May x, 1888.] THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
753 
TEA ON OLD COFFEE LAND. 
(By tin e.r-esla/e jiroprictor of 25 years' ccpfrienee.) 
What do I think of tea on old coffee land '? Why 
I think it's a very wide question, and one that 
will take a lot of answering. There are many 
lauds of old col'feo lands, there are many kinds 
Of climate, »nd there are very many conditions 
under which tea can be planted to pay and not 
tb pay. There is another point which bears upon 
the matter, and must not be lost sight of. On 
almost all old coffee estates there is often a large 
proportion of land which was planted comparatively 
a short while ago ; some fields may be close 
on . r >0 years old, but the greater proportion may 
bo '20 or under. Is all this to go under the 
denomination of old coffee land ? If so there will 
bo little dilliculty in including properties not 20 
years old, and a good doal of the abandoned coffee 
not more than ten years old. It would be easy to 
put one's finger upon coffee land planted 30 to 10 
years ago, which will grow tea as well as any 
virgin forest in the island, and there are many 
localities where excellence of climate makes up a 
good deal for deficiency in soil. Again, there would 
be little dilliculty in indicating old estates where 
there is no depth of soil, and what there is is not 
favorable for growth of tea, and the climate is equally 
unfavorable. In fact there is no end to the variations 
under which " old col'feo laud " could be discussed. 
Taking the aggregate of old coffee estates, I 
should say tea may advantageously be grown 
upon them, care being taken to plant them up 
according to circumstances of situation and 
climate, rejecting certain fields and ridges, and 
planting only what is best on each property. The 
great difliculiy a few years ago was planters hjing 
urged by mortgagees lo plant up everything : — good, 
bad, and indifferent laud, gentle slopes and spaces 
steep as a house- wall and washed out yeais ago. 
All that was wanted was to "get so many aore.s 
under tea," nnd so put a value on the property. 
Anything in the shape of a tea pla:U, no matter 
what it was, was put out, and the result of it all 
i9 very naturally that it won't pay. It has always 
been the way in Ceylon, or at any rate during 
the last 30 years to " rush out " coffeo plants, 
cinohona plants, tea plants, whatever the rage is, 
— run them out, and get so many acres under 
cultivation, and in the end failure is a not uncom- 
mon result. Whoso the blame for doing this I 
needn't attempt to shew just now, suffice it to 
say that a long experience enables me to say that 
nine cases out of ten it is not the doing of the 
planter himself, who generally had to content 
himself with a protest more or less vigorous ac- 
cording to the position in which ho was placed. 
There is another phase of tho question 
"will it pay" which presents itself very 
prominently. When we inquire closely into 
it. What pays one man won't pay another 
in a different position. A man may have capital, 
lie invests at a comparatively high prico in a 
coffeo estate, ho puts it all into tea, and pays 
another man to do the work, ho good in for heavy 
expenditure in working tho placo and erecting 
factories, and ho eventually gets perhaps .V , on 
an average in tho course of yoars, and ho naturally 
n it doesn't pay. Another man, who has nothing 
to liv« upon, gets an estate, opons it himself, does 
things ai economically as he can, doesn't pay 
another person to work for hint, but takes the pay 
him Blf, and in course of years finds ho has been 
Ifyfng oomforiably, btu brought up his family, and 
has . r >" , on his money laid by in tho bank, and if 
yon link him "dues it pay," ho emphatically re- 
plies " of courso it docs." As a proof that good tea 
nr. 
can bo made under difficulties witli extreme economy 
(even as in ancient days we cured coffee well with- 
out power machinery, or cement barbacues), I have 
the pleasure of sending you a sample of tea* which 
was rolled by hand only, and fired on the end of 
an old nail drum over an ordinary garden flower 
pot, B. P. is valued @ 1/2 (aj 1/3 per lb. pekoe 
@ jlQ. I don't mean to insinuate that any man 
should start a tea garden with the idea that he was 
going to cure all his tea in a flower-pot, 
but merely to show that it is not absolutely 
necessary, nor yet in many cases advisable, 
to commence with glass and iron factories, and 
a variety of expensive machinery. It is becoming 
pretty evident to a great many proprietors that an 
acre of tea costs more to bring into full bearing 
than an acre of coffee, one great reason being that 
it takes a much longer time to get the ground 
well covered with tea, and another great reason 
being tho expensive nature of the factory and 
plant. That an old coffee estate, badly planted 
with inferior plants, is less likely to come into 
profitable bearing condition in a given time than 
new land well planted would, needs no demon- 
stration, and yet this is the real reason why doubts 
are beginning to be thrown upon the paying 
qualities of old coffee land. 
Start fair, plant well, work economically, and 
use commonsenso and tea planting on ordinary 
old coffee estates will be a success as assured as 
is any other agricultural venture in existence. 
As a planter of 20 years' experience and more, 
before I was instructed to put in tea, and hav- 
ing seen something of planting in other tropical 
countries, I protested strongly against running 
tea plants into miserable little holes where a 
man could not use a mammoty, or even put in 
his hand to arrange the roots of the plant, 
or find out whether or not there were stones in it, 
or in fact do anything he ought to do in a hole. 
I nearly got the sack for my pains, and now peoplo 
are beginning to find out somebody was right. 
♦ — 
MK. W. S. BENNET ON COFFEE AND 
TEA PR.OSPECTS. 
After closing our Overland Summary last even- 
ing (April 11) we had a call from this gentleman and 
were much pleased to learn how satisfactory were the 
impressions he had formed during his present visit 
to tho island. Mr. Bonnet's own properties (Riverside 
and Nithsdalc) aro known to be exceptionally tine and 
promising. As showing his faith in old coffee laud tor 
tea growing, Mr. Beunct has just bought Glenloch 
estate, Pussellawa— formerly the property of Mr. 
John Tyudall— which is at ouco to bo planted up 
with tea. In the Agras division of Dimbula, Mr. 
Bennet found cotfoo looking wonderfully vigorous, 
with, a9 he thinks, plenty of life to give good 
crops for many years under liberal cultivation unless 
" greon bug " is going to excel itself by and bye. On 
Diagama, the Company's land both coffee and tea 
promise well aud for tho latter there has now been 
orected what Mr. Bennet considers one of the most 
completo Tea Factories in the is'a id. The power 
is convoyed by a waterwheel some 30 by 5] feet, 
he said, with a whole rivor of water available, 
so that eventually it is expected 10 drive eight rollers 
with tho due proportion of dryers, sifters Ac. Tho 
Factory is of iron roof and girdors resting on 
chiselled stone pillars and is most substantial. No 
doubt we shall hear moro about it from the activo 
Manager. There can be little doubt that this now 
l'imbula Company is going to havo good returns 
from their valuable pro perty. 
• And very good tea it i*, wo oun say,— I'.u. 
