November i, 1889.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
353 
EICE CULTURE — PEACTICAL QUESTIONS 
Deae Sib,— Will some of your readers who take 
an interest in the cultivaton ol rice inlorm me 
how much paddy is required to make a bushel of 
rice, and what is the ordinary cost of conversion 
to a villager in Ceylon ? 
Will they also state at what price either in a 
m arket, in the village where the grain was grown, 
or from peddling villagers they can buy home-grown 
paddy and home-grown and home-made rice ? — 
Yours faithfally, A HOUSEHOLDER. 
[Pending answers which we should like to see 
from outstations, we may mention what is doubt- 
less known to our correspondent, that popu- 
larly two bushels of paddy are required for one 
bubhel of clean rice. But the following extract 
from a Report published by the Indian Govern- 
ment may have escaped the notice of "Householder" 
in our "Handbook": — 
Careful experiments testing the relative proportions 
of bulked and unhusked rice made by the authorities 
in India in 1876 have brought out one very important 
result, inasmuch as while the cubical contents (the 
bulk) of the clean rice is only one-half that of the un- 
husked paddy (according to the universally accepted 
formula — two bushels of paddy to one of rice), the 
weight of the outturn in rice is fully two-thirds that of 
the paddy. The natives almost invariably use dry 
measure for rice, and hence look upon the proportion 
of rice to paddy as one-half. It is really, with refer- 
ence to the weight of the outturn, a proportion of very 
nearly two-thirds in paddy, on an average. — Indian Gov- 
ernment Report. 
—Ed.] 
COFFEE PLANTING IN CEYLON UNDER 
SHADE AFTER THE MYSORE FASHION. 
Oct. 19th. 
Deae Sie, — When it is borne in mind how strongly 
I have advocated the advisability of giviDg the 
planting of coffee under shade a fair trial in Ceylon, 
and thus lessen the risk of monoculture, which is 
apt to be too freely indulged in Ceylon: — when all 
I have written on the subject is remembered, you 
will understand my pleasure and gratification that 
a planter on the borders of Coorg and Mysore 
should have come forward to give the island the 
benefit of all his knowledge and experience in that 
region. Mr. Hunt does not touch on the past, and 
the blank dismay and despair that came over the 
planter in the dark days of the borer and the 
decline of the old Mysore variety of coffee. Mr. 
Hunt and his brother, Mr. Edwin Hunt, the Messrs. 
Anderson of Bargaai, Mr. Japp, the late Mr 
Sanderson, Mr. Mockett, are among the chief of 
those who passed from the days of doubt and 
uncertainty, and laboriously and patiently began a 
new cultivation, studying shade anew, and gradually 
changing the variety of coffee. It is proverbially a 
bad thing "to swap horses in the middle of a 
stream"; and it was extremely plucky of those 
men to supplant their old trees, which were gradu- 
ally failing them, with the sappy young Coorgs, 
when they were uncertain, first, whether the new 
bean would spoil their market, hitherto unrivalled, 
and second, whether the old style of shade would 
suit the new kind of coffee. But these men lived 
to reap the fruit of their labours, and anything 
more beautiful to the eye of a planter could not be 
seen than those old estates that had renewed their 
youth. 
Mr. Hamlin said in my hearing that he had often 
heard that Ceylon soil was very poor, but since he had 
seen for himself he was astonished to find so much 
good soil in Ceylon, Mr. Hamlin comes from 
farther south, from Wynaad and the Nilgherries, 
where the famous Ouohterlony Valley lies, and 
where the soil is said to be very rich. But we 
are at present comparing Coorg and Mysore with 
Ceylon. In Wynaad and the Nilgherries coffee, 
I believe, is grown very much in the open in the 
Ceylon style, and they there get both monsoons, so 
they can also grow tea and cinchona success- 
fully. But in Coorg and Mysore, when you keep 
away from the evergreen ghaut forests, and descend 
gradually into pockets of true soil under decidu- 
ous trees, the rainfall grows very scant in pro- 
portion to the ghauts or as compared with Ceylon. 
There you have a wonderfully deep and generous 
soil ; but if you attempted planting in the open : 
have I not quoted the history of the borer in 
my review of Mr. Elliot's book which appeared in 
the Tropical Agriculturist ? You must, as Mr. 
Hunt says, "pay the most careful attention to 
covering of estates with shade trees." So far 
this is the Indian side of the question. Now 
comes the Ceylon side. I need not repeat what 
I have often urged, that the washed steep ghaut 
estates in Ceylon are unsuitable for shade ex- 
periments in connection with coffee, especially on 
the Kandy side. Supposing you attempted shade 
in Kelebokka, can any reasonable man hope for 
nourishing coffee fiul s where they need all the 
sun they can get ? This applies to the higher 
districts on the Kandy side where the soil is 
good ; and where the soil is inferior the objection 
is stronger. For shade cultivation you must get 
away to Uva, except Dumbara, with its g.eat 
similarity to Mysore as regards soil and raiuiall, 
though the climate is very much hotter. Here 
Mr. Hamlin has been at work and will 
soon have data to go upon. In Uva mioy 
places lying low in Badulla and Haputale 
will give you the dryness of atmosphere and deep 
soil to make shade experiments possible. In 
higher elevations, and where the land has been 
much washed, the resources, of the soil are strainod 
in the effort; to make shade grow, an i afterwards 
again strained to save the coffee from being in- 
jured by the shade. Thus you have not the neces- 
sary stimulating power required for the combined 
culture. 
In Ceylon the generally humid atmosphere en- 
ables plants to exist at first on a forced and false 
vitality and subsequently to become the prey of 
blights which are the result of an unnatural state 
in the organization of the plant. Leaf disease was 
proved to be greatly strengthened by wet weather, as 
Marshall Ward pointed out ; thus in Mysore and 
Coorg the condition of dryness had to be considered, 
while in Ceylon the conditions of extra moisture 
have to be looked to. 
All this reduces the area in Ceylon available for 
coffee planted under shade ; but there is quite 
enough land suitable to make this new cultivation 
a considerable one if men once believed in it. Mr. 
Hunt does not mention the green-bug. Unlike 
black-bug, I believe the green-bug likes a dry climate; 
and this becomes an extremely important factor 
when the responsibility of giving advice, which 
possibly may be followed, is considered. I myself 
believe that as helopeltis succumbed to the sweet 
influence of shade in cultivation ; as the borer 
ceased his fell ravages when the planter promoted 
osmotic action by growing shade over his coffee ; 
and as Hemileia vastatrix was extremely modified 
by the benefits of shade ; — so will the green-bug cease 
from troubling. 
But now comes a very important consideration,- 
Contract weeding, in this cultivation, must be given 
up, weeds kept down by digging, disturbing the soil, 
burying what Mr. Hunt calls " the liberal 
depositof fertilizing matter " from the shade trees, 
and liberal manuring with bulk and artificial. 
