September j, 1888.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 161 
CEYLON UPCOUNTRY PLANTING REPORT : 
DRY WEATHER AND ITS EFFECT ON THE LOAFING C00LY — 
TEA ESTIMATES AND METEOROLOGICAL FORECASTS — A 
PROSPECTIVE RUN ON TEA PLANTS — THE "CYCLONE" 
WIT11EREK. 
20lh August 1888. 
Wo are all hereabouts suffering at prosont from 
an enforood idleness. You can hardly call the pro- 
sent stylo of weather a drought, as every now and 
again there is a sprinkling of rain ; but the showers 
amount to so very little, that for all practical pur- 
poses wo might as well be without them. A drought, 
pure and simple, would not "stick us up " moro 
than we are. You get round your plucking a great 
deal quicker than you desire, and the average seems 
daily to get less and less : the ground is too hard 
and dry, to allow of almost any kind of tillage or 
manuring : the weeds won't grow, nor the tea flush, 
and when work gets scarce, and you are at your 
wit's end how to employ your labour in anything 
profitable the muster in tho morning grows bigger 
and bigger, the lines emptying themselves of all 
tho loafers and lazy ones, who have come to add 
to your discomfiture, and be a burden as usual. 
Why don't tho lazy ones stay in ? and why should an 
attack of all but rainless weather havo a moral 
effect on the Tamil loufer ? For tho spurt is only 
temporary, As soon as anything like normal wea- 
ther returns, and a vista of work is visible, the 
lazy one absents himself from the parade, and tho 
loafer, if he does turn out, is back again at his 
linos long ere tho sun is high. He falls from his 
high ostate into his old evil ways, frequenting the 
bazaars, indulging in petty thefts, and steadfastly 
Betting his face against anything like steady work, 
lie often in this way suffers a long eclipse, but when 
the appointed time again comes round, when the 
labourers are many, and work is hard to get, he 
brightens up once more, seizes the opportunity, and 
tries to re-establish his character for industry. 
But his easo is hopeless, and the knowledgo of 
that is where the shoe pinches us. 
Two-thirds of the year are now all but gono, and 
there will need to be changed times for what re- 
mains, if our modest estimates for tea are to be any 
way roached. I would be ashamed to say how far 
we are behind ; but I did hear of a man who has 
tho privilego of revising his estimato and who 
thought of reducing it by a fourth, on the un- 
derstanding that the kind of weather wo have been 
favoured with during the last eight months was to 
be regardod as a fair sample of what was yet to 
oome. What we want is a good meteorological 
forecast, more than anything elso. Given that, tea 
ostimatcs could be made safo enough ; without it 
the best is but a guess. The happy guesser is 
ho who puts it low. I suppose that by and bye, 
if careful records be kept, we will be able to go 
over tho different months of tho year, and say 
that with this given rainfall and that given rain- , 
fall the outturns ought to bo so and so and so and so ; 
but that day of exact knowledge is considerably 
ahead of us jet. 
This want of sciontilio knowledgo perhaps ac- 
counts for the hopefulness which inspires the belief 
that the leeway will yet be made up. Meanwhile, 
wo wonder when the rain ia going to oome, and 
when there will bo n suitable display above ground 
of that abnormal activity below, which wo fondly 
believe tho tea bush indulges in in times like these ? 
II it is not doing that, it must havo an " uncommon 
large" quantity of pure cussedness" in its nature. 
When tho N.-E. monsoon comes in I expect 
there should bo a considerable run on plants, for 
this one ha3 been particularly trying and the 
numbers lost are very considerable. Especially is this 
so on old land, where planted even with two 
hands and a head they haven't half the chances 
of those put out on new ground say with your 
foot alone, 
Thcro is a chance, I hear, of the new Indian 
witherer, the " Cyclone," being tried erelong in 
Ceylon. It has a name for business, does away 
with withering tats and sheds, withers tho leaf 
during daylight, and allows of its being cured at 
once. It is a farewell to the worry of wet leaf, 
if you are able to spend the coin. The cost of 
a machine to wither fifty maunds of green leaf 
is 111,300, and ono that would do four hundred 
maunds can bo had for R7.000. These figures in- 
clude oharcoal stove fittings, trays and woodwork, 
but if you (it up your own trays and supply your 
own woodwork, tho respective prices are 111,055 
and R4,550. There are other 6izes between. It 
will be interesting to know how the machine will 
work when tried here, and the comparative prices 
of tea which has been cured by the " Cyclone." 
It is just a little late in the field. 
Peppercorn. 
SPRING VALLEY COFFEE COMPANY, 
LIMITED. 
Directors. — John Brown, Esq. (Managing Director) 
Edward Cuuder, Esq.; Leon Famin, Esq., and Henry 
Hart Potts, Esq. 
Report. — To be presented to the Twenty-third 
Ordinary General Meeting of the Company, on 
Thursday, the 2nd day of August, 1888, at 12 
o'clock noon. 
The usual Annual Accounts are now presented to 
Shareholder?, viz., Profit and Loss Account for 
Season 188(5-87, Balance Sheet made up to 31at 
May, 1888. 
The Orop of Coffee secured for Seasons 1886-87 
amounted to 3,822 cwt. 0 qr. 3 lb. against an esti- 
mate of 3,000 cwt. given in last year's Report. 
Tho total value of Coffeo sold, inoludiug that dis- 
posed of in Ceylon, amounted to £17,437 Is lid. 
The first small tea crop was plucked on Spring Valley 
at the end of season 1886-87, and amounted to 3,117 lb 
realising £157 15s 8d. 
The average Belling price of the coffee was 88s 5d 
per cwt. and the tea sold at an average of ll\d per 
lb; the total amount realized from sales of produce 
being £17,591 17s 7d. 
Tho total expenditure in Ceylon and London, in- 
cluding the loss on Oolanakande estate of £382 4s 9d 
amounted to £11,099 18s 8d, which deducted from the 
value of produce leaves a profit for the year of 
£6,194 18s lid: 
A sum of £100 10s 5d is brought forward from last 
year's account, giving o total available balance at the 
credit of profit and lost account of £6,595 9s Id. 
On the 7th of January last a dividend of 2J per 
cent was paid on the Capital of the Company, amount- 
ing to £2,000, and the director* now recommend the 
distribution of a dividend at a similar rate, making 
5 per cent for the year, and leaving a balauce of 
£2,5i»5 9s 4d at the credit of profit and loss account, 
and for the reasons givou below the Board con-ider 
it advisable that this sum should be carried forward to 
next year. 
During the above season even the earlier clearings of 
tea could ouly be plucked for a very short time owing 
to tho tea plants being so young, and as heavy ex- 
penditure had to be incurred on the general upkeep 
of all the clearings, and also on machinery and con- 
version of a p.irt of the coffee store on Spring Valley 
into a tea factory, tho profit realised on the coffee is 
considered very satisfactory. 
Tho following is the acreage now uuder tea on tho 
Company's properties 
