COST OF OPENING ESTATES. 153 
shall take them all up together at the end and reply. 
Sceptic rather takes a liberty in criticizing the work 
done by the £8 and £10 per acre men; sering he 
does not know one of the estates to which I referred. 
They, however, would well repay inspection, but 
that must be invited by their proprietors, not by me. 
All I say is that in both the work was weil and 
satisfactorily done: one has yielded handsomely pay- 
ing crops for many years; the other (only 7 or 8 
years old) hag done so since its 3rd year, when it 
yielded 10 ecwts. an acre.” 
COST OF OPENING COFFEE ESTATES. 
(Yo the Editor of the Ceylon Observer.) 
April 4th, 1872. 
Srr,—Practical people will hold the same view which 
your correspondent ‘‘Sceptic” takes of the subject 
of the cost of bringing a coffee estate into bearing. 
I have no bh sitation in denouncing as se/fish and wrong 
in the extreme that advocacy which overwhelms 
young men, the possessors perhaps of a wretched one 
thousand p-unds or upwards, with an insatiable vani- 
ty to become what is out here termed a proprietur, 
and ther-by risk their ‘‘ali” to such an extent that 
it might appropriately be called thr winz it away. 
I remain, yours very truly, 
‘Or tLUNGING BEWARE.” 
[While leaning ourselve: rather to Sceptic’s e timate 
of the cost of opening a cotfee est.te proper y, than 
to the lower ones advane:d, and which are generally 
based upon work done under exeeption lly favour- 
-able circumstance’, yet we candidly confess that the 
number of instarces in which such cheap, and yet 
we suppose good, work has been done in beginning 
to multiply. Here is the latest from a correspondent, 
who s:ys:—‘‘I have just extracted from the books of 
estates in Dimbula the cost of their opening :— 
No 1.—67 aeres—Cost of felling ... ..& 132 0 
Lining and planting ... a So. 08 4g 7 
Plants... ae soe Bek fet 2D) OF O 
Roads... Je £35 ads a 714 3 
Weeding ... =e oe a PA ESD iO -Q 
Superintendence a ah .. 160 0 0 
Amount expended in 2 years and 8 months £565 8 10 
No. 2.—86 acres planted July and August 1870 
Expended to June 1871... ay ... £568 4 2 
100 acres felled in 1871, no burn included 150 0 0 
Expended to Apr:] 1872 including super- 
intendence i. et oe ssa tee etdt oe 
Over two years ...£1,091 11 5” 
