96 



tHE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[August i, iSSj,' 



My own impression with regard to this insect is, 

 that, until the matter is set at rest, the planters of Uva' 

 should hesitate before they root out their coffee or 

 plant tea amongst it. I have no faith at all in Uva a5 

 a profitable tea-producing district unless on parldy 

 land having the benefit of irrigation. I have a very 

 intimate knowledge of the geological formation of this 

 large district, and I fear the sub-soil is of much too 

 porous a nature to yield sufficient flushes of leaf, 

 especially when prices decline as they are inevitably 

 bound to do before long. OBERON. 



[The coffee leaf-disease is due to a fungus, and no 

 authority, from Thwaites to Marehall Ward, ever 

 mentioned an insect in connection with it, except 

 one which it was hoped (a hope not fulfilled) might 

 prey on the fungus. Perhaps it is this insect which 

 this correspondent professes in his extraordinarv letter 

 to have discovered. As a preliminary to discussing 

 such a question, surely he ought to have read at least 

 Marshall Ward's reports. There are insect pests which 

 affect coffee : grub at the roots and black bu" on the 

 leaves and stems. But it is the fungus Hemikia vast- 

 atrtx which enters the stomata and feeds on the life 

 juices of the plant contained in the leaf-cells.— 

 Ed.] 



CEYLON PLANTING: PAST, PRESENT, AND 

 FUTURE. 



Dear Sir,— The writer of " Ceylon in the Fifties 

 and the Eighties," refers to visiting agents in a 

 somewhat humorous vein, and mentions that, in his 

 early planting career, estates were inspected by the 

 chiefs of the agency houses or the proprietor, whilst 

 now "an organized army of V.A.'s traverse the 

 country, add beauty to the scenery, and make life 

 and work pleasant to the superintendents whom they 

 visit. " This remark, I thought, would have reminded 

 some of the " inflationists " of a few years ago to 

 Bay something about their old remarks on the '"de- 

 tractors," or on that one who was said by them 

 to be the exponent of the class, W. MoK. 

 Although I never had a V. A. over me, I happened 

 to be acquainted with one and all the members of 

 the " army," and still take a sort of interest in 

 them : therefore I would be glad to see some of those 

 who wrote against them acknowledge themselves in 

 the wrong. And to take poor W, McK. as an ex- 

 ample : one of the infiatiouists wrote of him that 

 he had done more to destroy the credit of the colony 

 than any leaf-dis-ase could have done, and that his 

 shadow was dreaded by every proprietor— especially 

 in Maskeliya. It is some four years ago since that 

 was written, and the writer has never yet thought 

 proper to send a second letter to the paper, point- 

 ing out that W, McK. was the strongest advocate 

 for the planting of tea in Maskeliya, and it has 

 proved a suoocaa there, as far as one can gather 

 Iro:n the newspapers, whilst we find no reports prov- 

 ing that hu was wrong wlien ho s.nid that coffee was 

 doomed iu Maskeliya, and the soouer tea took its 

 place the belter. 



Some years befwe Morris of sulphnf and lime fame 

 startled the world with an unpublished life history 

 of the Hemikia vasialrix, W. McK. stayed at my 

 bungalow, and I showed him some trees which I 

 had tried with sulphur and lime applied to thoni iu 

 erery conceivable way, even to the eitent of boring 

 a hole down tlie centre of the stump, Hlliog it 

 with the two ingredients and plugging it, but it is 

 scarcely necessary for me to add, without' any good 

 effect taking place. I dnresay I tri^d more novel and 

 heroic ways to euro coft'ee of JT. V. than any other 

 planter in the island, but the ouly one thai, gave aiiy 

 good results was rubbing the whole atoms of the 

 tree* with kerosiug oil, and tliis had the effect of 



keeping off the attack of //. Y. for about a year, 

 but of course the costliness of the cure made it 

 prohibitive. After seeing the various trees on which 

 I had been operating, W. McK. seemed only more 

 convinced in his opinion than ever that coffee was 

 doomed, an opinion in which I quite agreed with 

 him, but his strong advocacy of tea, as a means of 

 restoring prosperity to the island, did not strike me 

 as being a very pleasant prospect, my belief being, 

 thai;, although tea growing may be a very good pro- 

 fe6.sion for John Chinaman, it is not for a pucka 

 white man. I have not changed my views on this 

 subject, although I am pleased to see that tea is doing 

 BO much good for Ceylon. Having been accused of 

 being a pessimist myself, because I chose to think 

 coffee doomed, I naturally feel that justice has not 

 been done W. McK. and others who were, in the 

 columns of the local papers, abused for giviug their 

 honest convictions, when asked for an opinion. So 

 far back as 1874 I wrote in your paper:— "No ! 

 Dimbula, you have disappointed me, although yoii 

 did make the fortunes of so many young fellows, 

 who were, luckily for them, obliged to buy land 

 here, or else go without any at all. How little did 

 they think that they were being forced into a fortune, 

 I hope those who bought second-hand will manage 

 to get their money out of you again." To this sent- 

 ence Ed. C. O. put the following footnote :— " Mr. 

 George Smith for instance, who, knowing all the faults 

 as well as all the merits of Dimbula, has paid £11,500 

 cash for 275 acres of coffee." If Mr. George Smith 

 has got his money out of his investment' again I 

 must acknowledge myself wrong, but, if not, per- 

 haps you will add a P. &', to your former footnote, 

 bearing in mind that, however successful Mr. Smith 

 may have been with regard to tea and cinchona, it 

 was with reference to coffee that I wrote, Although 

 W. McK. was singled out as the V. A. upon whom 

 the inflationists chose to pour the vials of their 

 wrath, he was not the only V. A. that held pessim- 

 istic views on the subject of coffee, and several 

 others openly confessed their want of confidence in 

 the revival of the old staple of the island, and, in 

 some cases, this opinion cost them their billets. I 

 could mention the names of many old and experienced 

 planters who held just as pessimistic views as W. McK. 

 but, not being V. A.'s, their opinions were not eircuU 

 ated, and so they escaped the odium of the inflation- 

 ists. These men all bflieved in the new product 

 theory, and those have nearly all turned out fairly 

 Buceessful undertakings ; and yet 1 see no sigos of 

 the inflationists making any favourable comments on 

 the views which the hated W. McK. & Co. ent-rtained 

 in days gone by, and which have turned out so will, 

 I might give numerous quotations, which appeared in 

 the columns of your paper, against the views of \V. 

 McK. & Co., all of which have been proved wrong, 

 but no note of admission that such is the case has 

 come from the writers, and I could give aa many 

 qnolatious irom the pens of pesaimists, myself amongst 

 the number, all of which have come right, or neaHy 

 so ; but these require no comment, they speak for 

 themselves. Perhaps none of those has proved more 

 correct than the prophecy of mine, which was pub- 

 lished about 10 years ago— when coff-e was king 

 indeed and everything connected with it ttood at a 

 premuim. Iu that article I foreshadowed the future 

 of the planting industry, and placed the products 

 in th.« following order as likely to bo reniuneratlvo 

 to the growers : viz. c.cao, cinchona, cardamoms, t«i, 

 ooHoo, cinnamon, and Liberian coffee I placed abjol 

 titely last. I was laughed at for holding such views 

 at the time, but 1 leave it to tho present race of 

 plautr rs to say >vhether I was very far out cit-sr ali 

 i he old V, A. was not snch a villain us the iua.Uio 

 ists would feifQ have painted biui, he believed" 



