11* 
THE JTROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [May ij 1888. 
(more often 80), inclusive of coffee, of which I have 
just taken and prepared 26 tons clean coffee, and have 
opened, I should say am in course of opening, (only 
100 acres actually planted with tea,) 200 acres of 
forest clearings in tea and coffee, fruit trees, (in belts) 
Off these clearings I am about to gather a catch crop 
of 200 tons of maize. 
There is the undoubted fact that Kaffirs are unie- 
liable, and with a plethora of them at one season of the 
year ; at others they are hardly obtainable. I believe 
this will come right in time, At 8s. to 10s. a month 
and their food, another 2s. they are wonderful cheap 
labor, much stronger than coolies, but much lazier. 
Still they average up a good day's work, and knock 
' spots ' out of coolies at any hard work, such as holing, 
clearing, &c. 
Our Indian coolies are letter than in Oeylon, and no 
wonder with the rations they get, and do more work. 
They cost about Is per diem inclusive of everything. 
Mr. Hulett must be highly amused at the idea that 
he and his family do all the work of his tea estate. 
Mr. Hulett manages, and his sons assist in the manage- 
ment, in addition to which they are capable of carpen- 
try work, building, repairing engines, &c, but on the 
garden over 100 coolies are employed, and this season 
they are making 90,000 lb. tea off 110 acres plucking 
area, of which 2-3rds is under 4 years old, and a large 
proportion not 2. 
Their tea over 5 years old has never given less than 
1,200 lb. per acre, I have had 14 years' experience of 
Oeylon; and I know that if the Kaffirs can be per- 
suaded to work quite freely, if the cooly immigration 
is not interfered with, and if a little of the capital at 
present poured into Ceylon and elsewhere can be 
diverted here, Natal is the rival in tea that Ceylon 
may most fear. There are half-a-million acres of land, 
with soil such as is only seen in small patches in Ceylon 
on which the plant would thrive to admiration. At 
present you have these three ifs to keep us in embryo. 
In my garden here overlooking the sea I have mangos, 
pineapples, oranges, &c, apples, pears, straw- 
berries, &c, &c, every vegetable imaginable ; in fact 
everything that will grow iu the temperate zone, and 
nearly everything in the tropic ditto does well here, but 
then, where I am we never have any frost. 
I hope to pay Oeylon a visit in not many months, 
when the Observer will be welcome to my information 
about Natal, gained by practical experience and gar- 
nered from a Oejlca point of view. 
It is marvellous with all the advantages men- 
tioned that hitherto, Natal should have been so 
backward with sub-tropical culture : coffee for in- 
stance, we know, ruined a good many men before 
the leaf-fungus days ; but perhaps the hardier tea- 
plant suits better. As to production we shall not 
grudge Natal supplying all the requirements of 
South Africa and getting the whole population there 
to drink tea up to 4 or 5 lb. per head per annum, 
which would absorb Natal crops for a good many 
years to come 1 
♦ 
TEA ON OLD COFFEE LAND. 
In your issue of 7th February there is a letter 
headed " The Tea Industry of Oeylon," in which 
dome of the statements are misleading and erro- 
neous, though evidently given in good faith. I refer 
to old coffee land being taken up for tea planting, 
and the reason Rivem for its turning out so well, 
viz., owing to the tea bush having a long tap root 
and drawing nourishment where its sister plant, 
with a shorter root, was unable to do so ; and this 
being the cause of such good results on the little 
Ibland. It has been generally admitted by all who 
have studied the tea plant in India, that it is most 
assuredly a surface feeder, and not a tap root feeder, 
and this theory has pretty sound facts to back it. 
It will now be my object to try and prove this to 
your satisfaction. There is a practice, though I don't 
say largely carried on, of cutting the tap roots of 
young seedlings to half their original length when 
they are being transplanted, if the plants have been 
longer than eighteen months or two years in a 1 
nursery, owing to the difficulty in lifting them with 
the tap root uninjured. I have known 6uch plants 
do remarkably well, which, if the plant were pure 
and 6imple tap root feeler, they could not have 
done. Don't imagine I recommend this cutting sys- 
tem. It is only allowable in very peculiar case«, 
which I will explain further on. Again, it is allowed 
by men at home, that to grow a fruit crop the 
surface roots should be pruned; and you will iuvari- 
ably find, with any estate that has been systemati- 
cally deep double hoed, and all the surface roots 
cut in so hoeing, that there is a tendency on the 
part of the plant to grow seed, and less incliuation 
to flush freely. To prove this statement would be 
easy, if anyone would be at the trouble and culti- 
vate a patch in this manner, and so see for them- 
selves, that without surface roots the tea plant was 
by no means capable of the flushing functions required 
of it. 
The tap root of a tea plant is the sucker from 
which the plant gains its liquid nourishment, so to 
speak, and the surface roots feed it with the vege- 
table matter requisite fcr its existence. To grow 
seed or a fruit crop, more mineral matter is required 
than vegetable, and vice versa for a leaf crop; as 
the two crops exhaust the soil in two quite differ- 
ent ways. It will thus be seen that many old teelah 
gardens out here are unable to turn out leaf in 
large quantity, simply owing to the exhaustion of 
all the requisite matter which goes to form leaf, 
which is more or less on the surface, and only the 
mineral properties remaining. Of this there can be 
no doubt, as, if at the end of a season any Ceylon 
planters like to pay a visit to our tea districts, they 
will see for themselves. Our bushes are then cover- 
ed with a beautiful flower, though not so beautiful 
as that of the coffee tree. Almost in every instance 
this flower is a cause of much anxiety to us, as it 
goes to show the soil has lost its leaf-producing 
qualities, aud that only the fruit-bearing ones remain. 
As so many of our old gardens were planted with 
the China plant, the seed crop would in no way 
benefit us; nor even if we had a better jut (class), 
could we expect a seed crop to benefit us, as our 
market would be glutted with seed. 
The reason, I hold, why the tea plant has done 
so well on all coffee land, is in a great measure 
due to two causes. One is that coffee estates have 
only been weeded, and not hoed like our tea estates : 
consequently, less wash of surface soil has taken 
place. The other reason is that the coffee plant is 
a mineral feeder, and has not exhausted the vege- 
table matter so essential to a leaf crop. Now as to 
the tap root. It is, as I have already stated, the 
liquid sucker, and it is only of use to the plant as 
such. On high table land, rolling land, or teelah 
land, it is essential to see that a plant, when put 
out, has its tap root in no way injured, for it is 
through its means that, during our long cold weather, 
extending over about five months, when we have 
little or no rain, this tap root supplies the plant 
with all the liquid so necessary to keep it in a 
robust state. Again, in low lands {hhils) the tap root 
draws up the moisture, and with what result is but 
two well known now to all who have invested their 
capital in these hhils. Owing to an excessive run 
of sap caused by the tap root drawing all the 
liquid matter of these hhils, a thin weak liquor is 
the result of all teas manufactured from bhil garden 
leaf. These teas fetch, owing to their weakness, 
but a poor price in the market. These hhils are 
like a sponge, and in time, when the Teg'etable 
matter has been exhausted, both by filtration and 
as food to the plants, little or nothing will remaiu 
to feed the plant ; and though some human beings 
live by suction, I have my doubts as to a tea plant 
surviving on suction alone. That bltil lauds are in- 
clined to be exhausted sooner that other lands, is 
well enough known; and some of the earlier bhil 
gardens have deteriorated very much lately. 
Now, as to cutt'ng the tap root when plantin 
in hhih, it is advisable if the seedlings to he plaute 
are large ones, and if from any causa the land 
