Seftembek I, ibS^.] TliE TKOPICAL AGKiCULTURIST, 



^59 



are apt to ask how in the world does Ceylon get all 

 the money to carry on. But when you see how the 

 spending of money is carefully guarded, how economy 

 is made a delicate science, how home proprietors, 

 money-lenders, Colomho agents, V. A.'s, super- 

 intendents, are all closely studying how to work the 

 thing down to the lowest possible degree, — then, I say, 

 this vigilance makes up for expensive labour as 

 compared with Mysore, this vigdance atones for a 

 shattered credit and weakened powers by directing 

 the precious rupees in the exact direction and at tho 

 lowest possible rate. What is tho use of arguing as to 

 the beauty of digging a Dumbara soil, and letting 

 the weeds up to sweeten the soil and save wash, 

 when by the process of fortnightly weeding, weeds 

 disappear in accordance with the arrangements of 

 expenditure, leaving the superinlendent free to arrange 

 other worlis on the same precise and delicate balance ? 

 The man would like to dig just as he would like 

 more pay, but it is a matter of ways and means. 

 The "way" must be adapted to the " means"; so 

 contract weeding is beautifully adjusted to the " Agent- 

 V. -A. -Estimate system " ou account of straightened 

 purses. Thus it will be apparent that the managers of 

 estates are more financiers than agriculturists. 1 might 

 suggest that your valuable paper be styled " Finance 

 and Agriculture in the Tropics." It 's all a case of 

 finance : that is the power that permeates your laud. 



Then another thing has struck me. Say, in Dum- 

 bara or anywhere else, a man says he would like 

 to dig, and would like to do lots of things but is 

 not allowed the cost. Why ? Because the estate can't 

 afford it. Yet the estate can aflbrd large extensions 

 of area Avhich means weakened power (as military 

 men or financial men will admit), it can afl'urd to 

 proceed on the most highly coloured castles in the 

 air grabbing at the shadow ant^ losing the substance, 

 and with what result? I see by your contemporary 

 that someone has been in Dumbara and he has been 

 free with details furnished. I duu't like close details. 

 I prefer generalities. All I can tay is that in most 

 cultivations tried in Ceylon greed and conceit get very 

 swagger scientific names. If a man is unclean in his 

 habits, parasites, each with its scientific name, make 

 their appearance. If a plant is in an unnatural state, 

 parasites and strange growths and disease all appear. 

 The Eajawella " pandal " speaks a humbling lesson 

 mora to Ceylon than to the honest man who 

 was pushed by financial considerations. The 

 flushing leaves in that darkened acre call out 

 to all Ceyion that Finance is the wrong 

 whip for an agricultural team. You ask "What 

 is to be done ? " Hold in your horses and 

 don't burst them because the man inside is in a hurry. 

 Tell the man inside that the more haste the worst 

 speed. The man inside is the controlling financier 

 that uses a red and blue pencil in estimates of 

 expenditure, cutting them down, and a hardhearted 

 V. A. and cruel pressure in estimates of crop putting it 

 ou. The man inside, the V. A. driver, the super- 

 intendent, horses and the cooly wheels — they are 

 off on a new track. The best man at figures will 

 get the cream, and the agriculturist will be driven 

 out of the country. 



I am not going to deal with tea yet. Softly just 

 a bit. Should 1 be inclined to disagree with the 

 views of those in power I would like to be on board 

 ship on my way back before tho howl started. But 

 I do not anticipate this. Only I dread seeing Maria- 

 watte store which I am told is the same as figures 

 in the Olscnxr ndvertis-ement column. 



If Captain Webb lad succeeded in swimming 

 down that fearful channel many eiuiilar fools would 

 have tried it in vain, but his fate put an end 

 to the folly. Perhaps the too great success of one 

 or two pioneers will be jour worst daj}g«v in 



elevating your standard (in two senses). My idea 

 is : " Pick youi- men and trust them better, keep 

 down your acreages and do not extend operations 

 until actual result has been reached, and do not have 

 one brain cirried by various methods of locomotion 

 from Badulla to Matale, from the confines of 

 Biutenna to far Rakwana applying one hard rule 

 to all and various : ' The greatest result at the 

 cheapest cost with the greatest obedience.' " The 

 rein of economy, tho whip of greed, the voice 

 of the man inside, all combined 1 Oh for my quiet 

 corner in Mysore. W'heu I go back next mouth 

 I will appreciate it more. ABERDOJNENSIS. 



"WHITE-ANTS" AS EiNEMIES TO TEA. 

 We are sorry to receive the following from a cor- 

 respondent ; — 



" If you have not already heard, you will learn 

 with regret that a very serious enemy to tea-planting 

 has appeared. On an estate in Lower Dikoya, whole 

 fields of fine tea have been attacked with tckile ants, 

 killing the trees right out, in some places from 50 

 to (iO per cent. The ants seem to have eaten up 

 beginning at the root and stopping a few inches above 

 the ground after ringing the tree of all bark 

 Curiously enough, the indigenous has escaped, but 

 the other bushos of every age sutler alike. I never 

 heard of white-ants eating growing trees before, and 

 this was a sad sight to see : I put it down to the 

 severe drought. The superintendent did not know 

 the cause of the yellow appearance of his bushes 

 for a long time, but the rain soon cleared the stems 

 and the reason was appaient." ' 



The virulence and destiuctiveness of the attack make 

 this case remarkable, for that the termites, popularly 

 known as " whiteants," eat living and heallhy tissues 

 in the case of tea-plants, is a proposition which the 

 experience of Indian planters, extending over more 

 than a generation, has, unhappily, placed as much 

 beyond doubt as that the " white grub " of a 

 species of cockchafer eats the living and healthy 

 feeding rootlets of the coflee tree. After all that 

 has appeared in the Observer on the subject, we are 

 only surprized that our correspondent, who has been 

 ong in the island, should be ignorant of ihe formid- 

 able enemy which tea at low elevations, where alone 

 the whiteant can exist, has in that insect. Like 

 our correspondent, wo long cherished the conviction 

 that only dead or dying vegetable tissues were 

 liable to the attacks of white-ants, aud we were 

 naturally confirmed in this belief by what is so 

 familiar to visitors to the Colombo Cinnamon Gardens 

 bushes of the spice flourishing wliilo surrounded 

 and the lower portions of their stems clostd in by 

 white-ants nests consisting of pyramidal mounds of 

 earth. It is probable that the essential oils, hot and 

 pungent, in the bark and leaves of the cinnamon 

 shrub render It distasteful to the insects, and this may 

 adord a hint as to remedies. The cumulative we 

 may say the utiauimous, evidence of ludiau plantrra 

 long ago com[,elltd us to recognize the facf H f 

 white-ants did attack and destroy living tea b„,h 

 and also the wisdom which we previousfy doub 01":^ 

 the expensive Indian process of clearing away all 

 timber from tea gardens instead of leavina it to r?i 

 cay and yald fertilizing matter as on c fl!e Vl "I 

 in Ceylon. And local experiences of the d«ti^clo 

 powers of white-ants have not been w.intiug About 

 a year-and-a half ago, we mentioned in the oC°,v!. 

 wha a planter had told us about tea bushes t /hi 

 neighbourhood of Awisa«ella being infested w,?l, '".^^0 

 ants to such an extent that children Were empWed 

 to go round and scrape away the insects and the^v 

 earthy coverings from the stems of the trees 1,;^"^ 

 case mentioned by our present correspondent the in 

 /lects seem to liave commenoed eatmg (i,^ »„' ^'^^^ 



