gooseberry bush ! — many of them given to riding about 

 the country in knee-breeches and kid gloves, swilling 

 champagne at meets and jynikhanas, lawn tennis and 

 cricket matches, neglecting their work, ruining their 

 health, losing their employer's, aad sometimes their own, 

 time and money — in fact, doing anything- but learning 

 coffee planting aud how to make it pay. If tea planters 

 were to adopt the same lines aud follow the same 

 amusements, their end would not be far of, and the grand 

 profit of Id or 2d per lb. more prove a visionary 

 hallucination. But they are learning in a different school. 



COFFEE-PLANTING IN UVA (OEYLON) : 

 HAPUTALE RAINFALL AND THE PROPER 

 TIME FOR PUUNING COFFEE 

 The number of days on wh ch rain fell in Haputale 



tor 13 ytars from 1st 



June to 30th September: — 



Autumn Spring Average 



* From June to Irecember. 



+ From blossoms June to December. 



X Tin- largest crop is represented by l'OO. — Yearly average '995. 



\ C'offee suffering from effects of dry weather. 



jl Two distinct shocks of earthquake on 19th anil 25th. 

 The ab.'Ve table may lie of interest to your readers, 

 as it proves that the past four months have been, 

 as described by your correspondents, one of the driest 

 seasons they can remember, and the result will be good 

 crops from the upper fields not overburdened with crop 

 last year. 



