September 2, 1889.] THE TROPICAL AQR1C13LTUni8T, 
207 
I should think that few investments would be safer 
and more certaiii of paying over a long period of 
years than coconuts. As far as my experience goes, 
fifty to a hundred years does not appear to affect 
their productiveness. Indeed, I doubt if trees exist 
which may be considered as gone out, or as having 
ceased to be productive through age. 
I see from your paper that there is a possibility of 
a Coconut-growing and Trading Company starting in 
Ceylon, This should certainly be successful if care- 
fully started and organized, and, above all, if it avoids 
small plantations, only going iu for groups or those of 
large area, and, when purchased, has them well and 
economically managed. The soul of the coconut enter- 
prize is economy. If, in combination with cultivation, 
oil mills and other machinery are put up for utilizing 
the hundred-aud-one uses to which the palm can be 
applied, with care and good judgment it should be the 
best spec Ceylon has ever seen, and an enterprize 
which Government and the public should encourage 
in every way. There is not the apparent margin in 
coconuts that exists in speculative products; yet all 
who have had to do with them, as well as with cinna- 
mon, coffee, tea, or cocoa, kuow that while the latter 
products appear better than they are, coconuts at the 
long run come in at a canter. Indeed, there is a safety 
in them which makes the enterprize something more 
like Consols or Government Securities rather than the 
usual form of tropical agriculture. 
The Company in prospect would, however, I presume, 
having mills and other means at their disposal, save 
much of the loss to producer which now falls into the 
hands of the middleman, shipper, and consignee in the 
European markets. All considered, I know no enter- 
prize more likely to commend itself to that portion of 
the public who desire the elements of safety and per- 
manent success rather than a flutter of high profits, 
consequent strong competition, and finally a fall to 
more normal profits, as seems to be the natural and 
logical result of touching anything nowadays with 
prospects of that quality which may be pronounced too 
good to last. Experience should teach the world to con- 
sider that permanence is of more value than tempor- 
ary great results, and if from the beginning this is 
realized, with proper management, care, and economy, 
a real and steadfast industry may be started. 
Like all other investments of the same nature, care 
will have to be taken in purchasing ; for a very large 
proportion of the early opened plantations were badly 
planted, and have struggled through difficulties which 
only a coconut could survive, aud only a believer in 
"Nirvana" would subject it to. It is needless to say 
that such properties are never likely to compete with 
those which from the first have had care ; selected 
nuts in their nurseries ; the jungle kept down around 
them ; and have from the first been protected from 
beetles and cattle. I need hardly say the latter are 
what will in the long run prove the most satisfactory 
to purchase, and should go on for years with in- 
expensive cultivation. It is, however, an enterprize 
that should be undertaken on a somewhat large scale. 
Veyangoda 17th March. 
This is the most favourable first quarter of the 
year that I can remember, and stands out in striking 
contrast to the same period of the last year. We 
have not had a drought to speak of, iind vegetation 
is revelling in the alternations of bright sunshine and 
refreshing showers we have had this mouth. Coconut 
trees have given up their yellow, faded foliage, for 
that of a healthy, dark green ; the ground is green 
everywhere with fresh, tender herbage ; and the 
Cinnamon bushes are actually laughing iu the vari- 
coloured garb of a leaf-bud. The talk of the hour 
iu the villages is the ploughing of the fields for the 
yala crop, an operation that was not possible during 
this season for the last few years. 
The language of exaggeration does more harm than 
good to a cause, and it was with regret that I saw 
a communication in the Observer on salt for the 
Coconut, whose thoughtless language is likely to damage 
a cause which Planters should havu much at heart. 
In the communication under notice, it was asserted 
that an application of salt to a few scraggy coconut 
trees was followed in a few weeks by luxuriant foliage 
and magnificent blossoms. Tnose with experience know 
that it takes many months before an application of 
manure shows any appreciable effect on Coconut trees. 
Is it possible that the case was different with so 
soluble and easily assimilable a substance as salt ? 
Not likely, at least as regards foliage. I have noticed 
this slowness of displaying results with regret, especi- 
ally at the present time in connection with the effect 
of the refreshing rains on the leaf disease. To me, 
not the slightest effect is perceptible on the affected 
trees, for there stand the punctured and semi-scorched 
leaves in all their hideousness, while new foliage is 
made at the usual slow rate. I cannot say that there 
is an abatement of the disease, for I constantly set 
fresh spots on plants not previously affected. It may 
be that my powers of observation have been whetted 
since my acquaintance with this new disease, but I 
certainly observed for the first time the tops of crotm 
plants quite shrivelled up and covered with fungus. 
Cinnamou leaves too at intervals are met with, with 
spots like rust on them, aud close examination on 
their undersides discloses fungus attacks. 
The discussion on the causes that influeuce Cuchin 
oil fetching a higher price than our own was at the 
outset interesting ; it is now amusing. The child-like 
simplicity with which points that are in dispute are 
taken as proved is refreshing. Again, the climate of 
Malabar is said to be similar to that of Ceylon. We 
know that the climate of Ceylon is not uniform and 
the rainfall varies from 33 inches at Manaar to over 
200 inches annually at some of the hill stations, while 
even along the coast the climate is not uniform. 
From a little north of Ohilaw to the extreme north 
of the Island on the AVestern coast, and from beyond 
Tangalla to below Batticaloa on the Eastern coast 
there lie strips of land that are very arid with a 
rainfall of under 50 inches per annum, while there 
is a strip with Kalutara as the centre extending about 
20 miles on either side of it with a rainfall of over 
100 inches per annum. So that to tell us that the 
climate of Malabar is like that of Ceylon is to tell us 
nothing. Where Coconuts are grown along the arid 
coast of Ceylon, there copra of a superior quality is 
made which fetches high prices. Where the rainfall 
is pretty free as iu the inland districts, and from 
about Negombo to Galle, good copra oan be made 
only during the dry months ; but the copra of dry 
districts always tops the market, not from any differ- 
ence in the time of plucking of the nuts, but from 
its being uniformly cleaner. The gathering of even 
the products of the tree for fuel cannot be done for 
nothing, and then there is the cost of transport of 
the fuel and the loss to the soil of being robbed 
of some of its products which usually are allowed 
to decay where they fall, or are burnt there and 
the ashes returned to the soil. The "little care" 
that is wanted to watch the fires say for a couple 
months costs money, as also the stoking. No, no ; 
practical Planters know that the cost of drying Coco- 
nuts in the husk is prohibitory, while as to its 
practicability with a crop of over 100,000, why the 
idea is ridiculous, however well it may answer for 
a few hundred Coconuts. Peasant proprietors can do 
it, but large Estates never. 
Veyangoda, 17th June. 
Speaking of crops reminds me that the cry on all 
sides is that this year's Coconut crops are shorter 
than those of last year, even where high cultivation 
is persistently carried on. This is due entirely to the 
two disastrous droughts of last year, separated as 
they were by only a couple of months. Leaf-diseaso 
too has been looked -upon as the outcome of last 
year's abnormal weather. It was authoritatively stated 
that this malady was confined almost exclusively to 
regions where proper cultivation was not practised, 
and it was repeated more than once that Est ites that 
were highly and intelligently cultivated escaped scath- 
less. During a recent visit to Negombo, I had ocular 
proof that these repeated assertions were not founded 
ou fact. On all sides, I saw the disease with which 
I have become familiar and bug also. The most that 
