December i, 1888.] TH£ TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
407 
and then asks how is cinnamon uiado to pay when 
it sells for B4 per balo less than it costs 10 produce 
ifc V Truly this is a tough problem, and one I am 
glad to say I have not yet been called upon to solve 
iD my experience, though 1 must admit that it has 
been, and is still, a puzzle to me ax to how some 
estates manage to make expenditure and income meet. 
Partial abandonment, no expenditure except ou pre- 
paration, and taking what nature gives under such 
conditions, is the solution to some; but this is at the 
cost of the steady ruin of the property aud less 
iucomu each year. Your correspondent a short 
while ago, in replying to a trenchant attack 
made on him by his Uapitigam rival, twitted 
him with misquoting his words, aud of setting up 
a " man in buckram " that he might have 
the satisfaction of knocking him down. There is an 
old axiom to this effect: "People whe live in glass 
bouses should not throw stones." I said above that 
your correspondent gels his figures by mixing those 
given by the " two old planters ;" this I object to as it 
is not fair to either. " Another Old Planter,'' in 
Notes OU Cinnamon in your " Plauting Moleswortb," 
had left cinnamon planting for over a decade; he 
gives the cost of works at that time when probably 
owing to good priced and better yield, a few rupees 
extra of expenditure per balo was not thought much 
of : it is very different now, and you may remember 
that I sent you a few Note?' ou this subject shortly 
alter the appearance of the "Planting Molesworth." 
Where does your correspondent get his information 
that superintendence is put down at from K12 to 
B16 per acre? Certainly not from the notes of "An 
Old Planter;" there he will find that the "cost of 
upkoep, including superintendence, is given at K13 to 
K15 per acre, — a very different thing to that sum 
In ing put down to superintendence alone. It may 
interest your correspondent to know that superinten- 
dence, weeding and pruuing on the estate " An Old 
Planter" manages, does not cost K12 per acre ; aud 
he is vain enough to think that there Bre few 
estates kept in better order ! I do not think that 
either of the "two old planters" would "look as- 
kance" at your eorrefpoudent for saying that " on 
a well-cultivated aud weli-mauaged estate the yield 
will be more than a bale per acre, aud the expendi- 
ture less than the figures quoted." If he will kindly 
look at the. Notes of " An Old Planter" he will then 
read : " Crop per acre 150 lb. quill bark, old estates 
uit fa many vacancies will not give more than 
ltd) lb. per acre." j think your -correspondent 
would hardly feuture to estimate more than this. 
What handicaps so many of the old estates is the 
large number of vacancies ; aud it is a hopeless 
t.i^k trying to supply these, particularly wh^n the 
soil is very sandy. A proprietor who owns an estate 
that fields 150 lb. quill bark per acre is a lucky indi 
vidual, and shoulu make a fair profit annually. I 
quite agree with your correspondent when he says 
'• an) way the profit from a cinnamon estate in these 
dayi tit low prices is cut very fine, and is hardly 
discernible. " 1 i m afraid the valuation of K300 per 
acre is much too high ; the first value of an estate 
rnn only bo arriveil at by tukiug the average j early 
profit, alter allowing lor proper upkeep aud cultivation, 
una allowing ten years in wLich to pay off the 
purchase money, 'fho only remedy for the low price 
• t i iiiiianion is the discontinuance of preparing chips ; 
almost all the cinnamon property in the island is 
in the hands of natives, anil if large owners would 
■Ombinrand agree, the matter would be fettled at 
° 11C «. 1' ' hopeless however to expect this; they 
have not MitlKu nt coi lidenco in each other to believe 
thai tli" ti no-, of hiit h mi agreement would be honour- 
■Mj carmil out.— Yours truly, 
AN OLD P L ANTE R. 
<- I N S \ M UN I'LAN I I S i . AND Til li LUbT 
OF WOltK. 
Siynne Koiulo, 17th Nov. Ib88. 
l>r ak Sin,— If by mixing up the li^im s ol two "old 
planters" 1 have done your torn -pondi ul an injustice, 
I Brave his pardon. It win uniiiloutioual. 1 must 
apologize to jour correspondent for having uninten- 
tionally credited him with giving E18 to BIG for super- 
intendence alone. It does interest one to know that 
superintendence, weeding, and pruning cost K12 per 
acre ou the estate your correspondent manages. It 
certainly shows careful aud intelligent supervision. 
