March 2, 1885] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



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The Tkavancore Estates and Produce Company 

 Limited. — A new company, with the above title, has re- 

 cently been registered. It is formed to purchase, rent, or 

 lease land in India for the cultivation of tea, coffee, cin- 

 chona, spices, and other produce thereon, and manufact- 

 ure, export, and sell such produce, &c. Registered by 

 Arthur B. Urmston, solicitor, 26, Theobald's Koad, Gray's 

 Inn, W. O. Capital £25,000, divided into 2,500 shares of 

 £10 each. The first subscribers are :— Stanley Napier 

 Kaikes, .7. p., Hill Ash, Dymock, Gloucestershire, 1 share ; 

 Robert Napier Kaikes, general, 24, St. Edmuud's Terrace, 

 Regent's Park, 1 ; Horace Sibbald Harrison, captain, Torre, 

 Torquay, Devon, 1; William Alves Raikes, barrister, 12, 

 King's Bench Walk, Temple, E. C, 1 ; Alan Lambert, 

 merchant, 9, St. Helen's Place, London, 1 ; Ernest Lus- 

 moore Marshall, merchant, 9, St. Helen's Place, London, 

 1 ; John Alexander Hanham, merchant, 9, St. Helen's 

 Place, Loudon, 1 share. Number of directors to be not 

 less than three nor more than seven ; qualification 50 

 shares. The first directors to be Major Stanley Napier 

 Raikes, Captain Horace and S. Harrison, and William Alves 

 Raikes. Remuneration, £300 per annum. — H. and C. Mail, 

 Jan. 23rd. 



Tea Planting Notes.— The following remarks by an able 

 Indian planter on the questious of labour and pruning in 

 India and Ceylon will, no doubt, be of interest to our 

 readers : — The numbers of coolies required in Ceylon for 

 cultivation purposes is less than half what we required in 

 Assam or Darjeeling. AVe had a visit lately from a Ceylon 

 planter, a very nice fellow, he was astonished at the 

 quantity of, what he called jungle, he saw on our gardens 

 though the said jungle was merely a crop of weeds a few 

 inches high springing up after a recent hoeing. He said 

 that all through the year not a single weed was to be seen on 

 the Ceylon estates. The tea there is all on old coffee estates, 

 many years old. In planting out these coffee estates 

 the jungle and weeds were rooted out and cleared away, 

 and entirely killed out at the beginning and never allowed 

 to get ahead again, consequently very little jungle grows 

 now and the few weeds that do spring up are easily rooted 

 up before they are au inch high. One man keeps 8 or 10 

 acres perfectly clean all the year round. The yield of tea 

 per acre there is also larger than at Darjeeling, and I be- 

 lieve there is a great future for tea at Ceylon. The only 

 question is, will it die out and cease to yield in time, as 

 the coffee has done 'I As to pruning, there is no rule as 

 to any particular height a tea bush ought to be kept at. 

 It all depends on the jut of plant, and the original height 

 and size of the bush before the pruning. But it is use- 

 less waste of growth letting bushes run away to 5 and 6 

 feet high of new wood in one season. Hybrid bushes, 

 I should say, are best at about 2i to 3 feet high after 

 pruning, about 3 in. of this being new wood of the season's 

 growth. In Sylhet I used to do as follows :— rPrune bushes 

 flat, leaving not more than about 3 in. of new growth, or 

 brown wood. In plucking, up to the end of April grow 

 five leaves and bud, and pluck two leaves and the bud, 

 leaving three full leaves on the shoot. From May to end 

 of June, grow four leaves and bud and pluck two and the 

 bud. From July to end of August, grow three to four 

 leaves and bud, pluck two to three leaves and bud, leav- 

 ing one to two full leaves on shoot. From September to 

 end of season, grow two to three leaves and bud and 

 pluck all " Bangy " or open leaf ; shoots, in the begin- 

 ning of the season, will not run to five leaves, but open 

 out and stop at two or three leaves for a long time. 

 These ought to be plucked (say two out of the three 

 leaves) and they will then sooner throw out proper long 

 shoots. Of course, the above is no hard and fast rulo, 

 and depends sometimes on the season, rainfall or growth 

 you may or may not be making. By plucking as above 

 I used to get a good crop off the garden and yet have 

 lots of fine growth to prune on by the end of the season. 

