February i, 1889.J THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
529 
♦ 
To the Editor. 
TEA (A HEADY MONEY PRODUCT) VS. COFFEE 
(WHICH NECESSITATED BOKR j\VI NG). 
Gampola, lOlh January ISS'j. 
Dkar Mb. Editor, — Coffee vs. tea has been 
muddling in my brain for years. I begin to feel 
I have got out of the turbid waters into the crystal 
stream. My old love fc r coffee was strong ; I partook 
of its prosperity and also of its adversity, and with 
matured years now over ray head I can see the 
rock many of ua were wrecked on. The hopeful, 
honest, hardworking planter (benefactor indeed), 
a man trying to make two blades of grass grow 
where only one grew before, is now sometimes 
pointed at by the cynic, who says my estate paid 
all through, had everyone been like me, &c, &c. 
Yes, cynic I say, had it been so, the blades of grass 
might have yearly grown fewer and fewer ; you 
can't claim being a benefactor. So I must write 
you down cynic. 
Well tea is a ready money business : overy careful 
man oan month by month balance his aocount 
and know to a cent how he stands. 
Coffee was a credit business, and careful be 
you ever so much ("unles a cynic") who left 
things to chanop, and nature, taking thankfully or 
otherwise what Providence sent him " and sticking 
to the bawbees," his small mind saying to him 
" put not thy money to usury." 
Well, that coffee, which men toiled at late and 
early, waking and sleeping thoughts being, how 
can I honestly increase my returns, and call on 
mother earth to yield me her treasures ; I will 
enrich her fertility by ndding C. C. andB.s says one; 
another says I will builil me cow houses and fill 
them with fattening kine, and have mountains of 
C. D> to apply: all this waking and sleeping 
thoughts required the wherewithal to bring them 
into practice. Poor but doomed coffee becoming 
ui'iuiwliil. woiih 1 'JO shillings a ewl., banks 
an l capitalists even became imbued with the 
honest coffee planter's visions of beneficent earth, 
and freely handed him their hoarded wealth, which 
In- hopetully converted into C. C. and B.s or C. D. 
mid applied in full hope, all would soon be re- 
turned to hiiu with usury. However in the midst 
of this onchantiiiK vision another factor came in, 
w hoso name was H. V., aud said, " You have been 
llagranlly transgressing God's laws, in spreading 
broadcast, over this land your c flee, and that 
only ; you have been wantonly trying to nourish 
it with borrowed capital : neither are in accordance 
with divine rulo. You have even transgressed 
nature's laws, of which 1 am a creature induced 
through your maladministration. I will in due 
time wipe out your transgressions, and set nature's 
balance right again." What became of all the 
sunk capital Each one kuows his own tale. After 
the long weary years ho waited for tho expected 
blossoming, which never came, with the bank- 
ers uccouiit rolling itself up, interest to 
capital. So much for the credit system. Had 
the earnest mon been dealing with tea, they would 
have (ought the enemy with lire and sword, and 
exterminated him, the deep roots of the tea would 
have Hcnt up again now branches and in :t months 
the livid* would have been nolothed, and mouth 
by month tho banker's account would have received 
a credit instead of a debit entry. So muoh for 
Ci'lTl-c ViTSUS I'll 
Lot tho now born prosperity not blind us to 
our errors of thu past J feed and nourish your teu, 
bringing your best judgment to play ; use your 
own oapiul, fueling you art safe (or a return, 
67 
as you have in hand a ready money concern. Use 
every means to send into market a real good 
honest article which will grow in public favour, 
and you will soon have seen the last of John 
Chinaman as a rival ; British capital will 
then flow to India and Ceylon, instead of to 
China to purchase their adulteratims. — Y mrs 
faithfully. OLD PLANTER. 
PEPPER GRuW ING~~ 
Liskilleen, Neboda, loth Jan. 
Dear Sir, — I was glad to read Mr. Martin's in- 
teresting letter on pepper. During my visit to Perak 
and Province Wellesley I visited several pepper 
gardens cultivated by Achinese who had left their 
country on account of the war, and had obtained 
free grants of land from the Straits Government. 
They grow their vines on the dadap tree, planted 
about 8 to 10 feet apart. 
This tree stands any amount of hacking, and they 
can therefore regulate the shading. This tree grows 
all about this district, and is used by the Sinhalese 
for fencing their gardens. It is very easily pro- 
pagated from seed or cuttings. This may prove 
useful to some of your readers. I tried very hard 
to buy good [pepperj cuttings from the Achinese, but 
they would not sell at any price. They offered any 
amount of runners ; these seem to keep on 
growing in a single shoot and won't bear. 
They do not manure their v nes ; the reason they 
give is they run all to leaf. — Yours faithfully, 
PRIOR S. PALMER. 
KURAKKAN, RICE, AND OTHER FARINACEOUS 
FOODS : THEIR RELATIVE MERITS. 
Kandy, 15th Jan. 1889. 
Dear Sir, — 1 am glad to see that the food-supply 
of the people is now under discussion, and I think 
we have reason to be thankful to Mr. Borron for 
his letter which manifests a kindly interest in the 
welfare of the inhabitants of this island. 
In your article of tho 12th inst., on Kurakkan 
as a Food," you are apparently inclined to think 
that some medical men have a prejudice against the 
consumption of this millet, and that they are of 
opinion that it is " a direct cause of the wasting 
and loathsome disease known as parangi." 
In February 1808, as Colonial Surgeon of Jaffna, 
I was appointed " to report on tho subjeot of the 
depopulation of the Wauui district as recommended 
by the Irrigation Commission." My instructions 
were, " the disease commonly known by the term 
parangi, will naturally become the special object of 
your inquiry, its history, the variety of its symptoms 
from its earliest stages to its termination, its in- 
fluence on the health and longevity of the popula- 
tion, its predisposing causes in regard to the habits, 
customs, diet, Ac. of the people," Ax. In carrying 
out the inquiry, I found that I was able to get 
little assistance from previous writers. " Marshall's 
Notes on the Medical Topography of Coylon " aud 
" Ainslio's Materia India" were about the only 
books in which I could find any information. My 
sport " On the Depopulation of the Wanni District " 
was sent to the P. C. M. 0. in August 1808 ; it 
was laid before the Legislative Council and ordered 
to be printed. It has been reprinted us an appen- 
dix in Dr. KynBoy's exhaustive roport on " The 
Parangi Disease of Ceylon," one of the sessional 
papers for L881. 
I was inclined to consider parang,! iuease partly 
as tho result of a constitutional vice ; but the 
more influontial causes were stated as follows: - 
" Hut while expressing my conviction that parangi 
disease is to some extent a constitutional affec- 
tion, 1 bclicvo that other causes huvo a powerful 
ir.llueuco on the development of the symptoms 
and aggravation of the complaint. It require. 
