460 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [November i, 1881. 
appear in the middle of November. I know that 
placing the young plants in baskets is not an ab- 
solute protection, but it is the only means of saving 
them I have discovered. When the plants are put 
out in the field, they continue cutting the stems, 
till they are eight or nine inches high, after which 
they begin to cut the leaves. A circle of green leaves 
stuck in round the plants is a partial protection, 
but only so long as they remain green, and they 
are quite as bad in new as in old land. Plants 
once cut, they return to again and again, season 
after season, and they follow no rule as to where 
they attack. All parts suffer alike in the course of 
the season, and the plants are not fairly out of 
danger till they are over one foot in height. As 
some lands are entirely free from this pest, I believe 
it is a speciality of soil that suits them. They bur- 
row deep down (sometimes as much as eighteen in- 
ches) and they can only do so in a light sandy 
loam. It is the same soil that suits the batali, 
and the earthworm. Our jungle is an impenetrable 
thicket of the one, and eeveral inches of our surface 
soil consists of the castings of the other. So far as 
I can judge, these insects have no enemies. They only 
leave their burrows at night, and we have no terres- 
trial insectivore of nocturnal habits. The hedgehog 
would be an exceedingly useful creature among them ; 
but we have neither that nor any other creature 
of like habits. 
The soil, however, that suits batali, earthworms, 
and crickets, seems equally suited to Liberian 
coffee, so that we must, as the old proverb has 
it, "lay the head of the girse to the tail of the 
sow," and thus we may work out a tolerable result 
from the given factors. Besides, a close observation 
of the facts and constant reflection on them may, 
by-and-bye, result in the discovery of some mitigating 
appliances that will, in some degree, stay the waste 
of plants that has bo seriously affected our progress here. 
The coffee still continues to grow rapidly, making 
two branches a month : the older trees seem, how- 
ever, to have called a halt, in their vertical exten- 
sion, at from five to six feet, and are now giving 
themselves chiefly to lateral growth. 
Leaf disease is not ex bending. I still stump any plant 
that I find it on, prior to branching, but my eye spares 
one in full growth with several pairs of branches, and 
leaves more extensive than a lady's bonnet ; as I find 
it is the small-leaved varieties on which it perman- 
ently fixes. 
The whiteants have, in a great measure, moderated 
their attacks on the young cacao, but the crickets 
are now cutting a good many of tbem, and, as the 
nursery plants are safe and thriving where they are, 
I am not anxious to expose them in the field till 
the cricket season is over, and I am in hopes that 
the liming I propose to give them in planting will 
deter the ants till the ground settles about them. 
The white ants always make a minute examination 
of any newly moved soil, in search of anything that 
may suit them, and to establish their runs against 
dry weather. 
We have had such frequent, if not very heavy, 
rains during the last five months, that weeding has been 
a rather serious matter. We have got pretty well clear 
of the special jungle weeds, but have in their place 
the goat weed, and several other troublesome annuals. 
The worst enemy however and the most persistent is 
pasture grass, of many species, that if left to nature, 
would in a few months turn the property into ex- 
cellent feeding ground for cows and oxen. 
1 sowed ten thousand coffee seeds about ten clays 
ago in the sheds, and as I treated them with a good 
dose of quicklime I will be able to report its effects 
in due time. ' 
I have 3| acres of new clearing ready for plant- 
ing, with twelve chains of cart road, a bambu 
fence of ten chains, all the ant-hills levelled down, 
with some draining and embanking ; all at the mode- 
rate cost in coolie labour of R63. If I had got a 
good fire, I would have saved five rupees of this out- 
lay. The 27 x 24 inch holes have still to be filled up, 
and the batali roots to be extracted, which will 
bring the whole cost of the acres up to R100, 
or say R30 per acre. I have made this a test piece, 
to ascertain the lowest figure for which an acre of 
Liberian coffee could be put down by Tamil labour ; 
but it has cost a good deal of personal exertion, 
and the consumption of a good deal of extra beer. 
To enjoy beer a fellow wants to be out in the 
field all day in this climate, keeping his eye on all 
that is going on, bullying, coaxing, scowling, warn- 
ing, instructing and in desperate cases cuffing. Then 
wending his weary way home, he immediately, on 
arrival, has a vessel ready t'.iat will hold a whole 
bottle, and empties it at a draught. Jove never so 
much enjoyed the nectar handed by Hebe, as the old 
planter eujoys that draught of be'tr. Far be it from 
me to advise young planters to forswear tea, coffee, 
cocoa, and other such innocent beverages, aud addict 
themselves to beer, but I state a fact as it concerns 
myself ; though from necessary economy I am ob- 
liged to do without it, for the most part. 
It seems as if the various departments of Govern- 
ment do not work together for the general benefit. 
This estate is beginning to have some traffic with 
Colombo, and it became necessary for me to consider 
how it was to be conducted moat economically. We 
have a railway station within 7£ miles, and I have 
no complaint against the charges made by that in- 
stitution ; in fact, so far as the railway is concerned, 
there can be no competition, but it has pleased the 
Provincial Road Committee to establish two tolls 
within three miles of each other, and if I send an 
empty cart to bring a load from the station I have to 
pay at both tolls, first going and then returning 
Rl'38 for a single load, using 7£ miles of minor 
road. The toll ordinance provides, that a cart pass- 
ing a toll with a load shall be free when return- 
ing empty the same day, but it makes no provision 
in favour of a cart that passes empty and returns 
the same day with a load, though I fad to discover 
any reason for making a difference. The two tolls 
in question belong to two different minor roads, the 
junction of which is well within half a mile of the 
railway station, and the grievance of this neighbour- 
hood could be easily remedied, by moving the one 
beyond the junction on its own line or franking the 
one by payment at the other. Till one or other of 
these courses be adopted by the P. R. C, I will, in 
common with my native neighbours, conduct the traffic 
of this estate by cart altogether, and save something 
over a rupee on each load. It is not the only in- 
stance in this province in which the Road Committees 
wink at toll-renters, establishing themselves at points 
where they can intercept the traffic, on roads already 
amply supplied with those institutions, but in this 
case a not inconsiderable amount of traffic is forced 
away from the railway by the multiplying of tolls 
on the roads leading to it. If the Provincial Com- 
mittee would make a regulation, that, where any two 
tolls are within five or six miles of each other, pay- 
ment at one shall frank the other, the public would 
be satisfied ; but if that or some other equally just 
arrangement be not made, and that soon, there will 
be agitation on the matter that may not not be suc- 
cessful, but will certainly be troublesome. I can, in 
some cases, travel nearly twenty miles, and come 
across only one toll, but here are two to pay withia 
three miles, 
