466 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. (January i, 1890 
The following is the article referred to : — 
PLANTER ENERGY IN CEYLON. 
Tradition connects the island of Ceylon with Adam 
and Paradise, but its financial and commercial his- 
tory, so far as Europeans are concerned, do not com- 
mence until somewhere about " the stately times of 
Great Elizabeth," when the Portuguese formed settle- 
ments there. Ceylon is an island of romance. Not 
only romantic of herself, this " pearl of the orient " 
is the cause of romance in others. She has figured 
a good deal both in lay and religious poetry in con- 
nection with spicy breezes and precious stones. The 
very name still conjures up before the imaginative 
nostrils an odour of cinnamon and cedar wood, and 
visions of pagodas and Buddhist temples. It was 
there, as readers of " The Arabian Nights " will re- 
member, that Sindbad the Sailor met with some startling 
adventures. But although Ceylon has filled a very re- 
spectable place in fable, history and romance for the 
last 2,000 years, the English were not practically in- 
terested in the famous island until they took it from 
the Dutoh in 1795. Some 25 years or so after this, 
Ceylon having become a Crown Colony, divorced from 
her temporary connection with the Presidency of 
Madras, a number of enterprising men, chiefly Scotch, 
settled there, with the object of opening up the 
countiy for their own advantage. Not many years 
elapsed Lefore large fortunes began to be made by 
planting coffee. Labour, chiefly that of Tamil coolies, 
who came from India, was cheap and plentiful, and 
the soil was suited for the growth of a berry which 
tradition connects with Mocha, but contemporary import 
tables with Brazil. Coffee had a brilliant innings ; the 
soil seemed inexhaustible and the sanguine planters 
did not hesitate to make the greatest demands on its 
fecundity. In " the sixties " there was a "boom" in 
Ceylon coffee, and a number of young Englishmen went 
out there in the hopes of finding a swift road to riches. 
Their hopes, unfortunately, for the most part were not 
destined to be realised. Hitherto the plantations 
had been turning out coffee with almost mathe- 
matical precision. There were better crops and worse 
crops, but they were always paying crops. The 
planters expected to make money and were disap- 
pointed when they did not make it fast enough. But 
Nature is a capricious mistress, and it seems that 
they had wooed her with too much ardour. Whether 
the soil became exhausted, for coffee crops or the 
epidemic that settled on the trees arose from causes 
beyond planting control, we do not know, but leaf 
disease, which had shown itself only on a few estates, 
began to spread across the island with ominous rapi. 
dity. Then there commenced a determined struggle 
between the planters and their relentless foe. Every, 
thing that science could suggest or ingenuity in- 
vent was employed against him. Still leaf disease 
spread until, slowly but surely, some of the best 
plantations on the island were destroyed, and their 
owners left burdened with many acres of their value- 
less land mortgaged to a hopeless extent. The 
island was already consideiably in pawn to the 
capitalists athome and in Holland ; and the security 
was steadily decreasing in value owing to the advances 
of an insidious foe. The rapidity with which the disease 
spread fro-m plantation to plantation is evident from 
a few figures. In 1869 176,467 acres of coffee were under 
cultivation. In 1877 this had increased to an acreage 
of 272,243. But from that point the descent was 
rapid. Coffee died off in spite of every effort. At the 
present moment, therefore, the leaf disease, in rough 
numbers, has destroyed 222,243 acres of coffee in 11 
or 12 years. This is an excellent example of the 
devastating power of Nature in her milder aspects of 
destruction. Only those familiar with the vicissitudes 
of the prolonged and arduous struggle can realise how 
much energy, labour, and capital have been consumed 
to no purpose. In 1874-75 Ceylon exported 988,328 cwt. 
of coffee ; in 1887-88 the estimated quantity had sunk to 
150,000 cwt. Many communities would have succumbed 
entirely under the unequal contest Fortunately Ceylon 
planters are men of remarkable enterprise, and as coffee 
Yi&a killed they turned their attention to other pro- 
ducts. Cinchona, cocoa, cocaine have been widely 
experimented od, but none of these offered the same 
road to wealth to which coffee used to point. One 
lucky day, however, it was discovered that Ceylon 
probably possessed the beet soil and climate in the 
world for growing tea. The history of the last few 
years of Ceylon planting may, therefore, be briefly 
written. Exit coffee ; enter tea. There is something 
dramatic in this sequence of the universal beverages. 
