6ao THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST [March i, 1890. 
covered with charred logs and sticks is roaded and 
draiued, and evenly laid out for the digging of pits for 
the reception of the young plants. These pits, which 
are dug in even lines generally five or six feet apart, 
and to a depth, according to oiicumsiances, of from 
fifteen to twenty-four iDches, are carefully filled in 
with the ash and decaying vegetation of which the 
surface soil is composed. The coffee plants, mtanwhile, 
having been raised in nurseries, are planted out in the 
pits as soon as the rainfall is suffieiently abundant. 
The young trees have many enemies — rats, crickets, and 
insects of many kinds ; but new plants are constantly 
supplied where vacancies occur, and soon the trees re- 
quire to be topped, to reduce them in height for con- 
venience of cultivation, and to encourage them in 
throwing out lateral branches. Generally in the second 
year after plantmg the young trees begin to blossom, 
and seven months afterwards yield their first fruits: 
and as they increase in age and streugtb, until they 
reach maturity, so should they increase also in yield. 
The operations connected with the harvesting and 
preparation of coffee are very simple, the bright red 
cherries, generally containing two beans each, are 
brought into the pulping-house, and from there pa=sed 
through cylinders or discs, commonly called pulpers, 
by which operation the skin, which is used for manure, 
is separated from the beans, which fall into a cistern, 
where they are left to ferment until the mucilage with 
which they are covered can be freely washed off, the 
beans are then dried sufficiently to admit of their safe 
transport to Colombo, where, after further drying, the 
outer husk, called the parchment, is peeled off. They 
are then sized and packed in casks, and are ready for 
the roaster 1 
It is painful, however, to record that the coffee in- 
dustry of Ceylon, which converted nearly 300,000 acres 
of trackless forest into busy scenes of active life, which 
found an outlet for many of the younger sons of Eng- 
land, who, after passing through the vaiious ranks and 
gaining the necessary knowledge, generally acquired 
plantations of their own, and returned to spend the 
fruits of their industry in their native land ; which 
gave employment to 300,000 agricultural labourers of 
British subjects of Southern India, and to more than 
that number of the natives of Ceylon, who as mechanics, 
carriers, purveyors, and in numerous other capacities, 
depended upon coffee ; which covered the island with 
a network of roads, and caused the hills to echo with 
the shrill whistle of the locomotive, where, a few short 
years before, the elephant's trumpet and the sambur's 
bark were the solitary sounds ; which provided the 
revenue by which Government, with the improved 
light of science, has restored many of the ancient 
irrigation works, magnificent in conception, often 
faulty in construction or design, and thus provided for 
many who literally cast their bread upon the waters — 
the blessing of abundance ; which placed education and 
Christiantiy within the reach of all, has dtviudled to 
but a shadow of its former self, and had other enter- 
prises not arisen, which promise to be yet more exten- 
sive and yet more permanent, the history would, 
indeed, be a sad one. 
From 1867 to 1870, the exports of coffee were high- 
est, and large tracts of land were rapidly being brought 
under cultivation. In 1868, however, in one of the 
youngest and most promising districts, a fungus 
(Hemileia vastatrix) attacked the leaves of the coffee 
tree, and soon spread over all the coffee-producing 
districts. 
It was thought lightly of at first, and sudden as its 
appearance so was its disappearance looked for, but a 
fungus in a climate of equable temperature, where 
there is practically no check of season to retard deve- 
lopment, and where a large area of land is planted 
exclusively with the one thing it feeds on, is a terribly 
dangerous enemy. The energy of the tree, which 
should have, gone to the production of fruit, was divert- 
ed to the incessant repi oduction of leaf. AH remedies 
which science, aided by liberal cultivation, could sug- 
gest were tried. Vr sh seed was introduced from 
various coffee-producing countries, and a variety of 
c< fTee, a native of West Africa, called "Liberian," 
a larger and apparently more robust tree, was import- 
ed from the West Coast of Africa and largly planted, 
but it was powerless to resist the fungus ; and despite 
a large increase of coffee- beariug land, the exports 
began to dwindle. 
In 1873, a great stimulus was given to the cultivation 
of c< ffee by a remarkable rise in prices in European 
markets. There was at the time a considerable influx of 
capital. Credit was abundant. Coffee property and 
forest land went up to fabulous prices, and it is easy 
to see now, with the lurid light of baffled hope, bow 
economic conditions were often set at dt fiance, and the 
island was brought to the verge of a general financial 
crisis. 
Exports of Coffee. 
cwt. 
Average for five years 
1851-55 . 
. 387,240 
ji 
1856-60 . 
. 552,219 
1861-65 .. 
. 721 405 
i> - • 
1865-70 . 
. 95^,153 
1871-70 . 
. 851,895 
n * 
1876-80 .. 
. 744,209 
»» • 
1881-85 . 
. 380,14o 
Average for four years 
1886-89 . 
. 155,122 
New Products. 
It was fortunate for the future of Ceylon that experi- 
ments had been going on in the introduction of new 
products, and Dr. Thwaites, the late Director of the 
Royal Botanic Gardens at Peradeniya, near Kaud.y, who, 
from the first, took a very grave view of coffee- leaf 
disease, had done much to instil into planters the 
desire to try new things, and fibres and foods, dyes 
and drugs, gums, spices, tobacco, were all extensively 
tried with varying success. A word or two must be 
said about the cultivation of cinchona, the quinine- 
yielding tree, because the export table tells such a re- 
markable tale of rapid development, and OeyloD, 
which in 1876 shipped 16,842 lb. of bark, and in 1886 
15,000,000 lb., an increase of nearly a thousandfold, it 
has been the great agency through which this valu- 
able medicine has been within the reach of all. 
Oardamons also {Elettaria Card.amomum) deserve 
mention. In 1876 4,965 lb. were exported ; and in 
1887, 321,560 lb. 
Cinchona trees could be freely interspered be- 
tween the rows of coffee, and both these articles 
of commerce and some others formed valuable 
adjuncts by which many planters w< re able to tide 
over the period between the cessation of coffee 
crops and the commencement of tea harvest; for it 
was to tea, which had now shown its thorough adap- 
tation to the circumstances of Ceylon, that all looked 
for a restoration of prosperity. 
Tea (Thea camellia) was introduced into Ceylon by 
the Dutch, but does not seem to have been cultivated 
for commercial purposes. In 1842, an experiment was 
made on a considerable scale, but though the growth 
of the tea trees was favourable, the mystery then sup- 
posed to attach to the manufacture of the leaf pre- 
vented cultivation of the plant being extended ; and 
it was not again until 1866, after tea had been very 
successfully established in India, that it seems to have 
again attracted attention in Ceylon. The seed from 
the trees which had long been growing uncared for in 
the Botanic Gardens was planted out, and a Com- 
missioner was, at the request of the Planters' Associa- 
tion of Ceylon, sent by the Ceylon Government to 
India, to report upon the tea enterprise. The result 
of the report was so far satisfactory that one or two 
fields of tea were planted on systematic principles as 
soon as 6eed was procurable. Coffee was, however, 
still doing so well that it almost monopolised European 
energy, and it was not until the ravages of the coffee 
fungus made it plain that ruin could only be averted 
by the substitution of other products, that the culti- 
vation of tea was entered upon extensively, and though 
directly the result of the failure of coffee, Ceylon 
started tea with certain advantages. 
The fact that excellent tea could be manufactured, 
and an abundant yield secured under suitable conditions, 
had been already established, for the early formed 
