(&22 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [March i, 1886. 



where watei'-ivheels have not yet been superseded 

 by turbines or steam engines. The duties of a 

 tea estate superintendent, too, who, as is generally 

 the ease in Ceylon, has the resijonsibility of both 

 field and factory, are far different and far more 

 onerous than those which appertained to the 

 superintendent of a coifee estate. Both must 

 know something of machinery, but the man- 

 ager of a tea estate must be not only 

 a competent engineer but an intelligent and careful 

 chemist, to boot. The coffee crop " came on with a 

 rush" atone period of the year, and then came 

 comparative rest, — such as even tea jjlanters enjoy 

 in Assam in the winter months, November to March. 

 But in Ceylon, from its proximity to the eijuator and 

 its damp warm climate, the tea flushes and the Hush 

 must be gathered and prepared practically all the 

 year round, the chief agent in preparation being, not 

 water, but the element which has been rightly des- 

 cribed as a good servant but a bad master — fire. 

 Tea is good, bad, or inferior, mainly in proportion to 

 the care with which it is fired, and there is ever lire- 

 sent a danger, tlie thought or the apprehension of 

 which,' rom lights occasionally employed at night, 

 never, we suppose led to the insuring of a single 

 coffee store. But insurance against fire and the use 

 of fire-proof agents and precautions against fire, must 

 be amongst the regular contingencies of tea-making. 

 Going into and out of rooms at a high temperature 

 and full of the malt-like fumes of " fermenting" and 

 " roasting " tea leaves, must also be trj'ing to human 

 health. But great improvements have been etTeoted, 

 mainly by superseding the long lines of open furnaces 

 called •' chulas," each sending forth charcoal fumes, 

 — wood or other fuel suflicing for such driers as are 

 now used : the Sirocco, the Venetian, the Victoria, 

 ifcc. Other improvements will, doubtless follow, and 

 meantime tea planting and manufacturing are full of 

 interest to men of intelligent apprehension. To give 

 an idea of the horizontal space required for the 

 proper " withering " of green tea leaves, it need 

 merely be mentioned, that Mr. C. S. Armstrong, 

 the great Ceylon authority on the tea enterprize, has 

 calculated that six square feet of horizontal surface 

 will be required for properly withering each lb. of 

 green leaf, of which four lb. are required to make one 

 lb. of dried tea, tit for use. 



LOOKINU SorTUW.VIlDS (IVKU THE CaTTLE ShED ANIl 



New Lines. — The showery and misty weather largely 

 spoiled what in clear weather is a magnificent view 

 with the ranges of the grassy Bopatalawa patanas 

 and the rocky heights of Kirigalpotta as a backgroun d 

 The foreground gives a good idea of some of our 

 best and oldest tea, in full bearing again, after re- 

 covering from pruning, and also of broad-leaved 

 cinchonas and ornamental exotic trees amongst the 

 tea bushes. The little lakelet and small cattle shed 

 also come out well, but it is a great disappointment 

 that so little is seen of the new and extensive sets of 

 lines beyond, which, when the coolies are at home 

 in the evenings, convey the idea of a populous 

 mountain village. Of upwards of 600 labourers : — 

 men, women and children, on the estate, over 200 

 reside here, amidst the tea cultivation which, extend- 

 ing from the northern end of the estate, is rapidly 

 superseding coffee in the middle and southern por- 

 tions. In a commodious room amidst these lines. 

 a congregation of about sixty to seventy Tamils, 

 many of them Christians, assemble on Sundays for 

 divine service. 



The " BrNi) Vallev." — This picture, pretty as 

 it is, (water and rock being always effective in 

 photographs,) gives but a very imperfect idea of 

 one of the most beautiful scenes in Ceylun. The 

 anks which supply the watev power that moves 

 tJic tea ruacbinery, are at the lower portion of a 



valley (.5,8.50 feet) each side of which is clothed 

 with most luxuriant tea bushes, flourishing and 

 bearing abundance of Hush even up to li.OdO feet, 

 on the right hand side. Had the weather been 

 clear, (as it had been before the photographer ar- 

 rived and as it was the day after he left.) the 

 young tea liclds on which the Superintendent most 

 justly prides himself, would have excited admir- 

 ation, equally with the expanses of mountain forest 

 beyond, ending with the highest mountain range 

 in Ceylon, that of I'idurutalagala, as a towering 

 background. From the dark misty weather which 

 prevailed, we get chaotic shade instead of interest- 

 ing details of flourishing tea at 5,850 to I'l.OOO feet, 

 in all save the foreground, where the leaf-yielding 

 tea is seen covering the ground, while the bushes 

 left for seed bearing purposes and a remarkable cin- 

 chona] tree (with bare stem and umbrageous crown) 

 stand out picturesquely against the placid water. A 

 good magnifying-glass will help to an idea of the 

 tea cultivation, which can compete with any in 

 Ceylon ; but even the most glowing imagination 

 can scarcely supply the beautiful and grand details 

 of the torested-mountain background, which the 

 envious masses of driving mist swallowed up. No- 

 thing at all can be seen of the remains of the cin- 

 chonas that once covered in dense groves the valley 

 sides and mountain knolls, which are now still 

 more densely and we trust more permanently and 

 profitably covered with a carpetting of first class tea. 

 Giant Tea Trees: SicED-BE.utiNd Tea Thee anu 

 GiinvE OF Tea Tkees. — Our tii-st giant tree (No. 21) 

 which was planted in 1870 and photographed in 1881, 

 when it was 8 years old and shortly before it suc- 

 cumbed to a storm, was remarkable, not so much for 

 its height, 20 feet, as for the enormous area, 88 

 feet in circumference, over which its horizontal 

 branches spread. Of a much handsomer habit 

 (pyramidal) and considerably taller is another tree 

 (No. 22) reserved for seed bearing purp jses, which 

 being of the same age was photograjjhed at the 

 same time. Its dense foliage forms a tine contrast 

 to the stems of the blue gum trees to the right. A 

 truly magnificent tree, is our second giant (Xo. 23) 

 which was nearly 10 years old, when photographed 

 October 188.5, unfortunately in dark misty weather. 

 It is only 7!U feet instead of 88 in circumference 

 (one diameter being 27' 3" and another 2.5' !)") 

 but its proportions are far better than those of its 

 predecessor, its height being 211 feet, while the 

 tendency of its wonderful wealth of stems and 

 branches is not purely horizontal but inclining up- 

 wards. To the left some trees of C. .siicciriibra 

 arc exceedingly well shown and the stem of an 

 Australian eucalypt frames in the picture to the 

 right. This giant tea bush growing down a bank, 

 neither its root-stem nor its summit could be 

 brought into the focus of the camera. Considering 



1 the very unfavorable weather, the photograph is 

 a good and faithful ))ortrait of a tea tree, such as 

 planters from Assam liavo declared they never saw 

 there. The indigenous tea tree of the Assam forests, 

 is said, in books, to reach a height of -10 feet, 

 but no authentic measurements to this effect are 

 available. Our highest trees are 30 feet, a stem 

 over 211 feet which was cut from the 1874 nursery 

 being one of the objects to be exhibited with these 

 pictures. l\ piece having been broken off, the 

 present length is only 27 feet 1 inches.] It formed 

 one of many plants allowed to grow up thickly 

 in the nursery, the remains of which, owing to the 

 dark misty weather in which the photograph was 

 taken, in October 1S83, nie indistinctly shown in 



I No. 21. A magnifying-glass, however, will leve.'xl 

 a dense grove of tall tea bushes, over which rise 



I Australian eucalypts. Tlie tea bushes, nbout a cou- 



