fidible Products. 384 



has been increased, and consequently the health of the bushes has improved. That 

 has produced a better class of leaf, so that we have found in the last year or two 

 that some of our marks have improved in quality, and those who have observed the 

 sales of the company will have seen that the prices realised have to some extent 

 improved. I hope I may say without boasting that there is no group of estates of 

 the size of ours, and with the yield of ours, which has obtained a better result as 

 regards prices realised for their tea than those of this company. Since this working 

 of the soil and this burying of organic matter has shown itself to be a good system, 

 we have been developing it. We have planted nitrogen-growing plants, which are 

 buried with the other primings and organic matter, and in that way have gradually 

 increased the fertility and richness of the soil. 



I may say here that in Ceylon we have the benefit of a very strong and good 

 scientific department at the Botanical Gardens, where there is a very able analytical 

 chemist, cryptogamist, entomologist, and various other experts. I may tell you that 

 the planters and those who have the direction of the estates make full use of the 

 scientific knowledge, and anyone who goes there cannot help being surprised at the 

 care with which they make this knowledge available in the working of their 

 estates. 



And, speaking of this digging and tillage and burying of organic matter, we 

 know now that it will be of great use to us in the cultivation of our rubber. I am 

 now speaking of the rubber which is planted on the tea estates ; the rubber planted 

 on new lands leaves nothing to be desired, and can almost be left to itself — it is on 

 jungle land, and it will grow well. I visited all the clearings last year and the year 

 before, and I can tell you that you have a property with which you may be perfectly 

 satisfied. But to grow rubber with tea is, as you may understand, a very different 

 matter. You probably know that a very large area of the low-country estates of 

 Ceylon is now planted with rubber. It is planted on gravelly and also on loamy 

 land ; it is planted where there is a very heavy rainfall and where there is a 

 small rainfall, and nobody can say at present which is exactly suitable. The only 

 thing we know is that the land we thought most suitable— namely, damp land — is 

 most unsuitable, and we have learnt that it requires a good drainage. It is more or 

 less a problem how all these lands will yield rubber. We know it will grow, because 

 the land that we planted in rubber is of suitable elevation and rainfall ; but with 

 regard to the yield, that is at present unknown. We in this company, who have 

 obtained the knowledge, and are still obtaining it, have been working on what I may 

 call renovating the land, and we feel sure that we shall be able to make our rubber 

 yield well. We have succeeded in the case of tea by more or less renovating some of 

 the old estates, and if we pursue the same policy in regard to rubber, and continue 

 what we are now doing by incorporating this organic matter with the soil, I think 

 the rubber on our tea estates will be successful and will yield well. 



In that connection I would draw your attention to one point. I dare say some 

 of you are surprised to find that you have 300,000 rubber trees, costing £4,500. What 

 you see in the accounts as a cost of £4,500 is practically the cost of 400 acres of jungh - 

 planted land, and that is very cheap indeed. To obtain 400 acres at £11 9s. an acre is, 

 I must say, an extraordinary purchase, and you are very lucky in this respect. The 

 cost of the staff and the general cost of management in this is, of course, provided 

 for nothing in the case of the rubber, and when we begin to work the rubber for 

 cropping and returns, and it has to stand on its own basis, you must be prepared for 

 a much heavier expenditure. We are determined to make this rubber grow and 

 bear, and when this is the case there will be a certain expenditure, which you will 

 readily admit must be chargeable to the rubber, so that in future perhaps you will 

 find that the charges on account of rubber are higher than in the past. 