 After every five or six years, I think all tea bushes re- 

 quire heavy pruning, i.r., cutting down to within a foot 

 or so of the ground, but leaving the outer or side branches 

 as much as possible, so as not to reduce the bush later- 

 ally. After heavy pruuing you should let bushes run to 

 six or seven leaves before plucking. Then, at end of the 

 season, don't leave all the long new growth that will have 

 been made on the bush, but cut it down also to about 

 three inches long. These three inches will be enough, i 



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and will throw out lateral branches, and so form a good 

 surface of plucking shoots by the second season. I have 

 taken some trouble to study these operations. I have 

 read up all I could find on the subjects, and whenever I 

 got a chance, I used to question good practical men, or 

 men that I knew were really good authorities on the 

 subject and who were also successful planters, so, by 

 keeping my eyes and ears open, I have got to know a 

 little about these matters. — Home aHid Colonial Mail. 



Coonoor Coffee Crops.— Picking this season is un- 

 usually late, owing, as I said in a former communic- 

 ation, to the failure of the rains and a consequent late 

 blossom. But, at present, great activity prevails, and the 

 fast ripening berry is being picked with an earnestness 

 and avidity truly characteristic of the industry. On some 

 estates picking is already over and the process of pulp- 

 ing and drying are being carried on in view to the des- 

 patch of the crop to the coast agents. It is gratifying 

 to hear that the majority of planters have been agreeably 

 suprized hi their expectation of the out-turn in crops. 

 In the vicinity of Coonoor the largest producing propert- 

 ies are the "Hill Grove," '• Runnymede," "Benhope." and 

 " Meejee" Estates, the crops from all of which have quite 

 fulfilled the expectations of their respective proprietors. 

 The onlv thing necessary of course to a return of the 

 good old days, being an improvement in the home market. 

 The great importance which coffee has steadily attained 

 to as a staple of commerce very naturally suggests to 

 ordinary thinkers the inquiry as to the best meaus of 

 still further promoting its culture. Opinion is unanimous 

 to the effect that nothing can supersede coffee as a bev- 

 erage, and though other staples may for a time prove 

 more remunerative as an industry, it goes without say- 

 ing that coffee cultivation must and will hold its place 

 as an industry, despite losses and failures.— Ptantt rs' 

 Ui u, hi, 



1'iaxting in the West Indies.— At the recent half-yearly 

 meeting of tbeColonialBank the Chairman, Mr. H.H.Dobree, 

 said that there had beeu a number of most desponding— aud, 

 as he thought, over-desponding— letters from the propriet- 

 ors iu the West Indies and other sugar-producing colonies, 

 stating that the cultivation of cane sugar could never be 

 carried on again at a profit; and those letters had natur- 

 ally frightened persons as to the future of the Bank. As 

 regarded its future, however, he would say that the West. 

 Indies had passed through, and had recovered from, quite 

 as severe acrisisas they were now passing through, and 

 they bad been fairly prosperous, at least, for the last 15 

 years. The present great fall in the price of sugar was iu 

 the main caused by the unduly fostered production of beet — 

 fostered unduly by bounties — and to such an extent had that 

 production been encouraged, that the sugar had been forced 

 down owing to the enormous amount which had been pro- 

 duced beyond what the consumer could take, to as low as 

 £10 per ton. That price was stated, by those who were 

 fully competent to judge of the question, to be £5 a ton 

 below the price for which sugar could be produced in any 

 part of the world and under the most favourable circum- 

 stances. That was a state of things which could not last 

 long. It was impossible that such an article as sugar could 

 long be produced below its cost. The beet interest was 

 suffering quite as much as, if not more than, the cane sugar 

 interest. In the cane sugar interest, especially in the West 

 Indies, there was every prospect of a reciprocity treaty 

 being concluded with the United States, which would 

 enable the States to absorb 'the whole of the crops of the 

 West Indies, and, he had no doubt, would be of immense 

 advantage to the West Indies generally. It was believed 

 by gentlemen who had some experience of the management 

 of sugar estates, that although possibly in some of the 

 smaller West India islands cane might go out of cultivation, 

 yet sugar could lie produced as cheap, or even cheaper, in 

 Demerara, Trinidad, and Barbadoes as in any part of the 

 world. Another matter of some importance to them was 

 that the West Indies were not so entirely dependent upon 

 the produce of the sugarcane as they were some ten years 

 ago. Of course it was their great staple product, but there 

 was a very large production of cocoa, coffee, spices, and 

 fruit — the trade now springing up in fruit with the I nited 

 States was very large indeed — and this all tended to wake, 

 the West Indies to some extent independent of sugar, 



