53^ 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[Fe15. I, 1886, 



it'e ) andfrom which excellent bricks and tiles can | 

 be made. There is just enougli ofclay in our Cey- 

 lon soils to render them so tenacious, that they i 

 are not washed away from steep '^hillsides, as the, 

 no doubt, excellent but over-free alluvial soils of 

 Assam would be, if cultivated and exposed. This 

 quality of tenacity or stiffness, in spite of the very 

 orifjinal dictum of this wonderful Assam authority, 

 gives a lasting quality to our soil. The conclusions 

 established by the series of analyses and the care- 

 ful observations made by the accomplished agri- 

 cultural chemist, Mr. John Huglies, were that the 

 soils of our young districts were very good in 

 quality, although lime and forking were recom- 

 mended to improve the mechanical condition ot the 

 ground, somewhat stiff for coffee and especially 

 for cinchona. The proportions of alumina and 

 iron, in a considerable number of cases, indicated j 

 a soil better tor tea than coffee, and experience lias 

 proved that what with the piercing and opening-up 

 power of the long stout tap-roots ot the plant, 

 tillage by means ot the hoe and especially three- 

 pronged, fork is amply sufficient to bring the soil 

 into good mechanical condition, irrespective of hme, 

 which, in any appreciable quantity, does not appear 

 to be desiderated in tea cultivation. The truth is, 

 that after the lapse ot nearly half-a-contury 

 of experience with coffee and other products, 

 we in Ceylon have made the discovery that 

 our soil and climate are eminently suitable for' 

 the cultivation of tea, and our rapid success with 

 the new culture, and the favorable verdict on the 

 quality of our produce delivered by Mincing Lane 

 and tea drinkers, in Britain, account — of that there 

 can be no doubt — for the miserable spirit of jealousy, 

 spite and detraction which actuated the opinion 

 from Assam sent to an Aberdonian. As to the yield of 

 Mariawatte estate, no secret was ever made of the fact 

 that, the exceptional yield from that estate was ob- 

 tained by means of manure. Mr. Rutherford, too, 

 who is, I believe, interested in that property, has 

 estimated the average yield for Ceylon not at the 

 exceptional figures ot Mariawatte, but at the modest 

 rate of 400 lb. per acre per annum. With so many 

 very old and worn coffee estates converted into 

 tea estates, and from which 300 lb. per acre wiU 

 be a fair yield to expect, the average may possibly 

 be lowered to Mr. Rutherford's rate ; but there can 

 be no question that for estates opened on virgin 

 forest we may safely estimate 500 per acre on 

 high estates and 700 on low, or a general average 

 of fiOO lb. per acre, without manure, against little 

 more than half that figure on Assam estates all 

 opened on virgin land. Then as to salubrity ot 

 climate, of which the Assam man carefully avoids 

 niention, there is no possible comparison. Over 

 the vast proportion of the Ceylon estates, the 

 climate is all that could be desired. The very re- 

 ^■ersc is the case in Assam, many portions of 

 wliich are pestiferous t» such an extent that an 

 Assam planter who visited Ceylon said to us that 

 he would gladly exchange his well-salai'ied position 

 in India, for half the money advantages in Ceylon. 

 He stated, in order ij illustrate the nature ot tlie 

 climate in Assam, that he had been compelled to 

 send his wife and children to England, be- 

 cause it often happened that when he re- 

 turned from a round of the property on which 

 lie resided ho found his whole family pro- 

 strate with fever ; his wife being the only survivor 

 of (our English ladies who a few years previously 

 had come out to get married to Assam tea planters. 

 Surely health and hfe are blessings worth preserv- 

 ing? It is quite news to us that tea Mights are 

 so bad in Ceylon. And then, as to labour supply, 

 one of our late visitors to the contrary not- 



withstanding, we are immensely better off than our 

 Indian competitors, all of whom we should be glad 

 to hail as friends, if they would only act and 

 speak as such. In regard to communications, there 

 can be no more comparison than in regard 

 to climate. Besides excellent roads, graml lines 

 ot railway now run through our principal tea dis- 

 tricts, while Assam is mainly dependent on very 

 long river transit occupying weeks for our hours. 

 But we have no wish to depreciate Assam, the 

 premier Indian tea district, to the hard-won ex- 

 perience of whose planters we in Ceylon owe so 

 much. Of them, we feel persuaded, the person 

 who has compelled us to write so strongly on 

 the defensive is no fair or worthy specimen ; but 

 a black sheep, such as is found in all large Mocks. 

 We wish our competitors in Assam and elsewhere 

 in India well, and we trust the vast majority of 

 them reciprocate this feeling. There is, and there 

 will be for a long time to come, room tor all of 

 us and for all the tea, only differing in degrees 

 ot excellence, which we can supply for the benetit 

 of the human race. Assam tea is distinguished for 



strength : ours for delicacy . 



^ 



TEA MACHINERY IN CEYLON. 



We urged on Mr. Jackson, as a tea planter and 

 machinist 0! considerable and varied experience in 

 Northern India before ever he saw Ceylon, that 

 before leaving us this time he should prepare some 

 useful hints for the Ceylon tea planters based on 

 what he had seen of local circumstances and re- 

 cjuirements. We are glad to find that Mr. Jackson 

 has not gone away without writing the " few notes " 

 required, and with the permission of his agents an^ 

 publishers, Messrs. John Walker & Co., we now 

 reprint from a handy little pamphlet which this 

 linn is issuing to its constituents, " Mr. Jackson's 

 Address to the Tea Planters of Ceylon." It will be 

 read with interest and no doubt duly considered : — 

 To TUE Tea Planters of Ceylon. 



Gentlemen, — I have been asked by many interested 

 in tea if I could not make a few general suggestions 

 that might be of use to them at this, practically 

 the coiiiineucement of the great new Tea Industry 

 of Ceylon, and having been made so welcome during 

 my first visit amongst you. I have now compiled a 

 few notes before leaving the island, and in doing so 

 have confined myself to factory buildings and the 

 manipulation of the leaf. 



There is no doubt that the time is coming when 

 there will be keen competition in the production of 

 tea, and I daresay at this juncture you might readily 

 take a wrinkle from the present state of matters in 

 Great Britain, where sharp competition in nearly 

 every manufactiuing industry has of late years led 

 to tlio pulling down of the old irregular buildings, 

 those being replaced by well-thought out and com- 

 modious work-shops, adapted to receive every modern 

 labor-saving machine procurable, the arrangonieiit of 

 wliich is so complete, that the article to be dealt 

 with is received raw at one end of the factory, and 

 loaves it ready for the market at the other, with the 

 least possible handling during the manipulation, and 

 everytriiug is done to avoid the cn.rrying backwards 

 of the material at anv time after it has entered tha 

 factory till it passes from it, and it is these wcU- 

 arrauged British establishments that now so success- 

 fully compete with, and keep their own against, all 

 other nations. 



The same tiling in my opinion strongly applies to 

 your now proposed factories in Ceylon for making tea. 

 In -scheniiug out these it should be clearly borno 

 in mind that the arrangement bo so complete that 

 the tea leaves will not have to traverse the same space 

 twice dming the process of manipulation, for twice 