Put is not the good order of the property your corre- 
spondent manages, due us much to the nature of the 
soil as to careful management? And is not the cheap- 
ness of weeding due to tho same cause ? hut confi- 
dences be mutual. The property I manage is planted 
with coconut and cinnamon and crediting each product 
with half the superintendence, the cost of superintend- 
ence, weeding aud pruning is K15 the acre, and yet I 
cannot say that my estate, at least the cinnamon, is in 
good order as regards cleanliness, the weeds keep grow 
iug at the backs of the weeders. So you see, in spits 
of higher expenditure, I cauuot indulge in the proud 
boast ot your correspondent. With crop at from a bale 
to a bale and a half per acre, all I have to say is that 
if it is meant as a general average it is too high. I 
have known an old estate, as old as the one your cor- 
respondent manages, give two bales the acre once. That 
was many years ago and the figure has never been 
reached again. 1 also kuow a youug estate with bushes 
not '. the diameter of the bushes on old estates, yield 
two bales the acre recently. I attribute it to exceptional 
causes, but I am confident it will yield two bales the 
acre again. But of course these figures are exceptional. 
I am sorry your correspondent thinks my valuation of 
cinnamon land high, and yet only a few years ago a well- 
known estate in his neighbourhood changed hands at 
about three times my figure, and the purchaser was 
said to have made a profit by his purchase : " ilow have 
the mighty lallen." 
I am glad to hear your correspondent thinks the 
remedy lor low prices is the discontinuance of scraping 
chips. I have been always of this opinion and did my 
little best to bring shout this desirable change, and 
have even gone ao far as to give practical evidence of 
my belief by ceasing to scrape chips. I do not go with 
your correspondent aud attribute the continuance of 
this suicidal sys em to native proprietors distrusting 
each other. Men of intelligence and posilion have been 
spoken to and they cannot see, because they will not, 
that the contemptibie sum above ccst thev get tor their 
chips is not profit, but an indirect loss, as it takes away 
from the price of their quilled cinnamun. — Truly yours, 
A YOUNG PLANTliK. 
The Cultivation of Tea in the Gallf Distuict. — 
The cultivation of tea is not oniy rapidly on the in- 
crease in the district, thousands of pouuds being now 
regularly forwarded every two months once to Colombo 
for public sale at the Chamber of Commerce Sales' 
Boom, but it will be seen that its manufacture is well 
understood by the local producers, aud compares very 
favorably with the tea placed on the market from 
other parts of the island, where the conditions of soil 
aud climate are geutrally considered more law ui able 
to its growth. At the Sale ol the lots put up lust 
■\\ eduesilay, by Messrs. Forbes & Walker, it is as well 
to mention that one tea garden alone in Galle, situ- 
ated barely lour miles from the town, contributed 
2,332 lb., and the exceptional quality of the manufacture 
may be gathered from the fact that it prominently 
to| s the market with 72 cents realized for its Broken 
Pekoe, a figure not reached by auy single other estate 
— some twenty- four or thereabouts in nuuiU r — the teas 
of which had been exposed for sale by the same firm 
on the day in question. To prevent mi.-appreheusiou, 
it is right to mention that, taking the bulk of the teas 
(sold last weok by all the five firms of brokers), bear- 
ing the distingu suing marks ot tomo "5 estates in all, 
the price alleged to have been obtained by Mr. B. Johu 
for H'.IJ chests, murk " Mocba," is the i n.j one instance 
in which the sum of 72 cents for Bruken /VAt>< has 
been exceeded, tbi' Vnluo, as given li. II e b-t sod 
publishi d iu your issue of the 31st ultimo, being BO 
cents, which, if not a misprint, • Intended to re- 
present the price real. zed tor Orange l'ekoe. must be 
n figure paid for a splendid lea of the . eacription 
given far above the general run in quahtity. — 
Oidle Ci/r., November otb, Ljcal " fcxaiuiuer." 
