232 



GAMPOLA A^^D THE COFFEE KEGIONS. [Part VII. 



The consternation thus produced in Ceylon was pro- 

 portionate to the extravagance of the hopes that were 

 bhisted ; estates were forced into the market, and madly 

 sold off for a twentieth part of the outlay incurred in 

 forming them.^ Others that could not even be sacrificed, 

 were deserted and allowed to return to jungle. For 

 nearly three years the enterj^rise appeared paralysed ; 

 the ruined disappeared, and the timid retreated ; but 

 those who combining judgment with capital persevered, 

 succeeded eventually, not alone in restoring energy to the 

 enterprise, but in imparting to it the prudence and ex- 

 perience gleaned from former disasters. 



The crisis, had it not been precipitated by the cala- 

 mities of 1845, must inevitably have ensued from the 

 indiscretions of the previous period ; and the healthy 

 condition in which coffee-planting appears at the present 

 day in Ceylon, results fi"om the correction of the errors 

 then committed. It is no exaggeration to say, that there 

 is not a single well-established principle which now 

 guides the management of estates, and the conduct of 

 then- proprietors, that was not preceded by a directly 

 opposite pohcy prior to 1845. Observation has since dis- 

 cerned the true tests of soil and aspect ; former delusions 

 as to high altitudes have been exploded ; unprofitable 

 districts avoided, unproductive estates abandoned ; and 

 in Heu of the behef that a coffee-bush, once rooted, 

 would continue ever after to bear crops without manure, 

 and to flourish in defiance of weeds and neglect, every 



^ A writer in the Calcutta Review, 

 for March, 1857, cites numerous 

 instances in which Aahiahle estates 

 \rere sold in the panic for nominal 

 sums : two estates in Badulla whicli 

 had cost 10,000/. were sold for 350/. ; 

 tlie IIindu<ralla plantation, which 

 cost 10,000/., produced 500/. Mr. 

 Atistix, in an ahle paper attached 

 to Lees' Translation of Hihei/ro^ says 

 ''an estate that was sold in 1843 

 for 15,000/. was knocked doA\Ti last 

 month (1847) for 40/. only." — p. 



220. Mr. EiGG, in the Jotirnal of the 

 Indian Archipehir/o for 1852, p. 130, 

 describes the loss in Ceylon between 

 1841 and 1847 as nincfij per cent, of 

 the gross amount preA'iously invested 

 in coffee plantinj,'-, but this is an ex- 

 cessive estimate. Mr. FEEorsoN's 

 calcidation is probably nearer the 

 truth, that in addition lo the money 

 wasted by extravagant management, 

 the extent of abandoned estates was 

 equal to one tenth of those originally 

 opened. — See Colombo Observer, 1857. 



