October i, 1889.I THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
263 
TEA CULTURE AND PREPARATION : No. XIV. 
Answers to Questions. 
1. When J of field or more has " shut up,''— prune 
those that have closed. 
2. Leaving dummy and 2 leaves on primary shoot. 
On secondary shoot, dummy and one leaf. 
3. From 35 to 40 per cent. 
4. Certainly, and thoroughly dry throughout. Not 
where the tea has been sifted after 1st roll — except 
where chulas we used. 
TEA PLANTED ON OLD COFFEE LAND. 
No. H. 
1. 18 months to 2 years' say 0 lb. per acre. 
2. 50 per ceDt 2nd to 3rd year 75 „ 
3. 50 „ over 3rd year 107 „ 
4. 100 „ „ 3 to 4th year 214 „ 
5. 25 „ „ 4 to 5th year 267 „ 
6. Say 6 to 7 years — maximum yield without 
manure say 300 lb. per acre. 
A. E. WRIGHT. 
New Brunswick, 7th Sept. 1S89. 
CACAO IN WATTEGAMA DISTRICT. 
Wattegama, 7th Sept. 1889. 
Deak Sir, — I have sent you by this train a cacao 
pod for your inspection taken from a hybrid fora- 
storo cacao tree on Wattegamawatte this day. 
The pod measures eleven inches in length, thirteen 
and half inches in circumference and weighed 
when plucked 3 lb. 
The tree stands in what some people called poor 
soil, is now four years old and measures nineteen 
feet three inches in height, seventeen feet and six 
inches in width, and stem twenty-seven inches in 
circumferenoe at a foot above the ground. 
We had a good cacao crop last year and will 
have a better one this year. — Yours faithfully, 
J. HOLLOWAY. 
[The pod is certainly a splendid one ■ 13 inches 
long, 11$ inches in circumferenoe, and weighs 
2| lb.— Ed.] 
TURTLE OFF OUR SOUTHERN COAST. 
Disak Sin, — In reply to your letter of the 22nd 
instant, I have the honor to inform you, that 
numbers of Turtle use to come on shore at the 
Island called Ama Doowa during night to lay eggs. 
People use to walk in search of them during 
night to fetch eggs. Meanwhile, if they met any 
flower turtle they use to take the skin of the said 
animal and let the animal to sea. This people 
collect the skin and sell ; if the thickest skins, 
they sold for high price ; the skins are bought to 
make combs and boxes &c. Traders are buying 
the following articles. Elk and Deer Horn, Hides 
ol' Buffalao, Elk, & Deors and Cheeta, for various 
prices.— I am, dear Sir, your faithfully, 
B. H. MUTALIPH. 
Johore Notes, Aug. 17th. — Planting. — I under- 
stand that a Mr. Milne from Ceylon is at present 
in charge of the estate managed by the late Mr. 
Parrrinton, whose sud end called forth so many 
expressions of regret^ and sympathy. The coffee 
crops appear to be very satisfactory this year : in 
fact in some cases almost too much so; for I hear 
of one man whose crop has run quite beyond his 
machinery power : and on another estate an engine 
and boiler with other machinery have had to be 
put, up in a hurry to work off the crop. If this 
sort, of thing continues, and there is every hope 
it may, a few more years and we shall see Johore 
well up as a colf e producing country.— Cor., Singa- 
pore Free Press, Aug. 19th, 
The Trade in Kola Nuts in the British settlements 
o£ Gambia (West Coast of Africa) is increasing. The 
imports during the year 1887 were 356,579 lbs. and 
in 1888 409,735 lbs. The import duty of Id per lb. 
on the nuts has recently been reduced to Jd per 
lb. — Chemist and Druggist. 
Planting in Wynaad.— August 30th. — At last we are 
enjoying a break, after a most unusually long interval 
of uninterrupted rain : about ninety days in succession, 
on each of which rain fell. The actual measurement 
is by no means excessive, though some parts of the 
district, notably those bordering on the ghats, have 
suffered in double proportion to the inland estates. But; 
the great length of time without a gleam of sunshine 
has caused considerable anxiety, and the present break 
has only just come in time to save our crops from 
rotting off the branches. As it is, I notice a most un- 
desirable amount of leaf rot, and rust, the inevitable 
results of such long continued damp. Crop prospects 
are moderate or perhaps appear more so, from the 
fact of our having been led to expect a bumper, as the 
result of the most magnificent blossom which has been 
for many years in Wynaad. This, however, but 
very partially set, owing to the terrific drought of last 
hot season. When the estates have been highly 
cultivated, however, the crops are not bad and, if the 
present prices hold, we may consider our present 
outlook a fairly cheerful one. It is being more 
and mere forcibly borne upon all practical 
planters that high cultivation is an absolute 
necessity. Starving land is no true economy, and 
those who persist in working their estates on the old 
principle may expect to have them abandoned in a few 
years, whilst the improvement wrought in old coffee, 
(apparently quite worn out) by generous treatment, is 
little short of marvellous. Young plantations may be 
made or marred by ' their treatment daring that period 
when heavy manuring is absolutely requisite to enable 
them to form strong wood suitable for the bearing of 
heavy crops. Estates well and regularly manured, 
will endure the trials of leaf disease and drought, with 
but small subsequent damage, whilst equally fine look- 
ing trees uu-nourished will succumb with melancholy 
rapidity to the troubles that coffee is heir too. I was 
amused to see a paragraph in your journal, quoted 
from Ceylon, suggesting figs planted amongst coffee 
as a means of preventing leaf disease. Moat of our 
estates now-a-days, are shaded by figs, the foliage of 
which is especially agreeable to coffee, but I have 
never before heard of them as a preventive of leaf 
disease. That is, I fancy, considered as tolerably in- 
curable, but its evils effects may, and are — as I said 
before — considerably mitigated by heavy manuring. 
The estates generally are looking very healthy in spite 
of the damp troubles. And this break is splendid for 
the work, so that our trees are looking as we love to 
see them, clean, and tidy, after being weeded and hand- 
led. Talking of coffee reminds me that my sm«ll 
Liberian psitch has really paid its way this year. The 
wonderful growth and cropping of the trees has at last 
attracted notice, and I have regretfully had to refuse 
applications for seed from it, being unable to supply 
sufficient. In fact I heartily wish I had several more 
acres of it in bearing. Every spare corner of our es- 
tates is now being planted up with suitable stumps for 
the support of pepper. This has been a splendid season 
for the cuttings, and far more than the usual percent- 
age of these appear to have struck, whilst those plants 
which are already established, have thrown out ex- 
ceedingly vigorous shoots. Cinchona is still rather a 
sorrowful subject ; the more so that something has 
evidently gone wrong with the succirubras. Whole 
patches of these are dying out, from no apparent rea- 
son, and are an exceedingly melancholy spectacle to 
behold. The ledgers seem all right, and possess this 
advantage, that if of little present value, they<at least 
do not cost much to cultivate, although, be it noted, 
like all other things, they prefer generous treatment to 
starvation! * * * Several new openings of forest 
land have been made this year, and altogether, I 
think, I may truly assert that the spirit amongst 
planters is more cheerful and hopeful thau it has 
been for many past seasons.— Madras Times. 
