August i, 1889.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 101 
profitable return and what no Kandyan would ever 
think of cultivating for. Just fancy Government 
going to spend R50,000 on a tank called Iraula 
where some 25 families are at present in healthy 
condition and their total land under the tank 
" when restored " would not exceed 400 acres ! 
Innamulawa is the north-east corner of Matale 
district, having for its north and east boundary 
the N.-C. Province ; Sigiri is in this korale. The 
people live by hunting and chena cultivation. I 
fancy it will soon become the finest Crown forest 
in the Central Province— Yours, HUNTSMAN. 
MR. ELLIOTT'S EXPERIMENTS IN PADDY 
CULTIVATION. 
Nuwara Eliya, 17th June 1889. 
Deab Sik,— Referring to the interesting letter on 
the subject of paddy cultivation from Mr. Elliott 
in your issue of the 15th, will you allow me to 
point out that Mr. Elliott omits from his calculation 
the salary of the two instructors who carried out 
the experiments and apparently the cost of watch- 
ing, upkeep and supervision during the seven months 
that the crop is ripening. 
Add these items, and I venture to think the 
profit will become a vanishing quantity. Thus, 
taking the Galle instance: — 
Mr. Elliott's nett profit .. R64 
Deduct cost of watching, upkeep 
and supervision, say one man 
per diem for 7 months at 32c. R67-20 
Nett profit 
—Yours faithfully, C. J. R. LE MESURIER. 
A NORTHERN PLANTER ON COFFEE. 
Dear Sib, — Mr. Jackson's communication on the 
treatment of green bug is very interesting. But 
have you not heard of how to catch birds by 
putting salt on their tails ? Rubbing the coffee 
branches infected with green bugs with a rough 
cloth steeped in kerosine may do good or rather 
harm to these pests, but I should think the 
rubbing, if fairly done, even without the kerosine 
would be equally efficacious. But what about the 
coffee leaves ? for I have generally seen them as 
badly affected as the branches, or more so ; are 
they all rubbed too with a rough cloth soaked in 
kerosene ? I am afraid coffee must be allowed to 
die in peace, though it, like the coffee planter, is 
dying hard. NEW PRODUCTS. 
[We suppose Mr. Jackson can reply that his "rub- 
bing " and liming has not only saved crop, but 
maintained the vigour of the tree. We suspect 
with present prospects that if " New Products" 
had 100 acres of decent coffee he would do a good 
deal even to lengthen its life ?— Ed.] 
LONDON TEA CIRCULARS : BLUNDERS. 
Sir, — In Messrs. Gow, Wilson & Stanton's tea 
ciroular of May 24th there are given the averages 
of some 110 Ceylon estates or marks. And in 55 
cases the average differs from that given in Messrs. 
Wilson, Smithett& Co.'s circular of same date. 
In one instance there is a difference of ljd ud 
in several instances a difference of Id per lb., .vuich 
is sufficiently large to be annoying to 
THOSE CONCERNED. 
PLANTING IN BURMA: 
A FUTURE ELDORADO FOR PLANTERS. 
Tavoy, Burma, 18th May 1889. 
Dear Sir, — Tavoy news at the present moment 
is rather alarming. We have here just now the 
Commissioner, Col. Plant, who has tried the rebels 
brought from Siam : 9 are to be hanged and 14 
transported for life, so that we shall be clear of 
some 23 notorious characters. I fancy we have 
now got at the bottom of the whole affair and will 
for the future live in peace. I am sending you W. 
B. Hudson's letter, and I trust you may publish it. 
You will observe that it was rather hard on his 
party, who had gone all the way to Mandalay 
and from there down the Chindwin river and found 
no one to show them the land of promise. Such 
treatment at the hands of Government is a dis- 
graceful shame, and gives a decided blow to any 
ready enterprise, and any planter could readily feel 
Mr. Hudson's disgust. Mr. Hudson is one of the 
leading planters in India, and a smart business 
man ; and well-known to a good few in Ceylon. 
The rains are on again, and everything is res- 
ponding both bud and blossom. I have shipped 
over 50 owts (of coffee) which is now on voyage 
per S. S. "India" to London. — Yours faithfully, 
JAMES D. WATSON. 
(From letter of Mr. W. B . Hudson, c. i. e. 
on Burma.) 
We left Rangoon by rail and proceeded through such 
a country as I have hardly ever seen the equal of for 
fertility, and we soon realized the field there is for the 
pioneer in Burma. Miles of teak and other hard-wood 
forests interspersed with open savannas of lane grass 
higher than a man's head. Hardly a human being to be 
seen except here and there in the hamlets ot raised 
wooden houses, very few cattle or buffaloes, but many 
temples on the plain, the banks of streams and on every 
hill. Thousands of acres of the richest black cotton 
soil, loam, and laterite lying waste, except where a 
small patch round the houses is cleared and sown in 
rice, tobacco, oilseeds or cotton — and such cultivation ! 
The merest scratching of the Tirhoot village plough 
would have been superior in many c»ses, and it 
appeared that our informant spoke the truth when he 
told us that in many places, after having burut down 
the scrub and grass, they turned their buffaloes on 
the plot after the first heavy rain, and trampled 
the land until they had poached it into a state fit 
to scatter the seed rice over it. Then they left it 
" severely " alone — no weeding — until the crop is ready 
to be cut. Fancy 25 maunds per Tirhoot bigha with 
such tillage as this. What will not virgin soil do? On 
seeing this fertility one of the reasons for the pest of 
the country — dacoity — breaks on the observer. As 
long as the rural population cau buy a couple of months' 
labour secure enough to live ou for the remainder of 
the year, why should they work? The young bloods 
must have something to amuse them, besides wrestling, 
boxing and making love. A little dacoity, in which 
there is often more '.' cry than wool," must be a godsend 
to them. 
The country is divided into valleys by long broken 
ranges of mountains which appear in some places as 
high as five or six thousand feet. To suit yourself 
for the cultivation of any particular crop you 
have only to choose your site at the proper 
elevation. I need not attempt to describe the forest. 
Its magnificence in some places is almost ap- 
palling. It struck me at once that the wonder is not 
that dacoits are not caught, but that one ever is in 
such a country. On the line of rail we passed Mr. 
Mylne's grant which was pointed out to us by Mr. 
Gouldhank, his manager. The settlers say the land 
will produce anything, and that the climate is 
better than B har, and the children appear to get on 
all right — which is an infallible test of climate. Clear- 
ing the forest they say is slow work, but the crops 
of rice and rahar they get the first year at once 
puts life ("dam") into them. The dacoits try now 
and then to frighten them, going so far as to fire 
shots into the manager's bungalow, always at night 
of course. However, as they take good care never 
to come to close quarters, we don't even get up now, 
but turn over and to sleep again. 
