282 



The Supplement to the Tropical Agriculturist 



the extent actually planted. Messrs. Figgis &, 

 Go. 7 months back put 20,000 acres planted in 

 Mexico, Nicaragua and Honduras. We now give 

 Mexico alone credit for 25,000 acres. Alto- 

 gether the attempt to work out a record for the 

 world results in a total of 534,550 acres For 

 the details see the pages of the " Ceylon Hand- 

 book and Directory " just published. It will be 

 extremely interesting now, year by year, to watch 

 how the exports of the plantation product deve- 

 lop and how they compare with the estimates 

 which will be found in the " Ceylon Handbook 

 and Directory " and elsewhere. 



THE CEYLON PLANTING INDUSTRY. 



35,000 ACRES CACAO : 8,350 CARDAMOMS ; 

 1,200 OF CAMPHOR. 



There is not much to be said about Cacao : 

 our returns from estates for the current 

 period show about 1,000 acres added to plan- 

 tations during 1907-08 and 2,000 additional of 

 cacao and rubber : whether due to clearings dur- 

 ing 1907-08 or of earlier date, it is impossible to 

 say. The total works out to 29,354 acres and, with 

 5,700 acres added for native gardens, 35,000 

 may be taken as representing the industry in 

 the present year. It looks, too, as if an era 

 of alternate good and poor crops were setting 

 in. Thus 1905 gave an export of 69,463 cwt ; in 

 1906 only 54,020 cwt. were shipped ; 1907 gave 

 a bumper return of 92,511 while we suppose 

 60,000 to 65,000 cwt. are all that can bo looked 

 for this year ? 



Cardamoms reached a maximum export of 

 995,680 lb. in 1904 when 9.300 acres were under 

 cultivation. Now there are 1,000 acres less and 

 the shipments this year are not likely to ex- 

 ceed 600,000 to 650,000 lb. 



We are only at the beginning of an industry 

 in the growing of Camphor trees, of which the 

 regular planting has in two years extended from 

 142 to 451 acres ; but judging by the seed used 

 and knowing that there is no means of tabu- 

 lating the trees planted along the boundaries 

 and roads of a large number of estates, we 

 feel sure that there must be the equivalent of 

 1,200 acres under this new product. Writing- 

 in January, 1907, Dr. Willis estimated 900 

 acres for camphor and we know that there have 

 been more than 300 acres planted since. 



CINCHONA IN CEYLON. 



Poor Old Cinchona — once represented by 

 millions of trees covering thousands of acres 

 in Ceylon, which gave 30 million lb. of bark 

 for exportation in two seasons, twenty-two 

 years back — is now represented in our Directory 

 by "173 acres." the export last year being 235,000 

 lb. and this year probably about 20C,00U lb. ! 

 How are the mighty fallen ! But in Java the 

 industry has gone ahead in spite of attention 

 to coffee, tea and rubber, so that the yearly 

 harvest is now from 18 to 20 million lb. of much 

 richer bark than ever Ceylon produced ; and so 



Java rules the world's markets. The yield from 

 the Government Gardens in India is falling 

 off : only 437,000 lb. of bark was exported in 

 1907-08 against 916,000 lb. two years before ; 

 but some is, of course, kept for local manu- 

 facture. India novv imports over 80,0001b. of 

 quinine a year and the consumption cannot be 

 under 100,000 lb. We cannot say what Ceylon 

 imported last year of quinine, no separate 

 account being kept at the Customs. 



PLANTING RESERVES ON ESTATES. 



We sometimes hear the cry that there is very 

 little room for the expansion of planting now 

 in Ceylon, even if it were desirable to cultivate 

 a new or old product. But few people think 

 of the very considerable reserves in private 

 hands, and of a number of properties abandoned 

 in coffee days and never since taken up. This 

 accounts for the fact that only 1,722 plantations 

 are entered as " cultivated " out of 2,083 estate 

 properties entered in the Directory, The total 

 acreage of the latter is 944,403 against 614,022 

 acres in cultivation. This leaves reserves of no 

 less than 330,000 acres. Of course, a great deal 

 of this is comparatively useless patana and waste; 

 but we may safely calculate that at least 100,000 

 acres would come under the designation of good 

 forest land in private hands ready to be developed 

 into clearings of tea or any other product that 

 may offer due encouragement. In certain dis- 

 tricts it is extremely interesting to notice the 

 diversity of products engaging the attention of 

 the Superintendent — as when cacao is conjoined 

 not only with rubber, but with pepper, nutmegs 

 and vanilla ; while croton oil nut trees, coca and 

 kola are interesting minor additions in other 

 cases. The Sinhalese — in the Kegalla and Matara 

 districts especially— if they were true to the 

 tastes of their forefathers, ought to be great 

 cultivators of the pepper vine ; for the Dutch 

 derived very considerable quantities of this 

 spice, which they considered decidedly superior 

 in its Ceylon growth, from what are now our 

 Southern and Sabaragamuwa Provinces. The 

 Dutch even considered pepper a more suitable 

 and valuable product than coffee to grow in 

 Ceylon, two hundred years ago. 



TEA IN JAVA. 



In our issue of May Mr Hugh Tomlinson, 

 of Bandoeng, Java, wrote giving us parti 

 culars of the prize Java estate, Malabar, 

 which produces tea at a cost of 2Jd per lb., 

 netting 3£d profit, and which paid a divi- 

 dend last year of 80& per cent — Directors, 

 besides, getting the equivalent of 34.J per cent., 

 and the Manager (by way of commission) of 14J 

 per cent. He said these figures were excep- 

 tional ; but other estates run on Dutch (as 

 against Ceylon lines) shewed nearly as wonder- 

 ful results. The average (7th year, from seed) 

 was in this case 1,559 lb. per acre, while 2,124$ 

 acres averaged 1,082 lb. made tea. We at the 

 time questioned if there were, or were likely to 

 be, many Malabars in Java; though we confessed 

 that country's volcanic soil was not to be found 

 in Ceylon. Mr Bingley wrote us fully (on 



