Auoust i, 1888.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
INDIAN TEA NOTES. 
Tea is doing well in Sibeagor. 
The weather bas bi en wet in L'acliar. 
Some damage has been done to tea by red spider in 
South Sylhet. 
Seasonable weather is reported from Kamrup, Dar- 
ning and Nowgong. 
DkhUA Dun, 3rd July.— The rains have begun at last. 
We have bad general showers, but no rain heavy enough 
to bring down the kalas and raus. 
Lai.lamook, 2nd July.— The rainfall to the end of 
June has been 78"10 against 3910 last year. Since the 
LSth May we have had 10 days on which no rain was 
registered. On the 14th May 8-38 fell, and 15th June 
(i'SO. Gardens in Hailakandi are doing very badly some 
have made a J less tea than last year. — Indian 
Planter's Gazette, July 10th. 
+ 
A VETEBAN ON CEYLON PLANTING PROS- 
PECTS. 
No one is better able than Mr. Peter Moir to 
compare the past with the present in Ceylon after a 
thoroughly sound practical fashion. He has had ex- 
perience as planter in a number of districts above 
most men, and he has bad at intervals the 
benefit of good long spel's of leisure for reflection 
and comparison after reuewed visits to the scenes 
of his early labours. He has, rcoreover, lived 
through the coffee era into that of cinchona, 
cacao, rubber, and now above all to that of the 
young gian. tea. Mr. Moir has just been on one 
of his periodical visits and has been a close observer 
for several months past of what is going on, more 
especially in the districts North of Kandy, where 
he so long resided ond worktd in the Dumbara 
Valley ; in the Hewahetes, Pussellawa, Eamboda ; 
through the younger and higher districts ; and 
lastly down through the Kelani Valley. 
To take the last-mentioned first, Mr. Moir, as 
an old planter well acquainted with good and 
poor soils in Ceylon, was rather astonished to see 
the poor stuff — that is the shallowness of soil 
— on most of the Kelani Valley plantations, from 
which nevertheless cropa of leaf are plucked 
averaging double tin: qu unity fathered per acre 
in the hillcounlry. Mepitikande, Mr. Moir pro- 
nounces to be the best piece of soil and lay of 
laud he saw in the district. Mr. Miilington's estate 
is aho a good- one, giving line returns ; but some 
of the newly-opened lund, with drains fully cut 
ho enabling the ..oil to be judged, astonish d him 
by the shallowness of surface matorial although 
the tea plant seems to rejoice in the hard-look- 
ing sub-soil on which coffee would have starved. 
As regards tho high districts, — Dimbula, Dikoya 
and Maskeliya - Mr. Moir is sanguine, tea will grow 
and yield pr< Stable returns for a long period to come. 
Profits rising from EG.oOO to E7,000 from 100 
acres of young tea in such a season as the present, 
are not out of the way. As regards the old coffee 
districts there can be no doubt that tea keeps 
backward over large portions of Pussellawa, Batn- 
boda, Hunasgiriya, Kelebokka, Knuckles, Rangala 
and especially Matale West. The clearings may 
come on in time, but the estimates originally 
framed will not be realized for two or three years 
after tho time fixed for them. On washed-out 
hillsides such as may bo seen in Kotmale and other 
old districts it is questionable it' tea will ever 
pay. Vory extraodinary is the fact that the first 
CO acres' charing 011 chena and grass land on 
Klkaduwa should have bo in tho means of mis- 
leading so many in tho Northern districts. " if 
that miserably poor stuff grow such fine tea, 
why our old coffee fields should do splendidly " 
was the general thought. But us a matter of fact 
the old coffee fields do not do half so well. Had 
they been left abandoned or fallow for two or three 
years' interval, the case might have been different. 
There are large exceptions of course to this rule, 
good and poor fields in these northern districts 
being wonderfully intermixed ; but the old coffee 
estatf-s with the best soil — rich black loam — more 
particularly North and West of Matale are really 
most backward in tea. It is very curious. On 
the other hand, there are in Matale North some 
very fine tea clearings — notably on Hnpugahalando 
which is pronounced a second Mariawatte. Sele- 
garnrna too is likely to do well in tea. Watlo- 
godde and Galgawatte as well as part of Poen- 
galla and Dumbulagalla are spoken of, as doing 
exceedingly well in tea. 
Mr. Moir visited his old protdge\ Mr. Taylor on 
Loolecondura, and found him busy erecting new 
machinery with which he expects to turn out even 
finer teas. Tho twenty years' old tea bushes here 
are looking as vigorous as when they were only 
ten years. The Loolecondura average plucking from 
the old fields is said to be about #50 lb. per acre. 
The story has been current in some parts of the 
country that one reason why Loolecondura teas 
maintained their high average was due to the 
admixture of the small-leaved China variety, of 
which a good deal was grown on the estate. Never 
was a greater mistake, as any novice might know, 
for the liner the jat the finer the tea. The small 
China leaf is no advantage, quite the reverse. 
The fact is that Loolecondura has not many China 
bushes, and these are scattered along the 
roads. The leaf is plucked and prepared, despatched 
and sold separately and generally fetches Id to 
2d the lb. below the Assam-Hybrid tea. 
Finally in Dumbara as Managing Director of the 
Bajawella Estates Company, Mr. Moir had a good 
deal to see of caeao, and he says it is wonderful 
how the supposed areas planted have dwindled 
down, through the trees not prospering but dying 
out wherever exposed to wind, or on bare ridges 
or poor soil. In sheltered valleys, with rich moist 
soil, cacao grows splendidly. But elsewhere the 
trees are so sparse that the supposed cultivated 
acreage had to be cut down nearly one-half. A 
good crop is now maturing on the trees throughout 
Dumbara. During a drive through Pallakeily — 
which has the advantage over Bajawelly, of large 
reserves of virgin land — Mr. Moir was much struck 
with the superiority of the Nalkanad (Coorg) coffee 
over the Ceylon coffee, both being in young fields 
divided only by a road — the one looking very 
vigorous, while the other was drooping. As re- 
gards crops of coffee Mr. Moir fears there 
will be none at all this coming season : at least 
in Bogawantalawa and Agrapatana the outlook is 
very poor. Native gardens are doing well, but 
North 01 Kandy there is scarcely a bean on plant- 
ations. Nevertheless Mr. Moir and Mr, Hadden 
have been discussing the propriety of opening some 
of their low-lying land in the Hunasgiriya district 
with coffco, getting seed of course from Coorg and 
planting under shade. If the experiment is made 
it will be watched with much interest. 
some k.\i'e:;iexce8 of tfa-pruning, tec. 
About twelve months ago, there was a great diver- 
sity of views upon the right way of pruning tea und 
tho general opinion was that most of us hail over- 
prune I ; and this, like many other idea, judged upon 
iminodiuto results, wnp, 1 think, then generally ad- 
mitted to be right. To prevent auy mistake, however, 
1 pruned two pieces, m similar Foil and oxpo-urr, 
tho oue heavy and the other light, which has givou 
me the following experience:— 
