266 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [October i, 1885. 



CEYLON. 



The " Tropical Agriculturist," published monthly 

 at Colombo, Ceylim, by the Messra. Ferguson, and 

 eold in this country, together with a variety of 

 other Cingalese publications, by Messrs. John Haddon 

 & Co., 3, Bouverie Street, Fleet Street, contains a 

 variety of information valuable to those who engage 

 or intend to engage in tropical agriculture, including 

 principally coffee, tea, cicao, sugar, cinchona, rubber, 

 palms, rice, cardamoms, and a variety of fruits. Its 

 articles teach how a planter should act in reference 

 to the insect enemies which attack the crops, the 

 modes of cultivation, soils, &c. 



A pamphlet, also published by Messrs. Haddon, 

 entitled "Tea and other planting industries in 

 Ceylon in 1885," undertakes to show how that 

 Ceylou is "a good field for investment." The 

 quoation of how much capital is required to start 

 with is often asked as well of Ceylon as of other 

 places, and in reference to Ceylon at a meeting of 

 the Royal Colonial Institute Lord Denbigh asked 

 the chairman, Sir Charles Clifford, "What capital 

 is required to start in the Island as a planter ?" to 

 which Sir Charles Clifford remarked that he had 

 also been asked the same question in reference to 

 New Zealand, and he said — 



■' I will answer it by one short anecdote. I myself 

 took out two servants. They landed in New Zea- 

 land both with wives and families, and when they 

 landed they only had their clothes on their back and 

 eightcen-pence in their pockets — that was the whole 

 ot their worldly goods. I also knew another man, 

 who bad £150,000 when he landed in the colony : 

 In result the one who landed with eighteeupence 

 has now an estate worth £40, 000 ; while the gentleman 

 who landed with i£150,000 died a pauper. Anybody 

 with brains can do well ; and, of course, anybody 

 with brains and money can do better than in 

 England ; but if a man has neither brains nor money, 

 he had better stay in England, where he will have 

 the work-house to fall back upon." 



This was a good gtneral answer, but of course it 

 needs a specific answer, for a man having ever 

 so many ounces of brains in his cranium must have 

 some money to make a start with, for if he 

 manipulates his credit arrangements as to mortgages 

 or rental of the soil and buildings, he must have 

 a working plant, and even if that vsere arranged 

 for, he must have cash for wages and other expenses, 

 and he must make his outs and ius so dovetail as 

 to meet his interest too. It is shown on page 7 

 that a tea planter having a t' a garde ; of 200 acres 

 should have a capital of ■'iijOOZ., which should give 

 him "20 per cent., or 1000/. per annum. On page 

 51 a smaller capital than "JOOOi. would noi I'e 

 recommended for a cinchona estate of 100 to 150 

 acres. Ceylon is but three weeks' run from England, 

 and those who do not object to a warm climate 

 might do worse than enter tipon the cultivation 

 of some of its attractive crops. — [Frum the £'s(o<es' 

 Boll a monthly sheet published by Dowsett & Co. 

 of Landed Investments, &o.] 



MANILA NEWS. 

 (Translated for the "Straits Times.') 



Philippine Top.acuo CoNfRAOT, — TcL gr.iphic ad- 

 vices have been received announcing that the con- 

 tract for supplying cigar factories in Spain with 

 201,2(j'l quintals of Philippine tobacco has been 

 adjudged to the Philippine Tobacco Company at the 

 rate of §22.73 per quiutil. 



Provinck ok Negeos.— From Baeolon a corre- 

 spondent writes to us as follows under date 12th 

 inst. : — There is now splendid weather here for the 

 growing cane crops, notwithstanding a provaltut 



scarcity of small coin and the low prices cultivators 

 get for their produce. Greater exertions in cultiv- 

 ating are now being made and more land has been 

 put imder cultivation than had been expected. The 

 slijht rise in prices setting in at the close of the 

 crushing season has, so to say, not been of much 

 advantage to cultivators from most of them having 

 sold their crops before the rise took place. 



NETHERLANDS INDIA: COFFEE DISEASE. 



(Translated for the " Straits Times.") 

 In the district of Assahan, so reports the Resident 

 of the east coast of Sumatra, several Europeans 

 have been looking out for land suitable for tobacco 

 growing with such success that the opening out 

 of several estates there may shortly be expected. On 

 the ICsperauce Ptrbaungan estate in Serdang 

 disturbances recently broke out from forty coolies' 

 withstanding the arrest of two of their number by 

 the Controller of Serdang for ill treating a tindal, 

 until the police on the spot making use of their 

 firearms wounded four cnolies, put the others to 

 flight, and subsequently arrested seventeen of the 

 rioters. On auotuer estate in Labuan Batu, order 

 was disturbed by Chinese coolies also, but quiet 

 was restored without bloodshed by the Lieutenant 

 of the Chinese with the aid of eight policemen, 

 the ringleaders being afterwards duly punished. 



By last accounts, the coffee leaf disease has 

 reached Bali. In Java, so says the Souiabaya 

 Courant of the 25th July, matters are going from 

 bid to worse so that should the disease go on at the 

 present rate, not a small tree in mid Java will be 

 frte from it within two years. On the Sakiwongie 

 e&tate in Cheribon a complete diSusinn apparatus 

 for extracting sugar Iromeane has been set up and 

 is in full working order by way of trial, the technical 

 difEcuitieB encountered biiug so far ovei-come that 

 there is every prospect of the experiment proving 

 successful. Eydman's method for drawing sugar out 

 of canes without cutting them is also being experi- 

 mented with in Java in combination with Steffen's 

 process for the extraction of that article from mul- 

 asses. Should these methuus stand the test, a 

 grand future awaits cane growing in that island and 

 Java sugar may erelong hold its own brilliantly 

 against be^t root, were every effort made to check 

 a disease called sereh which by attacking the roots 

 of canea withers and drifs up the sialk, no remedy 

 has been found eft'eoiive in stoppng it. This disease 

 has also seized up'jn n>aize and groniug p-iddy 

 crop.i and may result in bringing ou famine should 

 it steadily gain ground as at present. 



THE TEA REPORT FOR ASSAM. 



Taken in the light of recent political events 

 the Assam Tea Report for 1884, which has just 

 been published, is a document of con.iiderable 

 importance. It has already been long knowu that 

 the past season was a bad one in many respects, 

 prices falling lower than they have done for 

 some years past, and the outturn of tea falling 

 considerably below the oareful forecasts of the Indian 

 Tea Association. The official report on the subj'-ct, 

 which is mainly a C'mpilation from the various 

 tea reports frum district officers, naturally throws 

 a great deal of light on these points, and it will 

 be read with considerable interest and anxiety 

 by miny whose taitii in tea as a inont'}'-m:iking 

 commodity has received many a rude shock of 

 late. Out of tlie 970 gardens wh:ch exist in 

 Assiii), 294 are in Silhet and K;iehur, the Surma 

 Valley, — and the remaining G7t> are all included 

 in the upper districts, or the Brahmaputra Valley. 



