670 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[April 2, 1888. 
that a greater rise in price has not yet taken place ; 
this is no doubt accounted for by considerable 
stocks held by manufacturers and by the large 
quantity of quinine held in second hands, especially 
in America. There ought to be a good time coming 
for planters however, if they wait a little longer. 
As regards tea, our shipments, while 3 millions ahead 
of last year, are not now quite double the quantity. 
The drought has, in fact, given a check ; but we 
may be quite sure of an exceedingly busy time 
very shortly in the preparation and shipment of 
tea. The question has, indeed, been asked us if 
planters are certain of having boxes enough ready 
in which to pack all their tea! A satisfactory 
feature in the Distribution Eeturn is the fact that 
Australia has taken some 207,000 lb. of this season's 
tea. Indeed the orders for Australia and Mauri- 
tius, which has taken 34,000 lb., have done a good 
deal towards strengthening the local sales and en- 
abling many to get a better price in Colombo 
than they would in London for their teas. We 
wonder if the shipments for Mauritius are intended 
for South Africa, If we only had direct com- 
munication, Ceylon ought to command the Cape 
and Natal tea supplies as well as thosa for 
Australia. "America" this season so far has only 
taken 16,000 lb. direct. 
The shipments of Cocoa do not keep up to last 
year's standard, while Cardamoms are a good deal 
in advance. Cinnamon shows a comparative falling- 
off, but the produce of the Coconut— in oil, copra, 
poonac and nuts, — shows a steadily expanding trade, 
and the same may be said of Coir yarn and 
fibre. So also with the export trade in Essential 
Oils— citronella and cinnamon — steady development 
is the order of the day. Nor are the diggers 
of plumbago and the gatherers of deer horns be- 
hind : the export of the latter 1,066 cwt. being 
quite unprecedented at this date in the season. 
Altogether it will be seen that the Export Trade 
of the Colony for the present Commercial Season 
is in an exceptionally healthy, strong position, the 
only marked falling-off (always excepting cinchona) 
being in the case of poor old coffee ; but for this, 
tea will far more than compensate in the months 
to come. 
TEA ON OLD COFFEE LAND: 
PEACTICAL HINTS FOE THE PEESENT AND 
FUTUEE. 
{By an experienced Planter.) 
Your correspondent, who gives his experience of 
the small yield of tea grown upon old coffee lands 
probably adopts too low an estimate of what may 
be expected from such lands, but he touches a 
point of deep interest to the future of the tea 
enterprize, and one deserving of special attention. 
To be forewarned is to be forearmed, and there- 
fore, whilst we all rejoice in lookicg at the bright 
side of our prospects and give all praise to the 
amazing energy which has transformed our ruined 
coffee estates so magically into tea plantations, 
we shall do well to look fairly on the darker side, 
aad prepare betimes to meet the difficulties it 
threatens. 
For my own part, I am not so apprehensive of 
the failure of old lands, in general, as of the con- 
sequences of the manner in which some of them 
have been converted into tea. Old Capt. Jolly used 
to distinguish between planters and cultivaLors, 
that is, between those who stuck coffee plants into 
the ground, and so created coffee estates in a 
rough and ready style, with scanty regard to the 
future, and those other planters, who remembered 
that the planting of an estate is a work to be 
done once for all, on which the whole future 
prospect of the estate largely depends, and who 
therefore took care to do the work thoroughly well. 
These did not regard only the present show, but 
the future and permanent result. Now, as regards 
tea, there have also been both planters and cultiva- 
tors : those who have stuck in the plants or seed 
without due care, and others who have done the work 
in a thorough and workmanlike manner. A few 
years hence the work of the former, especially 
where it has occurred on old lands, will be a 
serious discouragement to the enterprize and great 
disappointment to proprietors. It must be borne 
in mind, however, that on many of the old estates 
managers have really had no choice. They have 
done what they could and not what they would 
have liked to do. In several cases within my know- 
ledge the choice lay between getting the plants or 
even the seed into the ground within the time and 
means at their command, or losing the chance alto- 
gether. There are, in fact, some tea estates in 
existence, which are such almost in spite of 
instructions, and which, but for some inno- 
cent frauds practised by their managers, would 
now have been waste lands. From these 
and other causes there are considerable tracts 
of tea on old coffee estates which have had 
but a poor chance. These, therefore, cannot be 
expected to do as well as others more fortunately 
circumstanced. Judging, however, even by some 
of these less fortunate properties, I am inclined 
to take a less despondent view than your corre- 
spondent of their capabilities, especially of those 
which had been hand-weeded and thoroughly 
drained. Wherever the mammoty or other scarifiers 
had been in use for many years, or where draining 
was imperfect, the chances are, of course, the 
worst. The best that can be said of these estates 
is that many of them were amongst the first planted, 
and were on selected land of the best soil and in 
the best districts, chosen when there was plenty 
of land to select from. In spite of the treatment 
they received in those early days, they, therefore, 
yet possess fair capabilities. 
There will, doubtless, be much disappointment 
with regard to tea planted on the old coffee estates. 
Their yield will be small, and the result unre- 
munerative, and they will, therefore, tend to dis- 
courage the enterprize. This is the dark side of the 
prospect. The question is to consider what should 
be done to make the best of these inferior places. 
The planting of fuel trees, as your correspondent 
suggests, is good as far as it goes, and applies to 
land that has been gnawed down to the bone, and 
has become unfit for the growth of tea, but the 
treatment of the tea actually planted is the im- 
portant consideration. 
Mr. Bethune, Chairman of the Agricultural 
Society of Scotland, when in Ceylon, remarked to 
me, that he had heard of our soils that they 
were very poor, but he had been astonished to find 
them so good. " I suppose," he said, " that people 
must have expected to find alluvial coil and 
vegetable mould on these steep hill-sides, I call 
them good mountain soils, and they have proved 
so by the wonderful crops they have yielded." Now 
it follows that wherever wash and waste have not 
been excessive, or where the soils were not ori- 
ginally shallow, there still exists a fair depth of 
soil which would be good if it were effectually 
broken up and rendered pervious to the deep- 
feeding roots of the hardy tea plant. 
It stands to reason that on all old lands draining 
should be made as effective as possible if this 
has not already been done. It is the first essen- 
tail to any reasonable hope of success. When 
this has been done, deep forking on the system . of 