In the old-fashioned comedy, when the young man 
is ruined and the lady who adores him is in despair, 
the wealthy uncle from India, with his lans of rupees 
and a liver as diseased as that of a Strasburg goose, 
used to arrive on the scene and scatter wealth and 
prosperity about him. Such a relative the Ceylon 
planters have discovered in tea. Tea has stepped 
in where coffee feared to tread. In 1867 it is said 
10 acres of land were planted with it. In 1874 there 
were 350 acres. In 1888 there were 183,000 acres 
of land under tea, and in the same year 22,000,000 lb. 
were exported, chiefly to England. The estimate for 
the present year is 43,000,000 lb. It has taken some 
time for the tea-driDking public to discover the excel- 
lence of Ceylon tea. A year or two ago the planters 
dreaded over production. With China and India to 
compete with tea, they thought, might become a drug 
in the market. Although the consumption increased 
yearly, it is outstripped by the production. Would it 
pay to grow tea at the price over-production threatened 
to lower it to? So far as Ceylon is concerned, this 
problem has been solved. In proportion as the plan- 
ters bestowed care on the quality, it was found the 
demand for it increased. Whether it is better than 
China tea is a question on which experts differ, but 
at the present moment the public prefer it to any 
other. Today the demand is in excess of the supply, 
and joy has returned to the bosom of the Ceylon planter. 
It is doubtful,of course, whether the present high prices 
will be maintained. That depends on the consumer, but 
he is not capricious in such a question as tea drink- 
ing. He buys the article that suits him best, and 
there is no reason, when he has acquired a taste 
for Ceylon tea, why he should discard it for the 
teas of India or China, with which he has been 
acquainted all his life. It is scarcely an exaggera- 
tion to say that the success in tea planting has 
saved Ceylon from something like bankruptcy. Many 
thousands of Tamil coolies, whose means of making a 
livelihood the extinction of coffee once threatened, are 
now employed on the numerous tea estates, and once 
more all is prosperous and hopeful. Everything points 
to the still further development of the Ceylon tea in- 
dustry. As we pointed out above, the estimate for the 
current year is more thau double the amount exported 
laet year. The process of converting old coffee estates 
into tea gardens is actively carried on. In 1888 
there were 183,000 acres of land under tea against 
50,000 acres under coffee. In 1877 the area under 
coffee was 272,243 ,- »t the present rate of increase that 
will be surpassed by tea. The soil of Ceylon is not rich 
as we understand it in England; but it is admit ably 
suited for tea. The peculiar aromatic and pungent 
flavour it possesses is due to the ferruginous^ character 
of the land. Tea, like wine, naturally acquires special 
qualities from its environment. The soil, moreover, 
possesses with other peouliar attributes the depth that 
is essential. It is not probable tbat any such calamity 
as destroyed coffee will befal the tea plaDt, which in 
Ceylon is peculiarly hardy. The last planting success 
in our beautiful Asiatic Colony is most gratifying to 
Eoglishmen, who must feel, when they are drinking 
Ceylon tea, that they are in their small way helping to 
increase the prosperity of men whose enterprise and 
courage merit the success they have earned. — Morning 
Post, Nov. 20th. 
ALL ABOUT T OBACCO " AS A MANUAL 
OF INFORMATION. 
Bandarapolla, Matale, Nov. 23rd. 
Deau Sir,— On looking over the accompanying 
November number of the Tobacco Trade Review, 
at page 31G 1 find a long and interesting review 
of that excellent compilation of the Ceylon Observe 
