January i, 1886.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



4St 



went towards this, and we had a quarter of the 

 land hiid out with young coffee bushes. It never 

 entered our heads to wonder if coffee would grow 

 at that altitude. We took it tor granted, like 

 the rest of our sanguine neighbours, that coffee 

 would grow at any height. All our friends con- 

 gratulated us on having got such a snug little 

 bit of land, and the knowing ones made our 

 hearts glow with pleasure as they praised the 

 cleared soil and the site,' and prophesied fortune 

 for us. Wc should have been wise if we had 

 rested at this stage, and waited to see what coffee 

 was going to do. But wisdom was not a char- 

 acteristic of the go-ahead planter in those days, 

 and my husbrnd's next step was the placing 

 round his neck a millstone which has been a 

 burden ever since. He raised £1,000 by a primary 

 mortgage on the estate at 8 per cent. " How 

 foolish ;" I can hear the wiseacres of the present 

 day exclaim. It was foolish, most foolish, but we 

 did not know it then. I instinctively shrank from 

 contracting any kind of debt, but this was a 

 business matter about which I, as a woman, was 

 supposed to know nothing. There was no in- 

 iquity in the matter as there would have been 

 had the debt been made for gersonal extravagance. 

 I was told. It was purely legitimate speculation, and 

 the lender was as glad to put his money out at such 

 a good rate of interest as the borrower was to secure 

 the use of it. Then the matter was put on paper in 

 figures. The estate would begin to -pay at such 

 and such a time. It would bring in an increasing 

 income each year; and at a certain period, not .so 

 many years distant, the mortgage would be paid 

 off, and we should be in the possession of an un- j 

 incumbered estate yielding a handsome income. It 

 all looked so clear on paper, and every (riend who 

 came into the house conlirmed the calculations, that 

 at last my mind was quieted, and I forget mj- 

 doubts and anxieties in my nursery duties, even 

 though I had to face the gravt; fact that from 

 thenceforth for some time we sfiould have to find 

 the £80 interest on the mortgage out of our income. 

 But as we had always lived within our means, and 

 had easily saved money,, the liability could be 

 covered by what had hitherto been our yearly savings. 

 It was only to be for a few years, in fact until 

 the estate began to i)ay. 



Thus the rest of our juugle was cleared, and a 

 good deal was planted, and, for a while, all went 

 swimmingly. But before long clouds began to gather. 

 They were veiy small clouds certainly ; but there 

 they were, the forerunners of bad times, though 

 we did not recognise them as such then. The 

 coffee blossom came as usual, making the bushes 

 look as if they were laden with snow, but, owing 

 to bad weather, it did not set properly, and the 

 crop fell off. Then came leaf disease, and crop 

 after crop was poorer than the last. At length, 

 the planters recognised the sad fact that coffee was j 

 a failure, just as I am told they had to recognise 

 it in India. Our young jjlants were then coming 

 into bearing, and, judging from their wealthy i 

 appearance, we had hitheito had no anxiety on their 

 account. But, at the time the crop should have 

 come, leaf disease made its appearance amongst 

 our bushes, and we too had to recognise that we 

 were in no better plight than our neighbours. It 

 was useless to try to sell. No one would 

 have unprofitable land, even as a gift. We had 

 nothing before us but to hold on at a loss, or let the 

 mortgagee foreclose. We were tliinking seriously of 

 this latter course when there came a new hope to the 

 planters in cinchona. Cinchona was to revive their 

 drooping fortunes, and set them on their legs again. 

 They grasped at it as drowning men clutch at straws. 



Cinchona was to fulfil what coffee had failed to 

 perform, and save planter, agent, money-lender and 

 Chctty alike from ruin. Like the rest of the 

 community we rushed into (ho new craze. 



Our coffee was undoubtedly a failure. Ir. the best 

 of seasons it would never yield prolifieally at that 

 height, and though some of the young plants did 

 fairly well on the lower slopes, they barely paid for 

 the working of the ground they stood upon. It was 

 quite certain they would never give a profit to pay 

 off the mortgage, nor even find money for the 

 interest, however economically they were worked. 

 But to plant cinchona required a certain outlay. We 

 could not do more out of our income than find the 

 interest on the iiiortgage, unless we pinched, and 

 screwed severely, and then it could only be a small 

 sum which would be useless by itself in the purchase 

 of seed and plants. It ended in our tieing another 

 millstone around our necks. My husband borrowed 

 another f'lOO at 8 per cent on a second mortgage. 

 We hoped by careful livitig and economy to be able 

 to pay tl'p additional £iO for this C.500 out of our 

 salary, and with fresh hope in our hearts we soon 

 saw our money in young cinchona plants on the hill 

 slOjics. There was certainly more anxiety with that 

 hope this time, and wc felt the additional respons- 

 ibility of the increased debt. The hope which had 

 flamed up so suddenly was extinguished all too 

 soo.i. .\ tew seasons passed, and then the verdict 

 went forth. Ciucliuna was a failure. There was 

 exactly the same tolly displayed in the planting of 

 cinchona as of coffee. The planters were filled with 

 the idea that cinchona would grow anywhere, and 

 anyhow. But cinchona refused to grow in straight 

 rows like turnips on slope and plain. It needed even 

 morn careful drainage than coffee. It is hardly 

 necessary to repeat the sad tale, tor it is as 

 well-known, tlu-ough bitter experience, in India 

 as it is in our Island. The constant showers 

 of the Ceylon climate made the young plants 

 come up full of promise. They gi-ew rapidly, and 

 threw a mantle of bright green over the estates. 

 But those very showers which seemed to make the 

 plant thrive, produced by their moisture, a canker 

 which gradually extended up the stem till tree 

 was destroyed. For a year or so the young plants 

 looked green and healthy, and then, suddenly, 

 some of the broad glossy leaves turned an autumnal 

 scarlet. A close examination of the stem showed 

 an uneven line of blemish from the canker which 

 was spreading upwards, and gradually the; plants 

 lumg out their red flag, dropjied their foliage, and 

 died. 



We lost two-thirds of our cinchona trees, but 

 the remaining third flourished, and we learnt a 

 lesson from them about drainage, for the survivora 

 were those which were planted on very steep 

 slopes, or at the edge of landships and drains. 

 When they became of a barkable ago they 

 brought us in something, and would have 

 proved very profitable if bark had only held 

 its price. But it fell from something like Is Od 

 to Is (Id per pound, quite upsetting those seduct- 

 ive calculations, on paper, of future wealth. It 

 has fallen still more during the last fifteen months, 

 so that where we looked at £1,000 a short time 

 ago in standing trees, we can now only see 

 i;.">00. In spite of the low price of bark our cin- 

 chona was a considerable help to us in keeping the 

 estate going. The trees yielded a fair quant- 

 ity of bark, and grew rapidly, increasing their 

 yield each season. My husband continued to plant 

 as he cut down, on ground that he knew to be 

 favourable for its growth, and he was fortunate, 

 or wise in his choice of plants. He chose a hybrid 

 which has adapted itself to the climate. It is a 



