152 COFFEE PLANTING AND FINANCING. 
noble fellow succumbs or goes home invalided from 
being deprived of timely medical aid and nourishing 
supplies. That the fault is not Sir Hercules Robin- 
son’s will be borne witness to by every up-country 
resident ; rather it is owing to the circumstances that 
the trail of the serpent has reached ‘‘ India’s utmost 
isle.” The Parent Circumlocution Office sends out its. 
offspring, who never completely get clean of their 
leading strings, or forget their early training. Sir 
Hercules has been emphatically the planters’ fri-nd, 
and for the extension of the railway from Peradeniya 
to Nawalapitiya alone, he deserves a statue erected 
- on the highest mountain in the island. 
We left the new landowner shivering im his tali- 
pot hut, his servant having just stated that the wood 
is too damp to admit of a fire being kindled to make 
early coffee, adding sotto voce that there was no milk, 
that the sugar was all melted, and the bread cooly 
mot arrived. ‘* Heaven’s own consoler,” tobacco, alone 
remains; so, lighting his pipe, the hungry youth pro- 
eeeds to line his 100 aeres, and having marked with 
pegs where the young plants ought to go, the coolies 
dig the holes. All this is not very difficult work, and 
when the necessary plants have been put. in, there 
is little or nothing to do on the plantation until next 
year’s clearing, and planting a fresh 100 acres. To 
give some idea of how capital may be expended, the 
following may be relied on as a fair estimate :— 
Cost of Land 350 at £4 £1,400 
First YEAR. 
Nursery ty SIU 
Felling, clearing 100 acres... 225 
Holing and. planting w- 130 
Weeding saa ee TOO 
Lines for coolies ... te 50 
Roads and bridges ... oe 50 
Tools... fae ae se 15 
Miscellaneous .. 20 —— 
Total, first year......605 
Suconp YEAR. 
Nurseries : 2h GES 
Holing and planting | Hi 10. 
Weeding 4 He ao FOO 
Roads and bridges sie eee 10 
Tools... ae “0 5 
Sundries A 10 —— 
Total, “gecond year,.....140 
745 
Felling, clearing, planting, &e., 
another 100 acres as before ... 605 £1,350 
Total expenditure... ohn gears 
