824 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, [June t, 1888. 
to do in two years' time. This enterprise thus con- 
ducted, means the support of thousands of white 
people. 
Fceliug assured of the desirability of this central 
factory Sj.-tem, I am prepared to throw open 4 000 
acres ot land do settlers of small means on 6ome such 
terms as the following.— To each settler a block of 
50 acres of suitable land for a term of 10 or 15 years. 
No rent for three years; afterwards a rental of Is! 
per acre per annum ; at the close of the period, pur- 
chase can be effected at £1 per acre, half of the 
amounts previously paid in rents to be allowed on 
account of the purchase. Should the lessee desire not 
to purchase, two-thirds of the value of improvements 
below a fixed amount to be paid to the lessee. Are- 
serve block of 50 acres adjoining each occupancy to 
be laid off for purchase or lease by the occupant ata 
fixed rate. On the estate only 20 settlers to be loca- 
ted in various parts, the remaining 2,000 acres to be 
held by myself as owner for purposes of the estate 
generally— grazing rights allowed within certain res- 
trictions to the tenants. 1 would erect suitable build- 
ings and machinery for making the tea, and agree to 
purchase green leaf at a price fixed according to the 
market price of the article. I will find tea seed for 
planting gratis. 
The occupiers would be required to plant five acres 
of tea the first season, and each following season the 
same quantity for five years, unless special circum- 
stances prevented. Each occupier would be required 
to plaat one acre a year with forest trees. All other 
cutivation at option of the occupier, which would 
doubtless consist of food supplies. No occupier would 
be allowed to keep a regular store or canteen. Each 
occupier would have to prove his capability to carrv 
out the conditions. The amount of money necessary 
would greatly depend upon the individual. From £150 
to £401) would be about the mintnum that an in- 
dustrious man could do with. The estate in question 
is situated about nine miles from this place on the 
Tugela. I have one of my sons upon it opening out 
40 acres of tea. All occupiers would receive the prac- 
tical advice of one capable of giving the same. If 
white settlers can be obtained so much the better • 
but if not I intend getting Indians who will pay rent 
at once. 
I consider the principle embodied in the above 
scheme worth the attention of landowners in various 
parts of the colony. 
NATAL AND OEYLON COFFEE. 
Mr. J. L. Hulett, m. l. c, of Kearsney Tea Estate, 
Nonoti, writes us : — 
The following appears in the article headed " Tea 
in Ceylon and Natal," in Monday's Mercury. Speak- 
ing of coffee, the writer says :— " Many of these 
estates have for years given from £10,000 to £30,000 
profit annuallj ; but the owners were too greedy, and 
killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. Succes- 
sive heavy crops weakened the trees, which were again 
revived by heavy pruuing, only at last to succumb to 
a virulent disease, which has found its way even to 
Natal — another case of the sins of the fathers being 
visited upon the innocent children." 
With regard to the first portion of the above quota- 
tion, I have nothing to do ; but when a slur appears 
to be passed upon a community of planters, who have 
been proverbially known as the most energetic and 
painstaking to be found anywhere, and the serious 
bluw given to Uaur induitry by causes beyond their 
control, laid at their door as being too greedy, it 
requires a protest. The question of coffee disease is 
one that in past years has exercised the minds of 
many of us, and the reason of the same, and attempts 
at cure, have been examined most minutely. The 
planters of Ceylon and Natal have done everything 
possible to find a remedy for this coffee failure, for 
the coffee is subject not only to one disease but many. 
The present leaf disease is new to Natal, but the 
borer and bark diseases is what ruined Natal coffee, 
and Ci ylon Mho to a gniit extent. Everything pos- 
sible has been tried, boi,ii here and in Ceylon. High 
cultivation, low cultivation, manuring and no manur- 
ing, light soil and heavy soil, pruning and no pruning, 
topping high, medium and low, not topping at all. 
Soils have been scientifically analysed, both here and 
in England, and under all and every circumstance the 
result has been the same. 
Not Ceylon and Natal only, but Java, Jamaica, 
and now Brazil is threatened with destruction. I 
have my own theory, which is that the tender 
character of the coffee tree will not bear cultivation, 
and will yield in a semi-wild state a precarious crop 
of berry ; but in that condition will not pay as an 
enterprise. I have a strong feeling against any attempt 
being made to foster a careless style of cultivation iu 
anything. A practical experience of 30 years in Natal 
leads me to the conclusion that io the present day of 
keen competition the only way agriculture will be made 
to pay is by intelligent attention to the cultivation of the 
soil, and taking care to keep it in good order, and crops 
perfectly free from weeds. My experience has a range 
over all coa6t products, and it is a case of the "survival 
of the fittest" throughout. Ceylon planters are so far, 
to my mind, the fittest for us to follow, and we may do 
our best to excel. Every country has its peculiarities, 
and those of Natal are not a few. I do not consider that 
Ceylon planters killed their goose, though it was laying 
golden eggs, and neither did Natal kill its goose. The 
coffee goose died though every means was tried to keep 
it alive. Yet I would rather have a goose to lay a few 
golden eggs, than a goose that lays no eggs at all. 
[Mr. Hulett has, with candour, good sense and correct 
information, vindicated the Ceylon planters from a most 
unfounded cnarge often recklessly preferred. Coffee fell 
before a fungus against which science, skill and liberal 
manuring alike were powerless. — Ed.] 
• 
ADiiNiUM Fergusoni. — We (Gardener's Chro- 
nicle April 21st) have received the following 
communication from the Director of the Royal 
Gardens, Kew, with reference to this plant; — "The 
interest which this fine Fern has excited, induces me 
to think that it may be worth while to place on per- 
manent record in the Gardeners' Chronicle the 
account which was given me in a letter by the late 
Mr. W. Ferguson of its first discovery. W. T. Thisel- 
ton Dyer. 
"Extract from a letter from W. Ferguson, dated 
Colombo, April 28th, 1885 : — ' On my return from 
Futtalam, about 85 miles north of Colombo, in Nov- 
ember, 1881, I stopped a night at Negombo, about 
21 miles north of this, and by. a curious coincidence 
the next house to the resthouse in which I put up, 
was that of your acquaintance, T. G. De Livera, Esq., 
District Judge of that place. On walking over to 
call upon him, I found this Fern, for the first time, 
in a small pot between plants of Adiantum tenerum 
and A. Farleyense, and said to Mrs. De Livera that 
I thought it was A. Farleyense, which had taken a 
great bound and gone back to be a fruitful tfeia. 
I went on purpose to Negombo a short time ago to 
trace out the history of this Fern ; but I am sorry to 
say it is involved in obscurity. Mrs. De Livera got 
the plant from a family of De Silvas close by, a member 
of whose family is said to have got it at a sale of 
plants at Colombo, and this is all its history in the 
meantime. Here, in Kelvin Grove, it is a tall, stiff 
Fern, about 2 feet in height and 4 feet in expansion, 
growing in coir fibre and in a tub. It has seeded freely 
here iu the walls of wells, and in crevices in walls 
round my house ; in fact it has no barren fronds at all, 
and the tiny seedlings show no difference from the 
parent plant when they are quite young. It is Burely 
too robust a plant to be squeezed into any form of 
A. Capiilus-veueris, and the nearest to it that I can 
suggest is A. concinnum, of which several forms are 
in cultivation here. But after I get a photo taken of 
this giant Fern, I shall take up good specimens, with 
roots and all on, for Mr. Moore, and Kew. I feel 
very grateful to Mr. Moore for the honour he has done 
me in naming this rare Fern after me, and for Mr. 
Baker for all the trouble he took respecting it.' " 
