COFFEE PLANTING IN CEYLON. 157 
furnish us with is nearer the mark than many sup- 
posed. It is, however, somewhat difficult to follow 
his arguments in favour of building a £300 bungalow 
for the superintendent the first year, assuming (as he 
himself assumes) that the estate is managed and 
brought into bearing by a neighbouring planter. What 
right, however, have we poor d ls to be nice? It 
is not every day we have the experience of so dis- 
tinguished a manager to guide us, and although pos- 
sibly we do not share with him the amusement of 
dabbling in mud and mortar before it is necessary, 
still it is satisfactory to know that there is no occa- 
sion to do so.—Yours faithfully, 
SCEPTIC. 
[Barring the caustic tone of this writer’s references 
to Messrs. Sabonadiére and Brown, we consider his 
letter a valuable and sober statement of the truth. 
With holes as large as they ought to be, and the 
valuable potash, charcoal, and surface vegetable mat- 
ter drawn into them thoroughly, £25 an acre, or 
£2,500 expended on 100 acres at the end of the third 
year, is not too large a sum to calculate on. Ex- 
penditure restricted in the preliminary operations of 
planting and holing must mean larger expenditure 
or smaller returns in after years. Coffee land ought, 
if possible, to be trenched and permeated by surk 
drains. As such operations are (financially) impossi- 
ble, the greater the necessity for large holes, and 
plenty of paths, roads, surface drains (deep), and water 
holes.—Epb. C. O.] 
THE ‘‘COFFEE PLANTERS’ MANUAL” AND 
THE COST OF OPENING ESTATES, 
The ‘ Planters’ Manual” with its various additions 
was just leaving the printer’s hands when the letter 
of ‘‘Sceptic” appeared, criticizing the estimates fram- 
ed by Messrs. Sabonadiére and Brown of the cost of 
opening a coffee estate. We were unwilling to send 
the wo-k forth without some explanation of the mod = 
rate estimates of the writer of the ‘‘ Manual,” in 
reply to his critic, and accordingly have been pleased 
to receive the following remarks which shew that 
experience is not wanting to substantiate the calcu- 
lutions made by Mr, Brown ;— 
“*My object throughout the work was to shew on 
how low a scale a coffee plantation can be opened by 
a man of small means with great care and economy { 
not to shew how much can be spent in doing the same 
work. This has been sufficiently illustrated before, 
and at the cost of many a proprietor, If I omitted 
