December i, 1889.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST 4© 1 
CEYLON TOBACCO : 
A PRACTICAL PROPOSAL. 
Alexandria, Egypt, Oct. 29th. 
Dea.r Sir, — Being interested in the subject, I read 
with great attention your ustful book on the Cul i- 
vation of Tobacco in Ceylon, and would feel obliged 
if you give publicity to my letter in the columns 
of the Observer for the benefit of the Ceylon tobacco 
growers. 
The importation into Egypt of very low kinds of 
American tobaoco, which realize in bond from £25 
to £30 per ton, has increased enormously within 
the last two years. 
Could not therefore the very cheap, dark and 
strong kinds of Ceylon tobacco compete favorably 
and eventually take the place of the above to the 
great advantage of your growers ? A light-colored 
tobacco for coloring purposes would likewise suit 
our market, and find a ready sale if the price of 
same is moderate. 
If, therefore, any Ceylon tobacco grower feels in- 
clined to communicate with me on the subject, with 
a view of ultimately entering into business relations, 
I should require a lb. sample of each kind to be 
forwarded to me with full particulars respecting the 
mode of packing, whether in hogshead, bales or 
otherwise, also approximate weights of each pack- 
age and the prices delivered in Colombo or f. o. b. 
Alexandria or Port Said. 
Trusting to be soon in receipt of an answer to 
my proposals from one of your enterprising plan- 
ters, which will, I hope, lead to mutual satisfactory 
results, I am, sir, yours faithfully, 
W. J. R OBERTS. 
PLANTING COFFEE UNDER SHADE; 
THE ESTATES IN COORG 
AND MYSORE, 
Mercara, Coorg, Nov. 1st. 
Sir, — On seeing my letter to you in print, in 
the copy of the Observer received, one or two points 
strike me as requiring explanation and amplifica- 
tion. I should have said, that the estates I meu- 
tioned, that were replanted in Mysore, were not 
abandoned but estates in fair cultivation, with 
the soil in good condition, and generally shaded. 
The coffee trees were mostly of the objectionable 
ohick caste, and were 40 years old I dare say 
(although I gave 30 years as their age) when up- 
rooted. The slopes of the land on which the best 
estates in Coorg lie are easy, and the forest trees 
deciduous. The land is of a class called Bambu, 
that I remember Mr. Donald Stewart saying he would 
not think of putting a coffee tree into, when he saw 
my first venture on that class of land, which 1 was 
the first planter to break up in those, what looked 
then, uninviting deciduous forests. Thousands of 
acres of such land now form the sites of the most 
productive and most beautiful coffee plantations 
in Coorg. The bambus, thorns, scrub, and bad 
caste trees, are felled and burnt, leaving those 
trees known to be good for coffee, such for ex- 
ample as the black or rose wood (Dalbergia lati- 
folia), wild jak (Artocarpus hirsuta), good jak (arto- 
carpus integrifolia) and other kinds of suitable 
trees often found mixed up with the objectionable 
kinds in deciduous forests. Suoh trees as Benteak 
(LayerHraimia microcarpa) and a tree whose bark 
yields lime (Terminalia tomentosa) and others of a 
palpably bad kind are felled. The soil in these 
deciduous forests is mostly black, for 12 to 18 in- 
ches down, the deposits of annual fires that have 
passed through them for ages past is very hard, until 
broken up, and mixed with the subsoil, by the tren- 
ohing and renovating pitting which follows the 
planting, but after being covered with shade, it ceases 
to oake, and remains comparatively moist through the 
dry months. Land covered with evergreen forest 
is rarely touohed now in Coorg. When I came 
here in 1860 all the estates had been formed upon 
ground that had orifiinnlly been covered with 
evergreen forest, in climates with a rainfall ranging 
from 120 to as much as 300 inches a year. Very 
few of these estates are left, they are mostly now 
lantana wastes. Deciduous forest lands had then 
no value, and in 1861 I found no difficulty in 
getting a grant free of a block of 2,000 acres, on 
which the first estates were formed in S.-E. Coorg ; 
all that part of Coorg is now a rich garden of 
shade-covered estates. Not an estate in the open 
will be found in Coorg or Mysore at this moment, 
so that Ceylon men will see that opinions are 
not divided at all as to the imperative neces- 
sity of shade for the permanent well-being of 
coffee plantations in these parts. A further 
consideration is, shade equalizes crops, inasmuch 
as it saves expenditure no weeding, on small item 
in estate upkeep. Smaller crops pay on a shaded 
estate, as upkeep expenses are smaller. Then there 
is an element of permanence in an estate under 
good shade, even if all cultivation erases, it lapses 
into forest, not deteriorated, as the soil is pro- 
tected from the exhausting effects of a tropical 
sun, and is enriched by deposits, constantly going 
on, of fertilizing matter. Shade lopping is how- 
ever a work that requires regular atteniion. The 
shade requires lifting, so as to regulate light and air. 
The loppings give their return of manurial deposit. 
Estates under shade are perennially fertilized by 
droppiDgs that make vegetable mould. Cinchona 
trees mixed with other shade trees, at good dis- 
tances, say 30 yards apart, are not thought detri- 
mental to coffee as shade trees by many men. 
J. P. HUNT. 
CINNAMON CHIPS: THE LIST OF ESTATES 
AND GARDENS AGREEING NOT TO MAKE 
" CHIPS." 
Goluapokuna, Negombo, Nov. 13th. 
Sib,— With the sanction and approval of the Com- 
mittee I am now able to send you a list of estates and 
garden proprietors who have agreed to give up the 
scraping of cinnamon chips for two years, and who 
have signed a document upon honour to that effect. 
Ic was, as you are aware, agreed at the general meet 
ing of cinnamon estate owners held in Colombo on the 
20th February last, that the scraping of chips should 
cease from the 1st October ; but at a Committee meet- 
ing held on the 28th September, it was, on the repre- 
sentation of some of the members, decided to extend 
the date to the 1st November, as by this concession 
many more signatures might be expected. The date 
of the. agreement is therefore from 1st November 1889 
to 31st October 1891. The acreage represented by the 
signatures obtained is 9,952, and a few more signatures 
are promised, which will bring it up to a little over 
10,000 acres ; and this is about what was hoped for 
when the movement was set on foot. The outturn of 
bark is about three of quill to one of chips ; and taking 
the yield of bark at 100 lb. per acre — 75 lb. quill and 25 
lb. chips — the proportion of chips from 10,000 acres 
would be 250,000 lb. This I believe is within toe mark; 
and as the suppression of this quantity of chips is what 
the promoters of the movement aimed at, I think it 
may be fairly claimed that their object has been 
achieved. To insure its complete success it now only 
remains that the terms of the agreement upon 
honour shill be faithfully and striotly adhered to, and 
this I have, every cot fideuce will be di ne. My thanks 
are due, and hereby acknowled ed, to Messrs. Jacob de 
Mel, J. F. Drieberg, S. R. de Fonseka, R. A. Mirando, 
and J. de S Ktijepak e Mudaliyar, Sbroff of the Ne- 
gombo Kichcheri, for willing assistance rendered ; 
but speciully to the last two gentlemeu, without whose 
cordial and valuable co-operation it would not have been 
possible to have brought the mutter to so satisfactory 
