558 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [December i, 1881. 
hand-prune twice besides. Wherever you see leaf dis- 
ease coming mix 1 of woodash and 1 of country 
unslacked lime and throw freely both over and under 
the tree. In all cases, the fight must be fought by 
the superintendent who is on the spot. One practical 
man in each district can do more than all the visit- 
ing agents, who, no doubt, are all good men, but are 
not on the spot. J. H. 
A HORTICULTURIST'S ENQUIRY. 
Down South. 
Dear Sir, — I shall feel thankful to your subscribers 
who have flower gardens for their experience as to ihe 
most siicce-sful way of propagating rose-trees by plant- 
ing their -lips or cuttings. I have tried several methods 
to gain my end, but they have invariably resulted in 
failure— so much so that I :im unable to replace the 
tea-roses I have at present (by fresh ones), which are 
dying out, being old. 
I am aware that in the Central Province and Mora- 
wak Koralethey are grown without much care or effort, 
hut this is due to the mild climate of those places, 
which gardeners down south cannot unhappily boast 
of.— Yours faithfully, TEA-ROSE. 
COFFEE CULTIVATION AND MANURING. 
Dear Sir, — Mr. Jas. Sinclair's letter, in your issue 
of the 25th, is interesting, as showing the feeling which 
is working among us for a more scientific system of 
agriculture than has hitherto been practised. There 
are some points in his letter which I should like to 
take notice of, in the hope that discussion may create 
additional interest in the subject, and that, out of it, 
a more generally sound system of manuring may be 
deduced . 
The idea of using more than one application of man- 
ure in a year is one which occurred to me some years 
ago, after having studied the work of Messrs. Lawes 
and Gilbert at Rothamstead. I gave it up, however, 
after a few small trials, as practically inapplicable to 
coffee, and for the last two years I have been working 
in a direction which I think more likely to be pro- 
ductive of result, viz., to the production of a manure 
which will act continuously upon the coffee through- 
out the entire twelvemonths. I must join issue with 
Mr. Sinclair, when he says that it is well-known that 
Ceylon soils are rich in a low compound of iron which 
has the pow< r of rendering unaixtilable the food which 
m iy be given to the plant in the most available form. 
I did not know 'hat such was the case, nor do I think 
that it is so. Peroxide of iron, in which form most 
of the irou in our soils, is, I believe, to be found, is 
beneficial rather than the reverse, being a fixer of the 
more valuable constituents of manure, and thus pre- 
venting their waste. If sufficient iron in a noxious 
form were present in our soils, the coffee would be 
found not to grow on such soils, whereas the higher 
percentage of iion is generally to be found associated 
with superior coffee. If I am correct, the necessity 
for the frequent application of quicklime to our Cey- 
lon soils would uot be so evident. I would wish to 
caution planters against the indiscriminate use of lime, 
which I have before urged in the Tropical, Agricult- 
urist. Lime, applied without very careful considera- 
tion of the results which are desired to be attained, 
is apt to be injurious, though the ill effects may take 
time to show themselves, and at best it should always 
be looked upon as the preparation for subsequent 
manuring. Is not Mr. Sinclair somewhat hard upon 
the visiting agents? Itmay be the case that some among 
ih< m. instead of being ahead of the times, as they ever 
should be, are living upon a past reputation, but 
surely such is not the case with all or even the greater 
number. For my own part, I would rather have my 
estate unmauured than manured haphazard and with- 
out imy judgment ; for unscientific manuring has, I 
believe, done as much as anything to put coflVe into 
such a condition that it succumbs to leaf-disease, and 
the Colombo agents are naturally distrustful when 
they find that certain applications of manure are at- 
tended with negative, or, perhaps, positive evil results. 
Air. Marshall Ward's report is calculated to be of 
great practical benefit to tho;e who will study it care- 
fully and follow his suggestions, and I may add that 
his deductions seem to be borne out by and to explain 
the results of my own experiments, and probably those 
to many others, who will, I hope, give us the benefit of 
fheir experience.— Yours faithfully, CULTIVATOR. 
[We certainly do not sympathize with any in- 
discriminate attack on Visiting Agents. But docs not 
our correspondent's argument seem to tell against 
the present system by which a planter who has gained 
his experience, perhaps in one or two adjacent dis- 
tricts, is made Visitor of Estates and adviser of pro- 
prietors whose interests are scattered over the whole 
hill-country from Matale toBadulla? If it were pos- 
sible, we « ould prefer to see the experience and abil- 
ity of Visiting Agents utilized more particularly in 
those districts with which they are best acquainted. 
Of course, sensible men make their visits to plantations 
worked by careful and experienced planters, a matter 
of form, but in other cases has uot the judgment of 
the estate manager been overruled to the detriment 
of t he property ? — Ed. ] 
MANITOBA AND CEYLON PLANTERS. 
1st Nov. 1881. 
Dear Sir, — I have received a letter from a Ceylou 
planter who went to try his luck in the Far West, 
and it may be interesting to some of your readers to 
know a little of what he says about farming in Manitoba, 
He writes : — " Since arriving here, I have been 
looking about for some laud, and have now fixed 
on a lot of 330 acres. Of that, I get a free grant of 
160 acres from Government, and 160 I get at 10s 
an acre, and am allowed ten years to pay it by in- 
stalments. In Winnipeg I met two Morayshire men, 
and we all started off together for upc.uutry. We 
bought a tent and provision, and when night came 
on camped out. We were a fortnight on the road ; 
so you may suppose I have seen a' good deal of the 
country. Both these men have taken land beside mine, 
320 acres each. My land is a mile from the railway, 
which is to be opened next year. Several farmers, 
who have seen the land, say I am very lucky in get- 
ting such a good bit. I am well supplied with water, 
having a stream running through my land, and can 
get plenty of duck and snipe shooting, and prairie 
fowls in any number. There are very few farms opened 
out so far west as I am, but next spring I expect 
the land round about will be bought up fast. What 
I have seen of the country I like very much indeed, 
and the land I have seen crops on is splendid. I 
hope, in a year or two, to be independent, and be, 
able to take a run home to Scotland. The work will 
be a little rough at first, until I get a house built, 
and some crop in, but nothing but what any one could 
stand. 
" There is always plenty of work to be had here, 
and the lowest pay one gets just now is two dollars 
a day ; so that a man can soon save a little money, u 
think any one who is steady and willing to work, 
could be independent in a few years, although he 
had not a penny to start with. You can tell all those- 
who are out of billets in Ceylon that they will get- 
plenty employment here, if th y are willing to work, 
and would soon be able to have farms of their own, and 
be independent. "—Yours truly, PLANTER. 
