May I, 1886.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



78^ 



LETTERS FBOM JAMAICA-NO 10. 

 Blue Mountain District, Jamaica, 28th Dec. 1885. 



Df.vb Shi,— The much needed " seasons " equi- 

 valent to our Ceylon monsoon have at lengtii eome. 

 The rains are very late as they are due in Ociober or 

 November, but for the last two or three week swe have 

 had very yocd showers This last week has been 

 the heaviest of all, so that we have had no work. 

 It cleared sufficiently on Chnstmasday to enable 

 us to get to church, but came on again heavily in 

 the afternoon ; it has since cleared up, and the 

 temperature in the mornings and evenings reminds 

 me of Nuwara Eliya. Mr. Morns has telegraphed 

 to the papers, that 11 (eleven) inches of rain fell in 21 

 hours at Cinchona ; then I have heard the gauge 

 overflowed. There have not been such rains since 

 the flood of IST'.t, and it is to be hoped that the 

 other parts of the island which had suft'erred so 

 much from drought have had sutlicient to last for 

 some months. To us up here, it has almost been 

 too much, as we get frequent light showers and 

 mists which keep the ground moist and cool, so 

 that planting, especially of stumps, may be done 

 every month except June, July and August. 



According to statistics previous to ISSO there 

 seems to have been much more rain, the mean 

 average at Cinchona being given in the Jamaica 

 Hand Book for 1885-() at 121-02 inches ; so that 

 estates Iving on the same range, must get nearly 

 as much, and it must have been much 

 worse in the "old days" before so much land 

 was opened up. This state of things surprises me 

 all the more that the coffee was never sent to 

 Kingston to be cured, thus saving the planter 

 an immense deal of time and anxiety, and I 

 believe of expense also. I cannot take for granted 

 that the quality could be spoilt because the 

 coffee was cured at Kingston any more thaii the 

 bold coffee from Haputale. Kamboda, and other 

 favored districts of Cej-lon. It can only have 

 been "lack of cart roads, and the consequeni ex- 

 pense of carriage on mule-back of parchment 

 coiTee : a mule now carries 200 lb. of clean coffee, 

 which is a pretty tidy weight for one animal. If 

 a curing Krm were to set up at Kingston I should 

 lie very much inclined to send my coffee. I believe 

 a mule could take 5 bushels dry parchment to 

 (lordon Town, when it could be carted to Kingston. 

 With '-property " mules one could thus send 10 

 bushels to Gordon Town for Is Gd. I only wish 

 such another firm as John Walker & Co. would 

 set up a business in Kingston, I will enumerate 

 what paying work they might undertake. First the 

 making and repairing of all sugar and coffee estate 

 machinery, making small hand-pulpers to enable 

 the settlers, as in Ceylon, to turn tlieir coffee into 

 good i)archnient coffee instead of the wretched 

 stuff thoy now bring to Kingston, and which only 

 fetches SHs to 40s in the London market. With 

 suitable hand-pulpers, they would turn out a good 

 sample and if they dried it properly would get a 

 much better price than they now obtain for the 

 badly cured stuff they bring to market. The firm 

 could by the above named coffee, set up a set 

 o( mills, cure and ship it to England and realize, 

 good protits. Then if some venturesome planter 

 like mysielf sent his coffee to them to be cured 

 and it still fetched high and paying prices, I liave 

 MO doubt others would soon follow suit. In addition 

 till- firm would have open to them the repair of 

 ships, and ships' machinery, building contracts 

 and all kinds of carpenters' and blacksmiths' work 

 In repairs, etc. They might also keep a general 

 -'store" tor the sale of estate tools, and all, 

 n<iui.sites in the ironmongery line required by 

 planteis ctnd the general public. I am confident 

 98 



that with such a business well managed by some 

 " canny " Scot, and it they were satisfied with 

 'modest protits, tliey would soon do an excellent 

 business. Most of the business in Jamaica is in 

 the hands of Jewish tinns who are very enter- 

 prizing and have managed to keep out the Gentiles 

 to a great extent. There are only one or two 

 engineering shops in Kingston, so they have it all 

 their own way and charge absurdly high prices: fancy 

 having to pay "is each for iron spade bars, one 

 inch thick and tliree feet long, steeled at both 

 ends, one fiat, one pointed ! I cannot imagine why 

 the Blue Mountain district was never opened up by 

 good cart-roads; the difficulties are not much greater 

 than inmany parts of Ceylon, and in the old days when 

 planters had plenty of slaves, they could ha\'a 

 done it cheap and fast, but of course sugar 

 was king and coffee planters in the minority, and 

 I also fancy they were so well satisfied with things 

 as they were, and their enormous prices and pro- 

 fits, and not needing to be as hardworking and 

 energetic as the modern coffee planter and emi- 

 grant : they were content to " let well alone." 



I am glail to say prices keep up for our Bine 

 Mountain coffee, I was so fortunate as to obtain 

 Ills, 122s and IHOs for a small shipment of my 

 coffee ; it netted lOSs. Would I had more of it, but 

 I must have patience till the new fields come into 

 bearing. Tlie neighbouring estate, Sherwood Forest, 

 ij giving a very fine crop, and Radnor and the 

 other estates are also doing well. Amongst the 

 curiosities of Negro-English, I may mention the 

 words " as nrach." If you ask a man if he has 

 any stumps left, he will reply " Yes, as umch," 

 me'aning there are still plenty. In the field ^ the 

 other day, I told the people to save the good sticks, 

 as I wanted to build a shelter-hut ; the answer was 

 " You have as much," meaning that they were 

 plentiful. The other day I got a letter from an 

 educated man. a schoolmaster, whose p n." I had 

 detained for breaking into my giiineagrass, in- 

 forming me it was "illegal to impound stocks" 

 on a Sunday, Amongst other peculiarities, they 

 will talk of " one, one coffee being ripe," mean- 

 ing a few berri.'.s here and there just worth the 

 picking. The absurdity also of saying the " rivers 

 have come down," when they are in Hood, in- 

 stead of s;iying the rivers are up, or have risen. 

 The fact is, so many of the Jamaica rivers are 

 dry beds during a portion of the year, that it does 

 not seem out of the way to say the water has 

 come doiiii ; as if it were stored up in the mountains 

 for sundry times and " seasons," when it does 

 come down with a vengeance, people being fre- 

 quently drowned. One of the most onerous things 

 the dwellers in Jamaica have to bear is the heavy 

 import duty of 12.} per cent on most goods, 

 besides the export duties on sugar, rum and coffee ; 

 this is even carried out to levying duty on articles 

 by the parcel post, thus causing great inconvenience 

 and delay to country residents who have to send 

 all the way to Kingston to clear their goods. An- 

 other anomaly is that there is not a uniform 

 rate of postage : some places near Kingston and 

 those towns to which the railway extends arc favoured 

 with a penny postage, whilst we outsiders have to 

 pay '2d for the half-onnce. 



lltli February. — The above was written about 

 six weeks ago, hut was somehow mislaid, the 

 writer supposing it was about this time appearing 

 in the (Jlixerver ; tor this accident he now apologizes. 

 Crop has commenced, and is of very good quality, 

 the promise of good crops expressed in the former 

 jiart of this letter is likely to be realized ; and no 

 doubt some very line specimens will be shown at 

 the Colonial exhibition. (Jur very popular Director 



