Miscellaneous. 456 



the very great help he has been through- 

 out the experiment. The weather was 

 not all it might be, as the first planting 

 never came on owing to the drought, and 

 the last planting, a great deal of it, was 

 killed by too much flooding of the land ; 

 but the greater portion of the Tobacco 

 was very fine, good strong trees and fine 

 quality equal in my opinion not to the 

 best Sumatra tobacco, but certainly to 

 the average Sumatra leaf. The ferment- 

 ing was the trouble, as I told the Com- 

 mittee it would be, as there was not the 

 bulk to produce the heat required to 

 thoroughly ferment the leaf out, and 

 without sufficient bulk this cannot be 

 done, and that the first shipment was 

 not fermented out, is shown by the 

 cable received from Bremen saying 

 tobacco was spoilt on the journey, which 

 means it had lost some of its colour. 

 This was what I was afraid of, and I told 

 the Committee at the time it would do 

 so. With regard lo Mr. VauLeenhoff's 

 report, I do not wish to say anything 

 except that 1 do not agree with him. 

 He reported on a scientific basis, and 

 disagreed with my methods because they 

 were based on the Sumatra manner of 

 planting ; but it must be rtmembered 

 that the Sumatra methods are the ones 

 that I know, and the ones which we 

 agreed were to be tried, and that the 

 experiment was not a scientific one for 

 the object of research, but a purely 

 commercial one to find out if tobacco 

 could be grown in Ceylon which would 

 command a market in Europe, and this, 

 I maintain has been done, not, I admit 

 as yet at a remunerative price, but still, 

 although the 3,000 lb. which have been 

 despatched were admitedly spoilt on the 

 journey, yet it has fetched a price, and 

 the buyers are willing to take all we can 

 send them, showing that they, at any 

 rate, see some profit in it. We are told 

 when the experiment was first mooted 

 that for two years at least we must be 

 prepared to loose our money, as the 

 European market would boycott the 

 Tobacco, and until we found ou t a market 

 there would be no money in it, but I 

 maintain, that the experiment of 1910 

 has been successful in this, that we have 

 proved that Tobacco can be grown in 

 Ceylon which will command a market 

 in Europe, and 1 consider myself that, 

 given a bigger acreage, say 50 acres, 

 there will be no difficulty in getting 

 bulk enough to thoroughly ferment the 

 Tobacco out. 



I particularly wish to point out that 

 no true experiment can be expected to 

 realise all the required results at the 

 first attempt ; if it did, it could not b9 

 correctly called an experiment. In 



[November, 1911. 



growing Tobacco not for a scientific 

 purpose, but for a commercial purpose, 

 I contend that to be of any value the 

 process must be continued until we 

 arrive at perfection as required by the 

 particular market we are trying to 

 secure. Our first attempt has not been 

 so successful as we might wish perhaps, 

 but this we never have expected, nor 

 have we ever led anyone to believe that 

 we expected an unqualified success. In 

 the light of our present experience we 

 shall now be in a position to retrieve 

 some of our errors, and, with a fair share 

 of luck as regards weather to make any 

 future experiment more of a success, I 

 must, however, differ from Mr. VanLeen- 

 hoff in his view*-' that the experiment is 

 altogether a failure, for the simple 

 reason that he criticises the experiment 

 from a different point of view altogther 

 to that for which it was intended. 



I would point out that all land, sheds, 

 etc., ate ready, if it is decided to con- 

 tinue the experiment, and that cigars 

 are being made at Maha-iluppalama. 



EDWARD COWAN, 



RESOLUTION ADOPTED BY THE 

 TOBACCO COMMITTEE. 



Minutes of a Meeting of the Tobacco 

 Committee— called at short notice to 

 report on Mr. Cowan's Memorandum on 

 the Society's Tobacco Experiment at 

 Maha Uuppalama and submit a definite 

 recommendation as to the advisability 

 of continuing or discontinuing it— held 

 at the office of the Colonial Treasurer 

 on Wednesday, August 16, at 2 p.m. 



Present.— Dr. Willis (in the Chair), the 

 Hon. Mr. Bernard Senior, Dr. H. M. 

 Fernando, and Mr. C. Drieberg. 



The following resolution was adopted : 

 — " That this Committee does not con- 

 sider it advisable to continue the 

 tobacco experiment upon the same lines 

 as hitherto, viz., upon a commercial 

 basis, as it is of opinion that financially 

 such an experiment must end in failure, 

 owing to the high cost of growing the 

 tobacco and the low price realized from 

 the sale thereof. 



"The Committee consider that such 

 an undertaking is altogether too large 

 for the Agricultural Society, having in 

 view the amount of funds at its disposal. 



"The Committee, however, are of 

 opinion that it would be a pity to cease 

 the experiment in tobacco growing in 

 the Colony, and express the hope that 

 the experiment will be taken up by the 

 Government through the new Agricul- 

 tural Department on scientific lines, and 

 that a Tobacco Expert be appointed for a 



