THE SUPPLEMENT TO THE 



Tropical Agriculturist and Magazine of the C. A. 8. 



Compiled and Edited by A. M. & J. FERGUSON. 



No. 1.] 



JANUARY, 1912. 



[Vol. X. 



THE PLANTING INDUSTRY OF 

 CEYLON. 



IN TEA, RUBBER, CACAO, CARDAMOMS 

 AND MINOR PRODUCTS : 



Statistical Position at the End op 1911. 

 Main results.— 395,00 > acres under Tea. 



215,000 ,, „ Rubber. 



'32,000 „ „ Cacao. 

 7,300 ,, „ Cardamoms 



Against 

 In August 1910. 



385,675 acres under Tea. 



203,920 ,, ., Rubber. 

 33.000 „ ,, Cacao. 

 7.426 ,, ,, Cardamoms. 

 Before entering on the consideration of the 

 Statistics before us, an explanation is due as to 

 the delay in the publication of our " Handbook 

 and Directory" this year. This delay is chiefly 

 due to the alteration of the financial year by 

 Government, which has thrown out of gear several 

 divisions of the volume referring to administra- 

 tive and revenue departments, and has increased, 

 for this time, the difficulty of compilation very con- 

 siderably. This inconvenience should be quite 

 overcome in the next issue which, however, like 

 the present one, will appear towards the end, in 

 place of the middle, of the caleudar year and so 

 conti nue regularly, we trust, with the usual twelve 

 months' interval. 



We turn now to the detailed table which em- 

 bodies the figures representing the present 

 position of Ceylon's Planting Enterprise in 

 the staples given in our heading. The main 

 results are that now, at the end of 1911, 

 there are about 388,000 acres of Tea on the 

 plantations entered in the Directory, and, 

 with the allowance always made for small 

 plotB and native gardens, there must be a 

 total in Ceylon of 395,000 acres of Tea or an 



10 



increase of 9,225 acres since August, 1910.* For 

 Robber, we have a total of 215,000 acres, mak- 

 ing due allowance for what is intermixed with tea 



* Any one referring to the book of 1910-11 

 may find some discrepancy in the figures given 

 there ; but this is explained by the following 

 letter which appeared in the London Times of 

 Oct. 21st last year : — 



CEYLON PLANTING INDUSTRY 

 (To the Editor of the Times.) 



Sir, — In connection with the summary of the 

 Ceylon planting industry given in your Finan- 

 cial and Commercial Supplement of last week 

 there is one part of the detailed statistics in the 

 Directory which should be borne in mind in esti- 

 mating the exact area under tea, rubber, and 

 cacao respectively. I refer to the 75,351 acres of 

 tea and rubber growing together in the same 

 fields, and 20,169 acre3 of cacao and rubber 

 similarly mixed. This year, the editor— no 

 doubt on planting authority — has credited only 

 one-third of these figures to rubber. But there 

 is very weighty authority on the side of giving 

 less of this acreage to tea and caca j, and more 

 to rubber; and I believe that a fair average 

 would be to divide the figures equally b tiv jen 

 the different products. In this way we find 

 that in August, 19i0, the total area cultivated 

 in Ceylon 



with Tea should be about 385,675 acres. 

 „ Rubber „ ,, 203,920a „ 



„ Cacao „ „ 30,000 ,, 



aOf this, not more than 25,000 acres are planted 

 with trees six years old and over. 



There is also an opinion prevalent among ex- 

 perienced planters that, practically, another five 

 years should witness thedisappearanceof the tea- 

 bushes over most of the 75,351 acrosf of mixed 

 fields — a process which must, of course, lessen 

 the annual output of tea-leaf.— Yours truly, 



J. F. 



Watford, October 14. 



t Curiously enough the figures this year for 

 "tea and rubber" are larger, shewing 77,093 

 acres — and tea is increasingly valuable. 



