MONTHLY 
Vol. VIII. 
COLOMBO, MAY ist, 1889. 
LNo. 11. 
MR. J. G. LEAR AND TEA AT NUWARA 
ELIYA. 
HEN we ("senior editor") 
arrived in Ceylon in November 
1837, Mr. J. G. Lear was 
already some months in the 
island as a plant collector for 
Mr. Knight, the great Chel- 
sea nurseryman. On the death 
of Mr. Watson Mr. Lear acted for a time in charge 
of the Peradeniya Gardens. He was subsequently 
connected with coffee planting and subsidiary 
pursuits, until ill-health drove him from the island. 
Then we heard of him in connection with the 
establishment at Malvern, but for a long time we 
had lost sight of our good old friend, and we 
thought it possible he had gone over to the majority. 
But he is still to the ;fore, as a letter recently re- 
ceived from another former Ceylon resident shows : — 
" I occasionally see some old Ceylon residents. Dur- 
ing the ' summer I had a visit from a very old 
gentleman named Mr. J. G. Lear. He says he was one 
of the pioneers of the coffee enterprise in your is- 
land, having opened the first coffee estates in Hunas- 
giriya. In 1837 he planted at Nuwara Eliya the first 
tea bushes that were ever planted in Ceylon. He 
was subsequently Curator of the Peradeniya Gardens. 
On my asking him if he knew Mr. A. M. Ferguson, 
his reply was : ' A6 well as my own brother.' He 
also mentioned Dr. Elliott. I enclose a note he wrote 
me after his return to Malvern. His wife was also 
with • him ; they are two dear old people, and it was 
a real pleasure to chat with them. They must be 
■ very old, but they look hale and hearty, and good 
for another ten years." 
In this letter came a note to the writer from Mr. 
Lear, who, we gather from the heading of the 
paper, had established a business with his son, 
at Malvern, as auctioneers, house and land agents, 
assurance agents, &c. Mr. Lear wrote :— 
" I beg to return you the 4 copies of tho Oeylon 
paper you have been kind onough to lend me ; I 
have been much interested in reading them, the 
whole country being so changed since I was familiar 
with it. Please don't forget to remember me very 
kindly to Mr. Ferguson when you write him." 
On receiving the above letters we wrote to Dr. 
Trimen, telling him our recollections of our 
old friend, Mr. Lear, and asking if the tea plants 
put down in Nuwara Eliya could be traced. It 
will be seen that Dr. Trimen answered in the 
negative (that is our reading of his note), and we 
would now ask if any members of the Cotton or 
Kellow families, or any other old residents in 
Nuwara Eliya, remember anything of the matter, 
or whether any of the tea bushes are still in ex- 
istence. The following is Dr. Trimen's interesting 
response to our inquiries: — 
" I am quite surprised to learn that J. G. Lear is 
still in the land of the living. Your reminiscences of 
him are correct. He was sent out as collector by 
Knight, the then great Chelsea nurseryman; and after 
"Watson's death in 1838, he was appointed officiating 
Superintendent of the Botanic Gardens iu September 
of that year and continued toaot till the arrival of Nor- 
mansell in Jan. 1840. 
"Lear left his mark on the Gardens by planting the 
fine grbve of palms at the entrance. 
" The handsome oonvolvulaceous plant .named after 
him, ipoma>a Learii, appeared in Knight's houses and 
was supposed to have been the produce of seeds sent 
from Ceylon by Lear. This was, however, probably 
an error, as the plant is South American and not 
known here. 
" All I know about the introduction of tea in Nuwara 
Eliya is given in my report for 1886. It appears that 
in May 1840 some Assam plants were put out there 
and a man placed in charge. He may have been Lear. 
" I am sorry to have disturbed your mind as to the 
giant bamboo,* but I am not easy myself. The fact 
is it seems there are two giant bamboos, and I am not 
quite clear as to which we have. I have however this 
year obtained the ' other one,' Dendrocalamvs Bran- 
disii, the true Burma one, and shall see in due course 
whether it be really different to what we have already 
(D. gigantevs). " 
We remember hearing that Mr. Lear got £50 
from Knight for introducing the creeper referred 
to, the blossoms of which are so beautiful that 
a lady visiting Knight's garden and seeing it in 
bloom burst into tears at the sight of such ex- 
quisite loveliness. Lear opened land in Hunas- 
giriya for a company got up by Messrs. Crowe 
& Co. 
* We had expressed our surprise that in the Hand- 
book of the Peradeniya Gardens, Malacca and not 
Burma should have been given as the habitat of the 
great bamboo. — En. 
