878 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[Jtl.NE I, 1885. 



coffee had culminated. Those who think that th s 

 was mere accident cannot be congratulated on their 

 mental idiosyncracy. Talking of .n^'«nousea ! 

 8 urely the Bplendid bushes on Winds, > Forest must 

 have been indigenous or very cWy al lied to the 

 real Simon Pure." Wo passed close 1 ■ the gio\e 

 of 50 acres of first-clas^ hybrid ^d-hearcrs o, 

 Kelvin which, we were told, hav e fui some 5 ears 

 yielded a return of from R45 000 to »S°-™J? 

 annum-in such request is good locally ^o«n seea. 

 Horagalla, which has also yielded so much seed »I 

 a high-class, we saw only at a distance with Seaforth 

 and other estates u£ a tine and flourish! g group. 

 Tea has found it, very home in Dolosbage, with the 

 generally Hood B ..d and perfect 

 trict 



irauy ge'ou ou" ■»>■« 1 , ■ 



; But of Dolosbage we must speak iu a b 

 lent series of our (to ourselves, at least) pleas 

 .lelighlful journey. 



sub- 

 ant 



sequ 

 recollections of 



TEA IN CEYLON IN DAYS OF OLD. 

 (Notes from an Old Colonist.) 



Mr. Wm. Donnan (brother o£ your worthy Master 

 Attendant) was really the first to introduce tea, south 

 of Adam's Peak, and all suggested by a casual re- 

 mark of an old Indian in Shaud's office indicating 

 how tea in poor soil had held its own against all 

 the competing jungle plants and was found still in 

 full possession after being for years abandoned, 

 during the crisis— for there was a crisis in tea too. 

 It was on hearing this that Donnan sent for seed to 

 try on Barra. A poorer spot could hardly have been 

 situated. Greig at first was against it and advised 

 "stick to coffee," but he was ultimately won over. 



Well done old Weyangawatte ! It seems but the 

 other day I was driving through it on one of my 

 rounds, looking once more at its sapless Bhillellas 

 "hen who came hirpling out of the long deserted 

 bungalow but old Corbet, who had lust taken a 

 sub-contract on the new line ; he waved to me to stop : 

 ■"\Vhat do you think of tins leaf pest ! " he asked, 

 and added, " Do you kn iw what Thwaitec says ? he 

 declares that 15 years hence Ceylon (as far as coffee 

 is concerned) will be a howling wilderness. A few 

 days afterwards some fellow put this prophecy in 

 print for the first tune. It is now, alas, 15 years 

 ago, and how fares it with coffee.' 



♦ 



NOTE! ON PROGRESS IN NORTE BORNEO. 

 (From No. th Borneo Herald, April 1st.) 



A correspondent writes:-" On my last visit to Palilalia 

 I was struck by a large number of small pieces of sponge 

 apparently of good quality lying on the sea beach. I am 

 of opinion, that, if the reef winch cannot be far rom 

 BalhaUa could be discovered, that sponges of a paying 

 nature could easily be obtained." 



On the 13th March twelve Malayas left Sandakan 

 for the Segama River where they propose to prospect 

 for cold on their own account, and being old miners 

 from Sarawak, it is thought they will be able to make 

 the venture a profitable one The Commissioner _of 

 Lands Mr. Henry Walker, who left Sandakan oa the 2Cth 

 ult with some Chinese and Malays, has also gone up the 

 Seeama Kiver and hopes during the dry weather which 

 is now setting in to make Bueh investigations as may 

 tend to lead to the working by Chinese ai d .thers of 

 the alluvial deposits of gold on a large sea e. Before re- 

 turning Mr. Walker proposes to visit the water-shed 

 between the Segania and Kinabatangan rivers. 



Among the various samples of Borneo produce which 

 Captain R. D. Beeston hs sent to Mcll 

 barque "Ell 1" is one of 

 able was (.U. ........ to, . . . - - - ; " 



authority to bo the best lubricant for macniuory that car. 



be procured, and which combines economy with efficiency. 

