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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[November i, 1884. 



trench 1J to 2 feet deep and 1 foot wide. A cooly will 

 do 12 trees. Into it if there is stoue, fill it ; over this • 

 put grass or weed; failing stone fill with brushwood. End 

 of gault trench is to open on drains, roads, or streams. 

 This plan absolutely stops (rush and prt i; tits " wet feet," and 

 lasts for an indefinite time* The rain water percolates 

 into the land, leaves all the land requires, and passes off 

 through their subsoil drains. It costs only RIO per acre ! 



Digqiny.—po this the same as a nursery on level land, 

 starting 'with a trench made two feet wide— do it with 

 pickaxe— and remove the earth behind with marnoty. It 

 is the only method of getting rid of " Moram grass," or 

 as it is called in Oanarese " dobbahoolo." Fern is treated 

 with ignorant indifference by those who ought to know 

 better. It is a most harmful weed. On the Shevaroys R50 

 has been paid to get it dug out of one acre.f Digging is 

 estimated at from R15 to R20 per acre in Wynaad. Third 

 year winter as second year ; manure as before. Dig as much 

 as possible and gault steep land. 



Note.— While revising this paper, I notice a reference to 

 General Morgan's Prize Essay, which I regret I have not, 

 read in the -Smith of India Observer' Planters' Supplement. 

 The writer, after touching on the loss of potash by coffee 

 crops, referring to the essay, " the writer shows that nearly 

 all coffee soils have a subsoil composed of decomposed fel- 

 spar, which, on an average percentage of 18 per cent of 

 potash, heve is the panacea for his loss ready to the planter's 

 hand, who has only to dig up and lay on his land the 

 ' amount of felspar which will supply his loss of potash 000 lb. 

 For instance, to meet his loss of potash, he will require 

 about 4,000 lb. of felspar to be on the right side. The 

 writer of the treatise explains that being spread on the 

 surface of the ground, the potash by the action of the 

 weather and carbonic acid in the air become liberated and 

 fit for plant food. That so long as it remained in the 

 ground, bound up in silicates, the roots of plants are quite 

 unequal to the task of assimilating the potash." 



Wintering, Manuring, Gaulting, Digging, and Renovation 

 pits in porous upper and subsoils (this is all that has been 

 on the 25 acres I referred to, which is 20 years old and 

 unmanured, tilled by renovation pits) this is tillage. When 

 persons art not aUe t<> do this, let them lost «» more time 

 but cut coffee, for they cumber the land by owning it. and 

 tin- man who cannot command labour must be sunt away 

 for one who can. 



Wintering is singularly beneficial for trees under s.haae. 

 Fourth year manure only undug and ungaulted land It 

 ought to be protected from raiu, both for reasons named 

 and convenience of carriage. A paper in the Gardeners' 

 Chronicle lately went to prove that exposure to sun did 

 not harm cattle-manure. This would seem to be confirmed 

 by the good results of the scant manuring in the lowcountry. 

 Certainly rain on stacked manure is bad. 



Manure put in at the time of the year April, May and 

 June, 30 lb. to a tree does stop leaf-disease. In August 

 onward I have found it cause leaf-disease to follow. And 

 likely this was the case with trees brought to an expert's 

 not : ce. He writes me on leaf-disease :— " There is only one 

 cause of leaf-disease— the spore of the minute parasite 

 Hemileia rastatrix. Given these and moisture in which to 

 generate on coffee leaf, and everything else follows. So 

 far from attacking by preference sickly trees. Ceteris paribus 

 (a saving clause for your doctor) Hemileia flourishes best, 

 when it lives in and feeds on the finest and most juicy 

 leaves, and no system of cultivation that improves and 

 invigorates the coffee can help benefiting the fungus also 

 to some extent, and but of course good cultivation and 

 nutrition help the trees to hear it. Hemileia may disappear. 

 I do not expect this, however. If it do so, it will be due 

 to some general causes of a climatic character of some 

 years' continuance." 'When the vine disease and potato 

 rot have continued so long, it does not look on the face 

 of it encourrging to coffee— only a radical and a practic- 

 able change of treatment will do good, and I believe this 

 to be the best. At the same time I have the great dis- 

 advantage 'of not having been in Ceylon, so I dare not 

 speak with the same assurance of my system being a success 



there. Though I infer it will be of great benefit when I 

 consider that the present system is not in harmony with 

 what is known of the culture of trees in tropical climates. 



