December i, 1888.] THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
427 
CEYLON UPCOUNTBY PLANTING REPORT : 
THE ENTERPRISING MOORMAN AND COFFEE — CACAO 
RIPENING — A FAMOUS CACAO TREE — QRAND WEATHER 
FOR TEA. 
20th November, 1888. 
The enterprising Moorman is out on the prowl 
at present after col'iee. If you have a few bushels 
of husk to dispose of, or a heap of " tails" or light, 
you have no end of these insinuating follows up 
about, wanting to buy, whose anxiety to relieve 
you of your produce is hardly in keeping with 
the tales they tell, of a fall in the price, and a 
general dulness in tho market. They li: ten to your 
unvarnished account of things in an attitude bor- 
dering between the sceptical and the out-and-out 
unbelieving; and when you reject their highest bid, 
and tell them that in coffee at present to wail is 
likely to win, and that your price is so-and-so, 
and to that you will hold, they turn their attention 
to something else — tea, cacao, bark, or even old 
newspapers, — but they come back to the coffee again 
as prime favourite. In coffee dealing there is so 
very much scope for the fine art of manipulation 
that there is no wonder that tho Moorman has a 
passion for trafficking in it. It has been to the 
followers of the Prophet an education ; and now 
that coffee is in a state of decline, and the op- 
portunities for trading in it yearly becoming more 
limited, I expect we shall find that, as a result, 
tho Moorman will become less sharp. There is 
no other product that 1 know of that could lend itself 
so readily to develope ihe genius of tho Moor, 
and whet him to such a keen edge, as coffee. Tea ? 
it is nowhere in the race : you can't take much 
liberties thero without being found out, and "blacks " 
and stones would hardly pass. In cinchona there 
would be a very fine held, except that the 
analyst is always about as a last appeal. Cacao 
is all but hopeless — indeed when collee finally goes 
there will dio with it a wealth of world's wisdom 
of a kind which has been collected, evolved, and 
rendered effective in the upbuilding and downfall 
of several generations of tambics as they went 
on trading from year to year. It is melancholy 
to think that all the dodges which raised the deal- 
ing in coffee to be one of the line arts are now 
passing away, and will, in time, be forgotten for 
want of a proper field to exercise in. 
The little that remains of ooffee on this side ha3 
not done so well this year as it did last, and the 
estimates, which were certainly moderate enough, 
aro likely to bo somewhat short. We were terribly 
stricken with leaf-disease a few months ago, and, 
although wo have now got over that, still I have 
no doubt that our short crop is partly to be 
attributed to the bullying of the fungus. Prices 
however are good, and any kind of trash which has 
any kind of relationship to good coffee is readily 
competed for and at good rates. Husk, mostly 
gathered from the tips of withered branches, is selling 
at R.O a bushel, which is certainly a fine price. The 
Moorman who buys your first lot always loses 
money. I have found this to be invariably tho oase. 
You first hear of it through your coolies, who can 
givo you tho exact number of rupees tho trader has 
dropped: then your carpenter tolls you, and then 
Bomoone else. It 's an old dodge, to choko off in- 
tending buyers of any later parcel, and gives a 
kind of footing for a fresh tussle as to price, when 
another transaction is being arranged. 
Cacao is ripening, and showing a good saniplo. 
Homo places will do very well ; others I know are 
not so fortunuto. Wherever the trees havo boon 
highly manured, thero as a rulo, you have good 
results. Thoso who don't cultivato highly have to 
bo content with poor returns, and tho longer you ] 
havo oxporionoo of oacao, the stronger will be your I 
faith in "muck." The trees aro not by any means 
free of pests, and the amount of borers your 
" poochi"-hunting gang will produce in a day 
tells of the necessity of constant watchfulness. 
A man whose place was not doing remarkably 
well and who was somewhat cast down in conse- 
quonce had his spirits wonderfully raised by seeing 
a caoao tree, said to be forty years old, loaded with 
fruit. He came to the conclusion that all that his 
estate wanted to change its character for the better, 
was time, and with that he was conforted. 
The weather we are having is grand for tea, and 
most planters are busy enough. It has been a 
wonderfully line year for the high places, but 
those at medium and low elevations have not 
fared so well. Although pulling up now, the lsng- 
continued dry weather we had through so many 
months of tho year has given us a good deal to 
make up, which alas ! in many cases won't be 
lone. It is pretty clear that a season good for 
the whole tea zone is a thing pretty nearly im- 
possible. IVvnaps it is as well that it should be 
so, as our tea c «-j)erts are growing fast enough 
even under the presen„ .- Rawing of the seasons. 
— It is like the usual energy- d Ceylon men, the 
efforts that have been lately made u> secure good 
tobacco seed. You hear of seed got "'win this 
country and the other : indeed I fancy that there 
is hardly any place where tobacco has been suc- 
cessfully grown, that indents have not been sent. 
Every man cherishes his own as most precious. 
It is clear that the enterprise will not fail for 
want of push. Peppercorn. 

CEYLON TEA FOR THE MILLION. 
A SUGGESTION TO SELLERS. 
A planter sends us a capital model for a tea-dealer's 
circular or poster, which we have no doubt will be 
utilized by many sellers of our teas who will see it 
iu our Overland Observer. He writes: — "If I sold tea 
at home I would have such a bill iu large typo done 
for the wiudow, and small bills to wrap up with every 
pound of tea sold. All honest vendors cf Oeylou tea 
should be supplied with them by the thousand." The 
suggestion is as follows: — 
TEA, 
A SUGGESTION. 
Is it not a fact that many well-known vendors ot 
tea have built up their enormous trade, and large for. 
tunes, simply by means of their persistent advertise- 
ments? Such advertisements stare us in the face in 
almost every home paper we open ; while other noto- 
rious means are resorted to iu every town iu Eugland 
to induce the people to buy the wretched China con- 
gous. Should not our Association take a lesson from 
this fact, aud raise a fund to be expended solely in 
continuous advertisements ? as thus : — 
TEA. ! TEA ! ! TEA ! ! ! 
To the People. 
Be van of the tea you drink '. Particularly be- 
ware of cheap tea. More lies are told by vendors 
of tea in their fAnvi m 'iskmkni's, than of any other 
commodity, cheap china teas aro weak, worthless, 
aud pithy ; and would not be drinkable but for the 
very small quantity of niilTIsu-onowN teas generally 
blended with them. 
These one or two ounces in a pound aro all the 
valne you get for your niouoy ! 
Say at one shilling a pound you tf«t l'J or. of DIRT 
mixed with I oi. of British-grown tea' 
so that you pay for tho real stulf at the rate of -la 
pound! at Inst! 
WiihHKAs by insisting upou being served with GOOD 
miu i isii-GiiOu n ita you cau buy the hi:al tea for 
Bd n li>., unmixed with dirt from ('mm ! 
1 1 OH many ot your ailnieuts, do you suppose, can bo 
•rio. d to your ual'it of drinking filthy, low-priced 
hiua tea r 
