^34 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[August i, 1885. 



coolies haryested 10,195 lb., the average beiog 

 152 ;5 lb.; so (or the two mouths May and June 

 28 G31 lb. were harvested by 194 coolies, the average 



being 147 1J2 lt>.. 



I may here mention that I obtained an average of 

 197 lb. one day last month, my best cooly bring- 

 ing in 2.31 lb. nett bark. 



I weigh my bark once a day, as so much time will 

 be wasted iu weighing twice. One ccoly canuot carry 

 all the bark he shaves for a day ; so ou striking work 

 another man employed at some other work is put on 

 for carrying the extra bag. The force I employ for 

 Bliaving is very small, 6 or 7, ivul the best men are put 

 on to it. The work was carefully done, because the 

 V. A. after examining many of the trees found no fault 

 w*»h me for overshaviug or damaging the trees in any 

 wav. 1 can account for getting such a large quantity 

 of bark per man easily. 1 have a small force of coolies, 

 and aboub the only work I have to do is to look after 

 the shaving and thatching of the trees, so that_ I can 

 devote more time to my coolies than other superintend- 

 ents who have to louk after tea or coffee, or both pro- 

 ducts, as well as cinchona. B. E. 



P. S.— I think there are many estates here that get 

 above 100 lb. per cooly. 



WHAT ARE THE PROSPECTS OF CEYLON TEA? 



3rd July 1885. 



Dear Sir, — Now that what may be truly called 

 " the rush into tea " has got well under weigh, it 

 is not out of place to take a glance into the future 

 and ask ourselves : — 



1st. What effect on the London market will 

 ■ 00,000,000 lb. of Ceylon tea have five or six years hence ? 



2nd. What profit per acre should we have if tea fell 

 to an average price of 8d per lb. with a yield of 4001b? 



3rd. Would China exports fall off? or stop entirely, 

 supposing such a limit (81) tn be reached? 



4th. Would Indian exports fall off? or would they 

 abandon their laud as so many estates have been in 

 Ceylon lately ? the answerer should bear in raiud that 

 a very large part of the Indian tea estates are the 

 property of companies who probably have cipital. 



5ch. Has the production of any tropical product 

 been known to suddenly cease through a fall in price? | 

 ride Brazd, Java, Ceylon and India. I excipt Siii.h i 

 American bark because that is not a cultivated pro- 1 

 duct and no money is invested ui the growing it. ^ 



6th. What is the probable fall in the price of tea, ] 

 consequent on the future export from Ceylon likely to be V 



These questions are what every man should ask 

 himself now, and the answers, though they may cause 

 a good deal of disappointment, will save far more 

 by and bye. 



I am not a pessimist by any means, though some 

 might infer it from my questions. What 1 aim at 

 is "some forecast of the future. Tea is going in 

 everywhere and any how in all sorts of land and iu 

 every district ; with 400 lb. an acre at Is it is coulcur 

 de rose oi course, and so all the plantiu'i world would 

 have it not only now but for all time. How it 

 would be at 8d is the reason of my being 



A QUESTIONER. 



[With reference to the letter of " A Questioner" 

 which appears above, the same was no doubt written 

 before we published Messrs. Gow, Wilson & Stanton's 

 and \V. J. and H. Thompson's latest reports which 

 aflbrd tlie best answers at present available to most 

 of the questions asked. The comfoit which many 

 Ceylon tea planters take about tea prospects is that 

 they are bound to beat both China and India out 

 of competition should the prices fall for good teas. 

 At tlie 3 line time no words of warning cim be too 

 weighty ill reference to tlie evils of hasty reckless 

 planting of bad seed or misera bly p^or jat of tca- 

 plauts ou poor land.^BD .] 



JUNGLE AND PLANTATION TEA SEED 

 HYBRIDIZING. 



Colombo, 7th July 1S85. 



Dear Sir, — With reference to a letter from Mr. 

 C. A. Hay, and your editorial note ou the above subject 

 in your issue of this date, you will perhaps allow 

 me to state that the family to which the tea-plant 

 belongs is called Teenstriemiace.*: from the genus 

 Ternsticemia, so named by the younger Linnieus in 

 honor of Ternstrum, a Swedish naturalist and tra- 

 veller in China, who died in Policandre in 1745, and 

 the Ceylon jungle tea-plants and the cultivated ones 

 are both members of this family, but I do not think 

 they can possibly hybridize, and their progeny be 

 confounded with the real tea-plant when they are 

 in flower or fruit. This family was elaborately worked 

 out by Mr. W. T.Thiselton Dyer, c. m. g., Assistant 

 Director of the Royal Gardens, Kew, in pp. 279-294 

 of volume 1 of the Flora of British India, by Sir 

 Joseph Hooker, and others, and in which 14 different 

 genera are given, whilst only four of them occur in CeyloD, 

 viz., Terustriemia, Adinandra, Eurya, and Gordonia. 



The cultivated tea-plants were described by Lin- 

 Dfeus under the genus Thea, but it is found that 

 this genus does not differ essentially from that of 

 Camellia, and, as this latter is the older name of 

 the two, the tea-plant and its varieties take their 

 place as Ccmiellia tlieijera, not of Linuaius, but of 

 Griffith, a modern Indiau botanist (Fl. Brit. lud. 1, 

 p. 292). The jungle tea-plant of Ceylon belongs to 

 the genus Eurya, and the leaves are so like those 

 of the real tea-plant that they are very likely to be 

 confounded, and what adds to the confusion is the 

 fact that the Euryas spring up in all new clearings 

 and nurseries in the higher elevations of Ceylon, and 

 these are no doubt the jungle tea-plants referred to 

 by Mr. C. A. Hay and yourselves, though it is to 

 be hoped that it was not one of them that was 

 pruned and plucked for years. In this respect there 

 is surely "a confusion of epitaphs" on the part of 

 Mr. Hay, because the ubiquitous Euryas after all 

 differ so much from the real tea-plants that a practical 

 tea-planter should be able to distinguish them at once. 



Iu Trimen's List of Ceylon Plants, p. 8, Natural 

 Order 20 and Genera 74 to 77, you have the four 

 genera I have mentioned above, aud of the Euryas 

 there are two good species, and two varieties which 

 may aho be good species ; but, though their leaves 

 resemble those of the real tea, their tiowers are very 

 small, and tbeir small so-called berries are many- 

 seeled, whilst the capsules of the tea-plant have from 

 one to three large seeds in them, aud the flowers are 

 large aud conspicuous. The most common Eurya 

 japomca is the " Naya-dasse " of the Sinhalese.— 



Yours, W . F. 



■ COFFEE LEAF-DISEASE. 



Kandy, 8th July 1885. 



Dear Sir, — I have no doubt mauy persons must, like 

 myself, have read with interest "Oberon" 's researches 

 iu re leaf-disease. I fear it is not within human ken 

 to give a satisfactory reply to "Oberon" 's question, 

 " What relation do living zoospores or germ cells, ova 

 or spawn, bear to the spores of the .sh/>j)os((< fungus?" 



"Oberon " is not correct in saying the "maggot" 

 he refers to has no legs. With the aid of a Codrington 

 lens of high power 1 have discovered legs restmbl- 

 iug those of an ordinary caterpillar, and I may add 

 that the insect progresses rather rapidly, moving its 

 head from side to side in the maniu-r of a uow when 

 in the act of grazing. The spores are filled with an or- 

 iioge-cnloured substance resembling crystallized honey, 

 aud the maggot* moves frci-ly among the spores 

 emptying each aud leaving behind him the despoiled 



* More correctly caterpillar. 



