85*^ 



tHE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



fJUNE I,, 1886. 



ance anil Hushing of the bushes, now 5 or 6 years 

 old, when we saw them. We had also time before 

 dajlight closed to yo over the "orchard " of select 

 Liberian coft'ee trees which were instrumental 

 through their wonderful growth and richness of 

 crop in sending scores, perhaps hundreds, of 

 visitors during the rush of ten years ago, to buy 

 land and plant the West African coffee. Even 

 now, (he trees are a grand sight with their show 

 of cherries in all stages amidst the laurcl-Iike leaves, 

 the tree off which two bushels of crop were taken in 

 one picking season, being not the least noteworthy. 

 How hard to think of all the capital (at a time 

 when money could ill be spared) and time and 

 labour spent over Liberian coiTee. But harder 

 still is the necessity which now forces the 

 planter to cut down and dig up, his still splendid- 

 looking groves of coffee trees. I had not the 

 opportunity of seeing Patupaulakandc which lies 

 lower down on the river-side ; but we learn that the 

 Liberian coffee trees there which when laden with cro|i 

 excited the admiration of " W. Mck" and induced 

 BO many more to go in for this new coffee, are 

 now nearly all superseded by tea, which is 

 succeeding splendidly. The pity seems to be 

 that both coffee and tea cannot be left to 

 flourish together ; but I had repeated evideiiec 

 on both Gikiyanakande and Oullodcn that al- 

 though for the first year or 18 months, tlie coffee 

 may be spared, after that date any patience or 

 n)cr;y shown to the old product will only be at 

 the expense of the younger, more vigorous and 

 more promising rival. If the tea is to grow and 

 flourish as it ought, there is no escape from it 

 that out must come the umbrageous groves of 

 coti'ee. 



Gikiyanakande with its 3,230 acres — 5 square 

 miles — in one compact block, about 14 miles inland 

 from Kalutara and 3 to 5 south of the Kaluganga, 

 is undoubtedly one of the historical plantation 

 J roperties of the island. The land was selected 

 and reported on, in l.SlO-1, for Messrs. Norris and 

 Sim by Mr. Wni. Ferguson. It then became the 

 property ' of Lord Elphinstone at a time when 

 there was quite a host of Indian civil and 

 military officers ready to invest in the El Dorado 

 of Ceylon. The idea on the part of the Lord 

 Elphinstone, who was then Governor of Bombay, 

 or of his business managers, was to cultivate sugar, 

 and this had already been done by them at Paraduwa 

 on the Matara river — on the property which, after 

 many years of abandonment, was eventually sold 

 by Lord Elphinstone to the late Mr. J. W. Home 

 for his first venture, the cultivation and preparation 

 of plantain fibre. On Gikiyanakande, a careful 

 Belection was made of land suitable to cane-growing, 

 and, besides having a portion cleared and cultivated, 

 the manager went so far as to take levels from a 

 stream passing through the property and to erect 

 a most substantial masonry dam (still to the foi'e 

 with its native cement of chuuam, blood and 

 white-o£-egg), in order to be ready for his water- 

 wheel and extensive sugar machinery. But. fortun- 

 ately, here as in Mr, Shand's Nambapane, the testing 

 of me cane took place Lefore further expense was 

 incurred, and on the report from the Paraduwa 

 Manager that tlie Kalutara cane yielded little or 

 no crystalhzed saccharine matter, the atlempt at 

 sUKar cultivation in Gikiyanakande was given up. 

 The place then seems to have had nothing done on it 

 for a number of years. But on Capt. Klphinstoiie, 

 li.N., succrcding to the title and property .is Lord 

 Filplili Bt lie (l")th Baron) in ISdl, lie expressed a 

 desire to utilize his land in Ceylon. Through a 

 iclative in England this wish reached two young 

 Englishmen resident in Cape Colony, who. after 11 

 8 arie' bojourn in the Weiatern Province there, had been 



drawn together by the fact that each had lost a brother 

 in the place, while both were anxious to try their 

 fortunes in a new land. Accordingly Messrs. S. W. 

 Foulkesand C. Knight shipped from the Cape to 

 Ceylon, the Eldorado in those days of coffee, fully ex- 

 pecting that Lord Elphinstone's big block was well- 

 titted the staple for cultivation. They had difficulty 

 at first in learning where the property was situated, 

 and no wonder, for the story runs that the Agency 

 had been for a good many years held by a Galle Firm 

 who, for the life of them, could not tell the noble 

 lord where his Gikiyanakande estate was to be 

 found I But on being discovered, some time in the early 

 " sixties," by the Cape colonists, they were naturally 

 disappointed to find that coffee (Arabica) was out 

 of the question and they were nearly falling in 

 with a proposal of Mr, J. T. White of Messrs. 

 Murray, Robertson & Co., to whom they had 

 letters, to take places as Superintendents of coffee 

 estates on the hills. However, they visited Gikiyana- 

 kande, found that Sinhalese labour could be com- 

 manded and that there was room for developing an 

 industry in growing citronclla grass, the expressing 

 of the oil leaving a good profit at the then hand- 

 some prices and limited competition. Not anxious to 

 be separated w ith the strong tics subsisting between 

 them, Messrs. Eoulkes and Knight were well con- 

 tent to give up their more brilliant prospects in 

 the hill country and to settle down to hardwork 

 and a lonely out-of-the-way life in the Raygam 

 Korale ; and to make a long story short, for well- 

 nigh twenty years they continued to devote their 

 close attention to the industry they had made their 

 own, pbrnting up some 700 to HOO acres alongside 

 the district road which ran through the property, with 

 the fragrant grass, and struggling on against unpropi- 

 tious times and lowering prices. The first roots of 

 the grass put in were got from the neighbourhood 

 of Galle and the further cultivation and extension 

 took place very much after the fashion of Guinea 

 grass. A good crop can be counted on within a 

 year after planting ; but the great difficulty arose 

 out of the wonderful uncertainty of the prices. 

 The development of our export trade in essential 

 or grass (Citronella, Lemon and other grass) oils 

 may be judged from the following statistics taken 

 from our " Handbook "; — 



Essential Oils : Export of, from Ceylon. 



Quantity . . 

 Value (Customs) . . 



IS.™. 



Oz. 13.S,78.i 



£8,238 



1S150. 18fi3. 



388,411 471,(i21 



li,i)83 6,732 



1870. 1880. 1881. 



Quantity .. . .Oz. l,ll!l,ti-2-2 l,3(il,780 4,800,228 

 Value (Customs) . . l'10,018 20,13<) 37,tH)8 



The enormous development of export in oiiiurg of 

 recent years, is not due to a parallel extension of 

 cultivation or to some new process of extracting 

 more oil from existing grass, but as might almost 

 be judged from the valuation, to a means dis- 

 covered ill Colombo and Galle— as current report 

 goes— of mixing the pure Citronella oil with inferior 

 stuff, it is even said with imported kerosene (I), 

 after a fashion that prevents detection. Whether 

 that be the case or not, it is certain that Messrs, 

 Foulker and Knight had nothing but the genuine 

 article to depend on, and that 'they made very little 

 profit for proprietor or lessees. The era of " new 

 products " too had arrived and Lord Elphinstone 

 determined to develop on his own account, so that 

 a few years ago, Mr. Foulkes proceeded to South 

 Australia where we regret to say, fortune as yet, 

 has scarcely smiled on him, while Mr. Knight 

 continued in charge of the Citronclla grass division 

 I'lUO acrcG are still cropped- of the Qeekiana- 

 kande property and the dif' illation. 



