December i, 1884.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



485 



Aa to estimates— well, the first half and more has 

 been secured, but the difficulty always conies ill with 

 the other half. Whether that difficulty will be sur- 

 mounted remaius to be seen : tome doubtless will over- 

 come it — happy people — others won't. 



Of course the season has been a very unfortunate 

 one, making the wild guessing (winch in these days is 

 called estimating) more hazardous than ever ; indeed, 

 what with the results of drought and bug it could not 

 have been worse. And then the wretched state in 

 which the bug has left the coffee. Leaf-disease in its 

 worst days never produced such a ghastly spectacle, 

 for the coffee stands blackened and gaunt, unrespons- 

 ive alike to the powerful stimulus of manure and 

 digging, or the more gentle influences of rain and 

 warm sunshine, and will not be clothed. The appear- 

 ance of a held of coffee stricken in this way was 

 graphically put to me by another when he said, " You 

 could see a hare for a mile through it." And yet 

 some tell us it will recover, insistiug that some low 

 estates which last year' were very bad have improved 

 this, and are goiug on improving. One's faith in 

 these days is often put to a sore trial, aud to stand 

 by tne wreck of what twelve months ago was really 

 good coffee and to see in its blackened branches 

 and bug-covered twigs the potentiality of future 

 fruitfulness is a case in point. It is a hard task 

 indeed, aud I sincerely wish that those who have 

 never been tested iu this way never will. C icao 

 still keeps throwing out blossom, and looks well. 

 Its wonderful fruitfulness in suitable situations is 

 undoubted, and even where soil aud exposure are 

 not everything that can be desired, it makes an 

 honest right to respond to the care bestowed on it. 

 I have heard of a cacao tree on an estate not far 

 from Peradeniya on which 400 pods had been counted. 

 A grand result, without doubt: whether from the effects 

 of manuring I cannot say, hut 1 know of nothing 

 which profits so much by liberal treatment as cacao. 

 On it, manure acts like a charm. 



The success in Ceylon of this new product has 

 encouraged some of the Indian planters to try it there, 

 and an esiate in the Nilgiris which imported seed 

 from Ceylon has found cacao to do remarkably well. 

 As there" is a good deal of laud in that part of the world 

 suitablo for cacao, and it is already attracting atten- 

 tion, we may hear of an Indian rush for cacao 

 pods, which Ceylon will be only too glad to supply. 

 The days of fancy values for coffee estates do not 

 seem quite to have left us, when oue hears that 

 a visiting agent estimates a colfee estate in Mas- 

 keliya on which tea cau be planted at R150 an acre. 

 I do not desire to say a word to depreciate property , 

 still it would be interesting to kuow on what prin- 

 ciple such a valuation is based. 



In the days when coti'ee was inflated to the burst- 

 ing point, these all-poweiful people known as V. 

 A.'s went round the country bidding against each 

 other in the valuing of estates, making marvellous 

 calculations which produced marvellous results. Alas ! 

 however, as it turned out to be more or less iu the 

 fancy line, until they reached the climax, of being 

 fairly staggered themselves, and the end came. Then 

 there was the rush in the rpposite direction, and 

 the first to take the plunge did well. To depreciate 

 was the chief end of them, aud hoiv nobly they re- 

 sponded to the call, and carried that mission out, 

 many a sad heart can tell today. 



Tiie tide, however, has turned again, aud, although 

 "one swallow does not make a summer," stid it is 

 cheering to get a valuation in the temper and tone 

 of the old days, and to recognize that there is a 

 heart of hope left, and, as the Americans would 

 say, that the " boom" is coming. 



I hope to hear of more valuations of this kiud, 

 and somewhat envy the district of Maskeliya that 



it should have been the first to have been honoured. 

 It was for land suitable for tea. How much that 

 covers is the point, for it grows almost anywhere. 

 One who has unbounded faith iu this new product 

 asserts, that, if it were stuck in the public road, in the 

 hole made with an alavanga, even then it would be 

 a success. To these lengths have we gone already ! 

 While on this subject, 1 may say that I learn that 

 Mariawatte has cured 1,050 lb. of tea per acre to 

 the end of last month, and that the 1,200 lb. is 

 expected ere the year expires. Is K150 an acre for 

 land suitable for tea out of the way after all ? 



The small native gardens, which in the hands of 

 the original proprietors turned out to be a snare and 

 a delusion, landing them deeper aud deeper iu debt, 

 have not done any better for the Chetties into whose 

 hands they ultimately fell. Sharp as the Ohetty is, and 

 willing as he may be to work for a very small return, 

 coffee has over-matched him. and he is bound to admit 

 that he is beaten. About Gampola there are a number 

 of gardens of small extent which the Chetty proprietors 

 are endeavouring to transfer, for a consideration of 

 course, only buyers are scanty. 



The Action of Coffee on the composition of the 

 blood, aa well as on the digestive fuuetions gener- 

 ally, has been the subject of research with three 

 French chemists — Messrs. Couty, Guimaiaes anil Niobey. 

 They find that coffee acts beneficially in stimulating 

 the consumption and digestion of the nitrogenous 

 elements in human food. — Australasian, 



Preservation of Sou. on* Hill Estates — The 

 superintendent of an estate in Dimbula which has 

 a good many steep features on it, and where the 

 system of close planting on such steeps and of tea 

 hedges along roads and drains is being carried out, 

 writes: — "Your article on 'Terracing' was A 1. 

 Perhaps you might have -mentioned our building 

 bunds at the edge of the boundary, to catch all soil. 

 They have answered splendidly." As we said in our 

 article, a certain amount of "wash" cannot possibly 

 be avoided, but the detrimental effect can be minim- 

 ized by the adoption of a system of abundant roads 

 and drains of easy gradient generally such as we in- 

 dicated, supplemented by the bunds to which our 

 correspondent refers, and which did not occur to us 

 when writing, although we took a personal interest 

 in their construction. The drains run, of course, into 

 ravines, and the waters of several ravines join in 

 main streams as they flow down. At the outlets of 

 such streams (we are not writing of rivers but of 

 river-tributaries) from the lower boundary of the 

 estate, all timber and loose soil were cleared away 

 and utiliz d for manuring the bushes in the neighbour- 

 hood. The stones available were then used for the 

 construction of bunds near the boundary, sufficiently 

 strong to resist ordinary floods, the waste water, after 

 depositing, as silt, the earthy particles with which it 

 comes laden, flowing over the top of the bund. 

 Periodically the bunds are opened and the lakelets 

 of water allowed to escape. The deposit is then 

 collected by the coolies and applied to the tea-bushes. 

 I o very exceptional floods, a breach may occasionally 

 be made in the bunds, but no great harm is done, 

 as much of the settled silt is not carried away, and 

 on the whole the system of bunds, as our corre- 

 spondent states, is a great success. In ravines, wide 

 and through which copious streams flow, it may be 

 necessary and useful to have a succession of bunds 

 aud silt pools, thus : — 



Silt. 



Silt. 



Silt. 



