January i, 1885,] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 



573 



Gibbs feels convinced that the length of the cylinder, might 

 be increased to the full length now in use in his largest 

 corn-dryers, viz., 36 feet, to the great increase in the 

 outturn. As the present cylinders are divided— facility in 

 transport— in the centre, the additional length can be 

 obtained by simply ordering, the extra lengths to be sent 

 out, and these can be added in the centre of the present 

 cylinders, as the screw-rivet holes will be found to tally 

 in all the lengths. Of course this cannot be effected 

 with the old girder-supported cylinders but with the new 

 system it merely requires one of the end supporting columns 

 to be moved, as the supports are strong enough to bear 

 the extra strain. As the fan at present moves so 

 slowly.. the extra speed and volume of hot air can be obtained 

 from the present fans, with a very slight increase in the 

 motive pover. It will thus be evident how great a stride 

 has been made by doing away with the girder-supports, as 

 not only does it effect a saving in first cost, in freight, 

 in trouble iu erection, but it also allows of the machine 

 being increased in working-power, as the need arises, at a 

 very trifling additional cost, and with but little derange- 

 ment of the original site. It only remains for me to add, 

 that the first six of the new type Driers are already being 

 shipped to the Assam Co., and Messrs. Gibbs and Barry 

 anticipate a still greater success from the new than they have 

 already achieved with their original machine. There is a 

 rumour of another new Dryer being about to make its 

 appearance, but as it is not yet patented, I am not at 

 liberty to enter into any details. It is a pity some of the 

 talent now being devoted to other matters is not given to 

 sorting by machinery. 



COFFEE AND TEA PLANTING ON THE HILLS 

 OF CEYLON. 



Fine weather foe tea, coffee and cinchonas, and all 

 flocbishing — cinchona groves. 



Lindula, Jan. 1st, 1885. 

 The rainfall on the 30th was only 0'42 of nn inch 

 and none having fallen on the 31st, the total for the 

 month was 6'83, or 017 short of the round number 

 estimated. Between 3 and 6 p.m. on the 31st all the 

 meteorological indications, however, betokened an excess 

 of the estimate instead of a deficiency. The sky be- 

 came black with lowering clouds and the cold breeze 

 which generally heralds the deposition of rain made 

 itself felt. The tea-pickers were hurrying to tbe|with- 

 ering-house with their baskets, lest the leaf should be 

 injured and the withering hindered by the rain which 

 seemed so imminent. But, from causes so difficult to 

 understand as to seem capricious, the clouds finally lift' d 

 and dispersed and as the tun was .setting on one side of a 

 clear sky, a brilliant, silvery hill moon appeared over 

 the top of the Nuwara Eliya ranges on the other. And 

 so the gathering of 3,205 lb. of green leaf was housed 

 and " shelved " unweighted by moisture, while the 

 weather last night and today has been most favour- 

 aide to the withering process. As morning dawned 

 the mountains stood out clearly defined and the sun's 

 heat as the day advanced was unmodified by even a 

 fleck of cloud. The abunelant young wood of the coffee 

 is running a race of flushing with the tea and the re- 

 mark was made: "'If this weather continues, there 

 will be a line blossom out by the end of this month." 

 The promise of blossom will probably be fulfilled and 

 in pie-fungus days we should be justified in anticipating 

 a proportionate setting of crop, the trees looking so 

 well as they do. But with all our past experience, we 

 can only "hope for the best." There is a very general 

 opinion, however, that the fungus has done its worst- 

 on coffee, and that as it first appeared in the east of 

 Uva, so it has commenced the waning process in the 

 8ime districts. About the increasing out-turn of tea, 

 on the other hand, the grounds for confitlence are very 

 Btrong. On the place whence I write our regret is 



that for the sake of the difference between £90 

 ai .1 £130 we did not at once iuvest as we now must 

 iua Jackson's " Excelsior" roller. The " Universal " 

 has been going night and day and is even now at 

 work, in order to keep pace with the leaf. It rolls 

 beautifully, but whatever it may be capable of at a 

 lower elevation and a hotter climate, up here it falls 

 far short of the quantity specified in the maker's 

 prospectus. Its capability was said to be the rolling 

 of 60 lb. of withered green leaf every 15 minutes. 

 Thi t would be 240 lb. or 3 maunds per hour. In actual 

 working (motive power, a Walker & Co.'s water wheel), 

 it does not accomplish quite half this quantity. Worked 

 at this rate, "the roll" comes out beautifully finished 

 (50 lb. every 25 or 30 minutes), and quite cool. 

 Much importance is attached by tea makers to this 

 condition, and we have been told (we cannot speak 

 from personal observation), that the great defect in 

 Kinmond's roller is the temperature to which it 

 sends up the leaf it operates on. This is a defect, 

 which slower working would probably cure ? 



While on the subject of tea machinery, I may re- 

 peat that Jackson's sifter, like his roller, does ex- 

 cellent work, but I am only expressing a general 

 opinion when I say that for a machine composed 

 mainly of timber, the price charged seems excessive. 



Iu justification of my anticipations of a very large 

 tea traffic for the railway, I need only adduce the 

 beginnings of tea cultivation which were apparent in 

 the course of my round this morning from Abbots- 

 ford via Inverness and Dessford. Tea in varying 

 stages of growth, is everywhere. On Inverness " new 

 clearing" it is difficult to say, which has made the 

 more rapid progress, tea or the spiendid cinchonas, which 

 at eighteen months old are well-grown trees. But the 

 most cheering and gratifying sight to me was the regular 

 success and luxuriant growth of tea on the expanses 

 of EEdaile, where previously cinchona had proved 

 such a heart-breaking disappointment. My only grief 

 in looking at it was that the good and accomplished 

 and true-hearted gentleman, Edward Heelis, had not 

 been spared to see the turn in his own family for- 

 tunes, in the fortunes of Dimbula and those of Ceylon 

 which tea is certainly destined to accomplish. 



To return to the Lome road and the fore.-ts of 

 cinchonas on Avoca, and especially Dambugastalawa : 

 The doctrine of "the survival of the fittest" is here 

 strikingly illustrated, lor the cinchonas (succirubra, 

 officinalis and hybrids equally flourishing) which were 

 planted amongst the coffee as a subsidiary cultivation; 

 have asserted the paramount place, killing out the 

 coffee trees, which I can remember as of such 

 brilliant promise, and which in the infant stage of 

 the fever trees afforded them shelter. If cinchona 

 pa\ s anywhere it must be on such places as Lome, 

 Avoca, Dambagastalawa and Mattakelle. But the 

 fate- which has overtaken sugar and coffee has not 

 (pared quiuine bark and the consumer has benefitted 

 at the expense of the producer. But low prices for 

 sugar and coffee have always led to a reaction, in 

 consequence of largely increased consumption, and the 

 same pieces?, though not perhaps in the same degree, 

 may be anticipated in the case of cinchona, there 

 being wide room for the increased use of the febri- 

 and tonic alkaloids, not only in the treatment 

 of human beings but in veterinary surgery. Other uses 



■ bark and. its extracts, too, will be • 

 by the brewer, the i dyer, &c. But after 



sons of t Ceylon cinchona growers 



oly piefer to burn or, better, bury the 

 small twigs, ratherthan send their buk to the bin ,u 

 market to sell at from Id to 41 per lb. In the cases 

 of cacao and tea, we must, we suppose, It prepared 

 for the same process of over-production and iis effects 

 which have so adversely affected wheat, sugar ami 

 coffee. Iu such a case Ceylon seems to possess ad. 