 There is no doubt but that this product if properly at- 

 tended to will command a high price and be received with 

 high favour in the Australian colonies, as, while it is as 

 good as palm oil, its price will never run to anything like 

 so high as that commodity. Captain Beeston thinks very 

 highly of it, and has particularly requested his Melbourne 

 friends to have it thoroughly tested. We shall be happy 

 to hear the result of the experiment. 



On the evening of February 2nd the barque "Ellen" of 

 Newcastle, New South Wales, arrived herefrom Hongkong, 

 bringing as passengers Captain R. D. Beeston aud Mr. 

 E. W. Thomas who are inaugurating a traffic in produce 

 between Melbourne, Borneo and London. Captain An- 

 thony made a fast passage of eight days from Hougkoug, 

 during thirty-two hours of which he" was becalmed in the 

 Miudore Strait. As a proof of the facility of access to 

 Sandakan harbours Captain Anthony sailed his vessel in 

 after dark without lifting a tack or sheet and only hauled 

 up his canvass on reaching his anchorage off the wharf. 

 He sailed away bouud direct to Melbourne with a eargo 

 of soft wood timber on the 18th ultimo. He hopes to 

 return shortly for another cargo, aud we hope he will be 

 able to do so as he expresses himself pleased with the 

 country, and he possesses a thorough knowledge of the 

 timber aud timber trade. 



THE RESOURCES OF NORTH BORNEO: 

 TIMBER. 



That the future prosperity of Sabah must depend upon 

 the introduction of outside capital, and the attention of 

 outside capitalists, interested of course to their own ultim- 

 ate profit, in its development, is a fact that admits of 

 no adverse argument. Every individual, every country, 

 and every community depends more or less on the 

 principal of " give and take " to mutual advantage of 

 each. Sabah possesses in itself resources which are 

 practically illimitable, but to develop them, as they are 

 capable of development, requires the attraction to tho 

 country of men, able and willing to put in their lot 

 with, aud further their own fortunes, while at the 

 same time they are advancing the interest of the colony. 

 It must be admitted, that, up to the present, outside enter- 

 prize in the country has been, to say the least, very> 

 limited. With the sole exception of the Chinese Sabah 

 Land Farming Company no operations on any largo 

 scale have been attempted. True, the Australian Borneo 

 Company started on a large scale, if taking up 100,000 

 acres of land may be classed as " operating"; but they 

 have for over twelve months made no further sign, al- 

 though it is probable their lethargy will be changed to 

 activity within the next three months. The Deutsche Borneo 

 Company are at work on Bangney Island, but, with 

 these three exceptions, outside enterprize in the way of 

 planting can only be named on the lucits a non hicendo 

 principle. With regard to the Australian Borneo Com- 

 pany, it must always be borne in mind that their prim- 

 ary object was taking up a large acreage for the pur- 

 poses of sugar planting, and that, almost synchronous with 

 the arrival of their agent in Borneo, sugar fell consider- 

 ably in the market, so much so as to drive the sugar 

 planters of Fiji and Queensland to the verge of despair; 

 this being the case it is not perhaps to be wondered at 

 that sugar " stank in the nostrils " of the I Ielbourne 

 capitalists. 



Mr. do Lissa, the pioneer sugar planter in Sabah, could 

 do nothing in Melbourne in the way of raising capital 

 to facilitate tho growth of sweet cam on the banks of 

 the Sagaliud ; but he discovered, what previously hail 

 apparently been quite unknown to him, that iris land had 

 a value in itself that did not require any planting to 

 bring out. He discovered, or rather he was told, that 

 the Seryah on his estate was a wood resembling very 

 much the Queensland cedar which owing to the reck- 

 less denudation of the scrubs, and the absence of any 

 conservancy regulations in that colony is rapidly becom- 

 ing extinct. Samples of the wood submitted were approved 

 of ; a Syndicate was formed, and subject to the approval of 

 an export, Mr. de Lissa was offered a good price tor 

 his timber. The result is already known 



