8io 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [June i, 1888. 
2. — There was a cry nearly 20 years ago that the 
coolies on many estates could not exist for an- 
other 12 months for want of fuel. Take Eoths- 
child estate for instance : it and its coolies have 
managed to exist through this famine and grown 
fat, too, and, I have no doubt, intend to live 
through another 20 years — one cooly per acre, 
working fairly regularly, is now, I believe, con- 
sidered about sufficient for a tea estate. It is a 
very poor estate indeed that the prunings of 1 acre 
■would not supply a cooly with sufficient for his 
inward and outward wants for a year. However, 
the poorer the prunings the fewer coolies required 
on such estate. He can also fall back on cinchona 
sticks, roots, cow -dung and, lastly, to him a never- 
failing source of firebrand, the Government. Taking 
all in all. I think we can dismiss the cooly 1 
3. Tea. Factories. — This is not so easily dismissed, 
but the difficulties exhibited are largely, I consider, 
reduceible. Fuel is said to be necessary for two 
purposes, . power to drive the machinery in some 
cases, and for drying the tea in all : — 
Power. — In almost all the tea districts that I 
am acquainted with, in Ceylon, in the centre, or 
thereabouts, is provided a natural and immense 
water power. Some estates adjoin such power, 
others don't, and few, if any, utilize 
it. Our resident engineers have evidently 
been brought up to understand one thing only :— 
" Take the water to the wheel or turbine and we 
will give you so many horse-power ; if you cannot 
do so, you must have a steam engine" (a heavy 
deduction from the yearly profits of a garden). 
Nine cases out of ten allow the power to go by, 
and the valuable fuel to disappear in smoke. This 
sort of thing, if Ceylon is to succeed as a rival 
to other tea producing countries, will not last. The 
power so mercifully provided throughout the coun- 
try must be transmitted, as it is in other coun- 
tries, and our worthy engineers must recommend 
something else than always the steam engine, and 
if they do not know that " other thing," they must 
learn it. It is not for me here to say how power 
can be transmitted, but every one knows it can. 
Estates, too far from the power, must seek nearer 
quarters for their factories, and place them as 
often can be the case, off their own lands, even if 
they have to carry their leaf two or three miles ; 
it sounds bad, but no worse than is being done 
on many places in the Island. Estates within 
reach of power will, after their own wants are 
supplied, generally if the "consideration" be suffi- 
cient, sell rights to their neighbours. Estates be- 
yond all reach of power, and with no fuel, must 
be content to sell their leaf, and the competi- 
tion for the manufactured article will ere long 
become so keen, proprietors will readily sell, 
and accept what an "unfortunately situated es- 
tate can show as profit, but such estates will 
be few. It is all nonsense to think every estate 
ihiist have its own factory on its own lands ; if such 
is to be, undoubtedly fuel will be at a premium, 
and present calculations would be correct. Estates 
desirous of manufacturing their own tea, must, 
if necessary, either goto the power, bring the power 
to themselves, or sell their leaf ; the three means 
are in all cases available, and no alarm, need be 
felt on this score. Bather more scientific engineers 
than the island boasts of are, however, requisite to 
work out the Rystem, and because it is something 
ww, it must not be pooh poohed. It is an 
extraordinary fact, however, that, many estates 
I know of possess both available water-power to 
drive anything, and a steam engine besides. I 
have no mercy on such properties, throwing away 
money and burning others. Such peculiarities are 
often gone in for, rather than move, perhaps an 
old coffee store, or even set of lines to be near 
the bungalow or cart road, etc.; all I can say 
is when next your boiler bursts, move to the 
water ! So much for motive power, and if the 
resources of the country were utilized by l-10th of 
the supply, little fuel is required as motive power 
for a tea garden. Avoid steam engines ; they will 
prove a curse. 
Fuel for Drying. — I hold the opinion that 
erelong when actual necessity arises, dryers 
will be introduced, so economising heat, that the 
fuel required will be reduced to a minimum. I 
have quite as much right to believe in this as any 
one ten years ago, to say that the P. & 0. 
" Britannia " would have made the run she did 
with the quantity of coal consumed. I believe the 
weight of fuel in a tea chest, say 22 or 25 lb., 
ought to be sufficient to dry the 1001b. of tea 
contained in such chest, so that if tea chests are 
available, so is fuel, and we can take to steel 
boxes. We have oil to fall back upon, and it 
too if necessity arises, can be supplied without the 
enormous profits at present netted by sellers of 
the article. But go to any of the high points of 
our higher districts, and look round ; thousands 
of acres of virgin forest stare one in the face, 
all available to shoot down to the valleys beneath, 
either in wood or charcoal. Government must and 
will unlock us reserves, and make them pay hand- 
somely, must not encroach on its hill reserves 
for itself for fuel, but seek the low-country as its 
supply for the railway. Tea can be dried by oil 
equally well to the delicate pastry baked in a 
" Rippingille " cooking stove which is a good model 
for a tea dryer. 
Therefore, " taking one consideration with 
another," my own opinion is, Ceylon has no 
fear to apprehend as regards its fuel supply; 
there are heaps of it in the island, and for 
transport, the ever energetic planter will find 
the means. Motive power must be economised 
and sought for, and no one has far to seek. Take 
almost any tea estate you like to name in the 
island, using a steam engine, and you will find 
that with a little ingenuity and forethought, it could 
have found water power, even if, as I said before, 
leaving its own boundary by a mile or two, and 
the carriage of leaf to such factory would have 
been compensated for over and over again by 
first the transport of fuel to the engine ; second, 
the value of the fuel itself. Water power to an 
estate is worth all in all, and few know how very 
little water is required with a good fall to develop 
6 or 8 horse-power from a turbine. 
Tea driers will be brought before the public ere 
long, using one-eighth of the fuel required for a 
"Sirocco," "Victoria Drier," etc.; the "Desi- 
cator " has already made a great start in the right 
direction. If not, oil will come into use, and 
charcoal is light and of easy transport for railway 
or otherwise. The planting up of parts of estates 
with timber for fuel, I do not believe in for one 
moment, and, as far as I hear, few do. No piece 
of land to grow fuel to pay, but what will grow 
tea to pay. Twelve to fifteen years must be reckoned 
on as the shortest time to get any return from 
an acre of fuel, and, after all, what would it be ? 
And compare it with the returns such an acre of 
tea would have returned, remembering that 7 or 
8 years' purchase is about the limit of estate value 
in the colonies. It is the exception to find estates 
in our higher districts at any rate, but what every 
acre of land would grow tea, and if it would not 
grow tea, it would grow uncommonly poor fuel. I 
think you will find the tea-planter of the day will 
believe in looking to being able to purchase fuel 
for hiw time, and not plant it for posterity. I 
