Auoust f, 1888.] 
TH1 TROP»CAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
133 
to any subscribing member, and to give no allowanco 
whatever, directly or indirectly, to any non-subscriber. 
In exchange for this substantial concession the dealers 
undertake that no subscriber shall bo entitled to 
warehouse or deposit tea with, or employ in connec- 
tion with toa, any dock company or tea warehouse- 
keeper who is not a member of the clearing-house, 
or to purchase or saraplo any tea from the warehoiuo 
of any non-member. Tin: warehouse keepers in order 
to reimburse tho dealers for the assistance the latter 
afford in boycotting independent warehouse keepors 
and establishing a close m mopoly, present them and 
them alone with a handsome percentage on that por- 
tiou of their revonuo derivod from sold teas. That 
tins douceur must eventually come out of the pockets 
of tho importers is too obvious to need demonstration, 
and, although, as is rightly said, the cutting policy of 
the past has been carried to a ridiculous extent, it 
seems possible that it may be succeeded by a period of 
rates raised to an undue level by artificial means." — 
L. and C. Express, July 20th. 
CEYLON UPCOUNTRY PLANTING REPORT. 
A NEW ENEMY 01" THE CACAO — POOR OLD COFFEE — 
A FEMALE PHILOSOPHER — A QUEER STORY OF A TEA- 
OHBSX — THE LABOR LAWS AND COOLIES. 
6th August 1888. 
Cacao, odo would think, has already alllictions 
enough to bear without anything being added ; but 
it would seem not. A new horror, I am told, 
has appeared, which has a weakness for the cacao 
pod. it is a beetle which loves the stalk that 
attaches the young fruit to the tree, and which 
it rings in a dainty way and leaves it then to 
die. It is only when the pod is very young that 
the insect attacks it thus, but it is as likely as 
not, that the beetle may develop tastes for maturer 
fruit, and widen the field to play the rogue in. 
It certainly lessens our chances of crop, having 
an enemy of this kind, and when you think of 
this thing nibbling at the stalk, and the Sinhalese 
Villager carrying off for his curry what the beetle 
has spared, you incline to go in heart and soul 
with those men who tell you that they never knew 
such a fraud as tropical agriculture. Just look at 
the bushels of blossom every cacao tree in the 
land has decked itself with during the last few 
months, and the poor results left behind. Who 
is the man with the bumper crop, I should like 
to know ? And yet, if a quarter of the late 
blossoms had set, we were all in for bumpers. 
And then to lind this new pest doing its best to 
make our medium crop somewhat smaller, why, it 
is about as bad as the burglaries in Colombo, 
without tho relief of an inefficient polioe force 
to swear at 1 
Then, if you turn to cotTee, what of it at least 
is left in this district, there is some food for 
thought to the man who votes tropical agriculture 
a fraud. At present it is Buffering from such an 
attaok of leaf-disease, that even in the days when 
this enemy had the whole Central Province to grow 
rampant in, its like would be difficult to match. 
And this is tho reward for those whose allegiance 
to tho Old King has never wavered, and who 
have put fuitli in the conclusions of our local 
scientists, that the plague was checked, and 
would likely in time be stayed It seems to me a3 
ii it had taken a fresh lease of life, and had 
changed its mind ubout removing to new premises. 
The only comfort is that things might be woise. 
We might have boon overrun with bug, which is 
a thing hopeless to fight, whereas the other 
may in a way bo combated. Certainly thero is 
no good g -iting down in the mouth, or fancying 
our (ate harder than others. There ij always 
tho temptation to imagine that elsewhere the 
worries would have been fewer, like the wife of 
the unsuccessful Scotch planter, who maintained 
when times here got very hard that she " wid 
rather leeve at hame on a soorack than in the 
East wi' a' its luxuries." The sequel was that 
when " hame" was tried there was little else 
than "sooracks" to be got, alas! 
The improved tone of the London tea market has 
improved the tone of our local brokers. A man who 
had tea to sell lately was giving me a good illustration 
of this. He had a break to send away, but the 
proper number of carts did not turn up. The 
result was that all his souchong and one box of 
pekoe was left behind, what went down, was duly 
reported on, put up for auction and sold, It was an 
ordinary tea and went with the ruck. When the 
second lot arrived the one box of pekoe was evi- 
dently regarded as something phenomenal and drew 
forth a phenomenal report. The report classed it 
as a superior tea to what had recently been sold 
from the same estate, and this superiority was espe- 
cially marked in regard to the flavour ! When it is 
remembered that the box was an odd box left behind 
for want of room, that it was bulked with the rest, 
and also that the market at home has been firm, 
and prices advancing, the mystery may be said 
to be solved. Had the market fallen that pheno- 
menal box of pekoe would likely have earned for 
itself the character of a reprobate tea, and been 
valued like a reprobate. 
The upsetting of the labour laws continues to 
have a detrimental inlluence on the cooly. Many 
men who have had no trouble for years are 
having it now, and the cooly is not benefited a bit. In 
the old daysRamasami was happy enough, was on the 
whole very fairly treated, and was content. Now we 
have a lot of men who are regular lasvyers, kanganies 
who have been in many districts and many cour's 
leading a kind of nomadic life among the estates, 
and who come with their impecunious followers 
asking for big advances. When they get on to an 
estate they do a go.d deal toward upsetting old 
arrangements, if they can, and the tone they 
create around them and leave behind them, is bad, 
and always bad. By the way how is it that tho 
Government, which likes to pose as the coolies' 
friend, does nothing in the way of restricting the 
amount of debt between cooly and kangani which 
may be legally claimed ? The indebtedness in many 
cases is so great, that it amounts in fact to a 
kind of life-long slavery to work it off, and when 
you remember how little coolies know about 
accounts, once he is fairly into tha net, and he 
is always anxious to get there, his chances of 
shaking himself clear are very few. A kangani will 
make up his coolies' account, and the total that 
comes out is astonishing. I had two new people 
the other day who after working for a month or 
so were wanted as runaways. Their old kangani'a 
claim amounted to nearly R100, but ho was will- 
ing to take R100 cash to square. This is but 
a typical case. It seems to me as if there was 
a field opened for Governmental tender mercies 
in fixing a sum above which it would bo illegal 
for a kangani tc claim More real good would 
result to the Tamil labourer by a law of this kind, 
than can ever be expected from the muddling 
of labour ordinances and the hair-ap'.iltiiig of 
lawyers. Pkitkiuoun. 
RING-BARKING IN AUSTRALIA. 
An interesting correipouilnice ban taken place in the 
Melbourne "Argm" regarding tho prtotlceor ringbarkiiui 
in Australia, which is exteusively followed by granen 
Dr. Andrew Rosa, M. P.j in New South W'alui, 
ronaiuVs m.,- : -»'*"'» «» a criui* agaiuit the i>»»: ... 