1st. — Col. Money, in his excellent book on tea, insists 

 that tea should have a time set apart to hibernate a plant 

 that is only cultivated for its leaf. This leaf, we know, 

 takes less out of soil for its structure, and very much more 

 out of the atmosphere and water than a " nut fruit " like 

 coffee. So how much the more coffee that has more severe 

 calls on soil requires hibernation. 2nd. — Wintering has been 

 found' to enforce productiveness in trees that* in tropical 

 climates would only blossom, as noted by Sir E. Tennent 

 of the cherry tree in the Ceylon gardens. I look also to 

 this paper having the effect .of waking up in old planters 

 old experiences and observations which only require waking 

 up, since I have had many good hints on coffee given by 

 men who have knocked about, namely, barristers, doctors, 

 military men, sailors of kinds, farmers, padres (particularly 

 Roman priests), shopkeepers, engineers, &c, who never saw 

 a coffee tree before. Truth like gold must be sought after, 

 and here it can be only done by shaking and hearing 

 what other men's experiences are. 



Before I close I must refer to Ensilage. I never heard 

 of it before last year, though it was known 50 years ago 

 as a farmer friend tells me. It ought to be most useful 

 to those estates with little grazing. Since, I learn that five 

 head of cattle can be kept on the same area one was form* rly. 



I cannot set my system before planters as a panacea 

 for leaf-disease or non-productiveness, but it is in harmony 

 with all known Europeau and tropical agriculture, and I 

 have proved it. 



Manure put in at the right time is here Glenvaus, a 

 preventive of leaf-disease, 50 lb. to a tree. It may not be 

 so in other parts. Also since it is quite impossible to cattle 

 manure one-twentieth of the estates, I shoulcl be doing 

 little to help my fellow-planters by giving a specific which 

 very few could have the means of using. So it will be 

 found that my system specially meets the difficulty. I 

 meet the want of manure by tillage. 



Wintering without manure can give ... ... 2 crops 



Gaulting do do do 2 do 



Digging really 15 inches deep gives ... ... 2 do 



On Glenvaus renovation pits alone have made 25 acres 

 give paying crops, and my extract for General Morgan's 

 letter gives the reason. Here an estate can go on 6 years 

 without even bone or any patent manures. 



I have ho hesitation in stating that if this system is 

 carried out, it will more than fulfil what I have stated, 

 and I look to King Coffee becoming remunerative as it 

 was in better times. 



I conclude by laying this paper before the Planters' 

 Association of Ceylon, leaving it to their unbiassed judg- 

 ment to approve and test by results, and leave it entirely 

 to you to give me such remuneration as the value your 

 ample experience will be able to discern, and I look to 

 free gifts from those owners who benefit from applying 

 my system. 



In reading this paper I trust due allowance will be made 

 for the great difference of seasons in Ceylon. Local ex- 

 perience of localities can only fix the time and season. 



Edgar A. Quarme. 



4th September 1884. 



Note. — I see by the Ceylon papers leaf-disease is less: 

 this is, I believe, owing to the very dry season having 

 increased the period of hibernation. — E. A. Q. 



* This mode of culture was carried out over 30 years ago 

 in the Ootacamund Botanical Gardens. It i s effective up 

 to the present time. 



t Dug up soil last usefully open over 20 years. 



Kerr's Tea Roller. — A planter gives the follow- 

 ing opinion on this roller : — 



" Since writing you last I have been travelling a good 

 deal| in the tea district*, and seen a good deal of machin- 

 ery at work, I can still honestly say that your roller 

 lurus out as good work as any. I expressed myself so, 

 but people have got an idea into their beads that the 

 machine is not so good as others : a great deal of harm 

 has been done by inferior workmanship. Of course, I 

 explained that the fault of the first put-out machines 

 lay in the build and not in the principle of the machine, 

 but I could only explain this to people I came in contact 

 with on the subject. Two days after the first report 

 appeared in the Observer, I had a request to show your 

 machine to two friends," 



