Feb, I, 1886.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



537 



THE PACKING OF CEYLON CINCHONA BARK. 



4th January 188G. 

 I hear that mnch dissatisfaction has been ex- 

 pressed by the London bark buyers owing to the 

 bad condition in which the cinchona bales have 

 lately been aniving. A circular has been issued 

 signed by all the manufacturers or their 

 representatives, wherein they offer two sug- 

 gestions to remedy the evil complained of : — 

 (11) That no bale of bark should weigh over 

 250 lb. nett. 



(6) That stout guimy cloth, not thin Hessian 

 canvas, should be used in packing. 



The circular goes on to say that " the large 

 and unwieldy bales so often shipped from Ceylon 

 are in dock more or less unmanageable ; to draw 

 fau' samples from such packages is most diiticult 

 and the wear and tear is naturally excessive. The 

 thin Hessian canvas so often used by shippers 

 gives way directly the goods are handled, and is 

 often the direct cause of loss to the buyers." 



Peppekcokn. 



AN ASSAM TEA PLANTER'S OPINION OF 

 TEA IN CEYLON; AND A REPLY. 

 An Aberdonian wrote to an Assam planter asking 

 his advice as to tea planting in Coylon, and for 

 some practical hints on the subject of what soil 

 was most suitable for the plant. His answer was 

 forwarded to rae to reply to, which I did to the 

 best of my ability, and the following I copy from 

 his letter, as I think you might wish to print the 

 remarks, and shall be glad to see what footnotes 

 will be attached to them by the Editor. You will 

 have no ditticulty in discovering a dislike to the 

 little island of Ceylon underlying the whole of the 

 remarks, but I have got accustomed to that tone 

 when Assam planters are (luestioned on the subject 

 of Ceylon prospects. Ex K. C. B. 



"Soil for tea must be porous, imbibing and jjart- 

 ing with water freely. Stiff soils of every kind are 

 to be avoided. 

 " No one believes in the permanence of stiff soil. 

 " Tea thrives best in light soils for the simple 

 reason that the ends of the feeding roots are veiy 

 tender and do not easily penetrate any other. 



" Clay when dry is too hard for these rsot points, 

 and when wet is too cold and too sodden for tea 

 to thrive in it. 



'• In .\ssam we tind that to grow tea thoroughly 

 pays us better than to experiment with coffee and 

 cinchona, but one conclusion I come to is, that 

 eitlier of them is a far more satisfactory plant to 

 deal with than the tea plant. 



" The tea plant has no tap-root. Tea hates wet 

 feet, and as long as the roots are sodden will net 

 yield any quantity of leaf. 



" With reference to Ceylon the inference one is 

 intended to draw is that tea will grow anywhere, 

 and in any soil and will do anything so long as 

 it is only planted in Ceylon. Come on boys ! plant 

 it in Ceylon ! ! yon 're quite safe there ! I ! 

 is the ciy, and it is just the echo of the reckless 

 trumpet-blowing that has already landed many 

 an unwary one, and I am astonished to find a good 

 many astute Aberdonians to boot. 



"The Iiidiiiii I'laiticn' Gazette continually sounds 

 a warning note concerning the rasli way, in which 

 all sorts of land and soils are bcinr; rushed into 

 t«i in Ceylon. 



" 'The quantity made in Ceylon this year is 

 nothing like up to the amount which we were 

 jubilantly assured it would be in IMS.'J. 



" Ceylon crops are obtaiued artificially by manure, 

 wherea.s in Assam good gardens give as large a 

 68 



yield without any addition to the natural virtue 

 of the soil. Climate, of course, also helps us 

 Ahready we hear of acres of tea being cut out 

 and bm'nt owing to blight and disease, a disaster 

 I never heard of in Assam. 



" Mariawatte, the sweet Ceylon garden, about which 

 such jubilant sliouts were raised, is in no better 

 a pliglit than its neighbours. The last number of 

 the IiiiJiaii Phmters' Oiizette tells how the yield of 

 that garden has come down. 



" This place has exceptional facilities for manure, 

 being right beside a village. Its drop from 1,100 

 lb. per acre to 800 lb. has made the shouthig 

 gentlemen ' sit up.' 



" This is only one notable case, and I hope, from 

 all I have written, if you are thinking of investing 

 in tea planting in Ceylon, that you will not do so: 

 keep out of it, there 's death in the pot." 



But for the presumption that you know your corre- 

 spondent and are satisfied of his lio'iui liile-i, I 

 should pronounce the letter attributed to an .\ssam 

 planter a hoax ; so crass is the ignorance dis- 

 played and so malevolent is the animus. Pitiful 

 jealou-jy and petty spite breathe iu every line, and 

 that laight pass as natural to the writer ; but that 

 any man should profess to be an authority on tea, 

 who knows so little of the plant as deliberately to 

 state tliat it " has no tap-root," indicates imp'ud- 

 •ence in proportion to ignorance. If there is one 

 cultivated plant more than another distinguished 

 for its long and powerfully piercing tap-root, it is 

 the tea plant. On the side of the cart-road which 

 passes through a portion of the estate whence I 

 now write, an exposed tap-root of one of our seed- 

 bearing tea bushes can be traced down to 8 feet 

 from the surface, and on the sides of our paths, 

 uncovered tap-roots measuring 5 feet and there- 

 abouts are quite common. And not only so, but 

 we have been uuich interested in watching the 

 effects of the instinct which has led some of those 

 partially exposed tap-roots to send out feeding 

 rootlets at a depth of two and even three feet 

 below the horizontal surface. I have repeatedly, in 

 writing from this estate, mentioned the fact, that, 

 in consequence of the piercing and opening up of stiff 

 clayey subsoils by th« stout, strong tap-roots of 

 tea plants, cinchonas have flourished on localities 

 where previously the fever plants had died out, when 

 not associated with tea. In my notes, too, on the 

 lowcountry tea districts of Ceylon, I mentioned the 

 fact that a planter at Awisawella had sent to a 

 mercantile hoyse in Colombo a block of rocky ca- 

 book (laterite), with the tap-root of a tea plant which 

 had managed to pierce a substance so intractable. 

 The tendency of even tea seedlings to produce 

 inordinately long tap-roots is so well-known 

 to tea planters,. and is a source of such in- 

 convenience in "planting out," that great care is en- 

 joined that in the formatign of nursery beds for 

 tea seed the ground should not be dug too deep. 

 With every precaution taken, portions of the long 

 tap-roots have generally to be cut away. That the 

 man, who, professing to be a tea-planter, does not 

 know, or pretends not to know tliat the tea plant 

 has a tap-root, should be ignorant of t)ie distinc- 

 tion between cl.ay and clayey soil!;, or should pre- 

 tend to confound things so different, is easily ex- 

 plicable. Who ever (tsserted that tea would grow 

 in pure clay, or that tea, or any save aquatic and 

 semi-aquatic plants, would grow in positions wlxu-e 

 they would have perniaiioutly " wet feet " ? Much 

 of the soil in the mountain parts of Ceylon is 

 argillaceous, clayey ; but that Is a very different 

 thing from saying that the soil is entirely or even 

 preponderately.clay, such as exists in swanipy local- 



