4i6 
THE. TROPICAL AGRSCULTURIST. [December i, 1888. 
Bobertson traced his wondrous road.* Or away 
farther down tbe valley where in bygone days 
Ceylon's " Vicar of Wakefield " ploughed with the 
Sinhalese by day and meekly watched them bteal 
his clothes at night. Will tea prove remunerative 
on these patanas ? 
Old Knuckles bricks are not afraid of their 
" pakum." The sheltered valley that so oft echoed 
the rich basso tones of poor old Criiwell will 
over be green, while the hills of Lebanon so long 
and so carefully cultivated by A. G. K. B. must 
prove a valuable tea totum. Battagala and Moora- 
galle will also give good accounts of themselves, but 
I would be interested to hear how tea answers 
amongst the rocks of Gangemulle and Katooloya. 
Goomera — old and new, — will do, and so will 
Tunisagalla, while Lovegrove in the warm valley 
beyond will just be "lovely," as the Yankee 
maiden would say. Duckwari — erstwhile the 
noblest and most misused of coffee watties — will 
doubtless now renew its verdure ; but Eangala men 
of old will be anxious to learn how the quartzy 
ridges on Loonagalla, which early in the sixties gave 
such bumper crops, now promise under tea ? 
From Loonagalla to Medamahanuwara seems but 
a hop-skip-and-jump, but it is a pretty stiff mor- 
ning's walk I know. Here during the fifties reigned 
Eagar, the Observer's friend, followed by Forsyth the 
great financier. Bound the corner is Dodangalla, 
for so many years a bone of contention, below 
which lies the wattie poor Hinck lost ; but I am 
thinking of a wattie stretching beyond this, where 
that hardy son of the soil Hugh B. so long and 
so faithfully served his not always too appreci- 
ative 'Jirrum ;' and I wonder how tea will do on 
Woodside ? t 
From this point we look down upon Dumbara, and 
Dumbara looks down upon tea, I am told ; but if 
the modern salamanders could be induced to 
turn dear old B. B. T's. pump upon a field of care" 
fully planted tea I 'd much like to see the result, 
Bight opposite lies Hewaheta, and here there is 
always Hope, while the district generally has been 
proved suitable for the production of full-flavoured 
leaf ; but not far round the corner there is a 
straggling sister upon which old Piduru pitilessly 
blows his coldest and fiercest blasts, and I am now 
more particularly concerned to hear of her pros- 
pects. I select as a test the spot where poor 
Middleton decided "life was not worth living and 
where W. W. W. was wont once a week to walk 
forth in all the splendour and dignity of his 
full-dress togs. Yes, I should like to know if 
tea will prove remunerative on Mandara Newra. 
If so, my mind is easy as regards the rest of the 
district, and I congratulate Goodwood and Gonapatia 
as I move onwards, only hoping the ways of this 
locality have been improved. I fain would turn 
eastward into Walapana, though there is no room 
for any doubt as to this favoured spot, and I know 
full well that whatever is cultivated, will be culti- 
vated to the best possible advantage by our old 
friend J. B., who, if not the most sanguine, is one 
of the very best practical planters ever imported. 
I now look towards the thrice happy hills of 
Haputale where the game old king dies so hard, 
but die he must, alas ! and it is high time old 
ilaputale-hands were introduced to his succes- 
sor. There is nothing to fear here : from the 
eastmost point, where " Ad Beferendum " indited 
his lengthy letters, to the veritable Nonpareil 
* One of tlie finest bits of tea in tbe Northern 
districts, or indeed, in the island of its age: "Old 
Colonist " had not got our letter in tho Observer when 
he wrote. — Ed. 
f Isotyot tried: " tottum is available for "Old 
Colonist " to buy at " prairie " value, probably. — Ed. 
in the west, there is not an acre under coffee which 
will not under tea take what little shine there is out 
of many of th6 mouldy districts in the C. P. There 
is, however an immense tract of land on the inter- 
mediate ranges, from Wellawaya westwards, which 
it would be interesting to know what it is fit for — 
tea or cotton ? Of opened land, take for instance 
the spot where poor Handyside felled the jungle 
by mistake and the still more terribly unfortunate 
de Boos struggled so long, and just say if tea thrives 
on " Naoola." 
But I must hurry onwards : it is a long road to 
Bakwana, and my friends there are already looking 
out for me. Grand old Haldummulla on the one 
hand and Kalupahana on the other bring back 
pleasing memories of the Sixties when the shrewd 
P might have been seen posturing in front of 
his massive mirrors long ere he dreamt of piping 
to the P. A. on behalf of the Great Disinterested 
Tea-Selling Assurance Company of N.Y.I 
I must not, however, gojoff at a tangent, and will 
not even stop to look at Balangoda, familiar as 
every acre is to me. My present object is to see 
Barra flat, the first tea planted south of Adam's 
Peak ; and a more crucial test could not have been 
tried. I will not presume to inquire about returns — it 
is enough, that it lives, and I am glad to hear 
the produce is being specially prepared for the 
Yankee palate; [Barra flat with China tea 20 
years old yields 4001b. an acre, while 600 to 700 lb. 
are got over a wide area of hybrid. — Ed.] I 
have only one more question to ask at this time. 
Does tea thrive satisfactorily on Booloototte, the 
spot where giants of old buried the trunks of forest 
trees ? If bo, there is much hope for Kookoola, 
and I pass on to Morawaka, very familiar ground 
to me, and I know much better suited for tea than 
ever it was for coffee. There is a peculiarity in 
the soil of the tongal totum called Goshen where 
the sweater's friend developed his scientific manur- 
ing, and I 'd much like to know if tea has been 
tried here. I must now halt, purposing a flight 
through Dikoya, Dimbula, Pussellawa, and Kotmale, 
&c, in my next, 
♦ 
Cinchona. — Sir, — The analyses and yield per acre 
of "Cinchona Officinalis" and "C. Robusta" given 
by "L. W. G." in your issue of the 30th Oct., would 
be considered low in the Kanan Devan District, North 
Travancore. AVe have no " Succirubra" or " Ledge- 
riana" to speak of, so I can say nothing one way or 
the other concerning them from actual results. Back 
volumes of the " Tropical Agriculturist" will give 
your correspondent figures to compare with his 
own. — A. F. M. — Madras Mail. 
The Cucumbeb Flea. Beetle. — The latest thing in 
sensational report on insect pests (says a writer in 
the Standard) is one of what appears to be supposed 
by certain American journals to be a new enemy to 
the potato-crop. The cucumber flea beetle (Halti- 
cacucumeris) a member of tbe genus to which our 
mischievous turnip flea beetle belongs, has spoiled a 
large acreage of potatoes in New York States this 
season, by puncturing the leaves till the vitality of 
the plants was destroyed. The notoriety of the Co- 
lorado potato beetle is supposed to have paled before 
that of the new pest, because while the former suc- 
cumbs to Paris green as a poison, the latter is said 
to have resisted all attempts to kill it. All this 
shows, as Miss Ormerod reminds us, that our American 
friends do not make sufficient use of the valuable 
publications of their noted entomologist, Professor 
Riley, who, in his official report for 1884, mentioned 
the insect in qestion as known to attack the leaves 
of potatoes. Probably from the lack of more suit- 
able food the pest has been driven to attack the 
potatoes to an exceptional extent this season, and it 
may be a long time before much mischief is again 
done by it.— Indian Agriculturist. 
