57o 
THE. TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [December r, x88i 
fessional fetched the tip-top prices of the London j 
market, in January last? Who will then be sur- 
prised to know that already there are thousands of 
acres being taken up for tea, and men on the spot 
to commence operations. Any one who will have 
tasted a cupful of Johore tea before it conns 
in contact with spurious imitations, will sarely 
never forget to take care of his dollars until 
he has got in lv's own few acres Land is cheap 
and every encouragement is held ont to intend- 
ing investors. I understand His Highness has ordered 
a steam plough from England to facilitate planting 
in the lowcountry. 
" Pepper must not be unnoticed — a most profitable 
and sure investment, proved to be a great success here. 
It is a beautiful sight, a pepper plantation, each fine 
clinging to the upright stem. They are beautifully 
cultivated in every case ; they are allowed to grow 
to 9 ami 10 feet high On entering any of these, 
John Chinaman meets you, and if he knows enough 
Malay, he says : 1 Tabby Tuan ' as a Tamil would 
give his salaam to durai. If you go into further con- 
versation. John is found generally wanting, and goes 
off with ' Qua Quvah ' or such unintelligible lan- 
guage only known to himself : yet withal, he's 
a very good fellow, an energetic workman, perfectly 
honest if you look well after him, civil if you don't 
giv him occasion to be otherwise. What do you 
think of cardamoms down here? I have seen them 
in a wild state in Ceylon at 4,000 feet: how do tbey 
do at 400 or less ? " 
The Johore pioneers cannot do better than give a fair 
trial to all new, as well as old products. 
COFFEE LEAF DISEASE IN CEYLON. 
We feel that injustice is likely to be done to 
the Government Cryptogamist by criticism based on 
isolated extracts from his recent Report. Mr. Marshall 
Ward will no doubt desire that it ought to be read 
and commented on as a whole. There are important 
facts which are apt to escape the attention on a 
first and cursory perusal. For instance, the immuni. 
ty of the Uva principality as compared with the 
districts on this side of Nuwara Eliya from the 
same number of attacks, and the often rapid re- 
petition of attacks of the fungus. This immunity 
Mr. Ward shows is owing to the comparatively dry 
Uva climate. Haputale, for instance, has 'pre-emin- 
ently the vich soil and fine cover of leaf in which 
Heviileia vastatrix is ready to revel, and when con- 
tinuously wet weather sets in there— rarely enough— 
the conditions are all fulfilled for a bumper (vir- 
ulent) crop of the fungus, such as has often been 
noticed. But the rainy weather is soon over and 
the succeeding crop or sporess, blown hither and 
thither, fall upon evil times. In the normally dry 
weather they are unable to enter the stomata of the 
leaves, or to fructify in the absence of the moisture 
which is their very life and consequently they perish 
by thousands and millions miserably, in many cases 
through the operations of o^her and lower fungi ; 
so true it is that 
Big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, 
And little fleas have leaser fleas, and so ad infinitum. 
So long as moist rainy weather prevails, the Hemikia 
vavtalrix rules supreme, passing through its life- 
history in three weeks and luxriating wherever there 
is a colfoo leif to feed on, but let dry weathe r 
set in persistently and the spores not only are not 
active, but they run the risk of destruction through 
a variety of agencies, not the least being a series of 
fungoid enemies! Hence the great advantage of the 
the Uva districts right along from Namunakulikele 
to Idulgashena and from Lunugalu to within hail 
of Pedrotalagala ; for, be it noted that at least 24 
hours' soaking rain is, according to Mr. Ward's 
observations, required to give the leaf fungus a fair 
start. A mere pissing shower will not do it; isol- 
ated thunder-showers, from which so many parts of 
Uva derive great benefit, are not sufficient, and as 
for the night dews on which the coffee in the 
Principality is often dependent for weeks and months 
together, it is of the smallest possible consequence 
to the ubiquitous spores, which want good heavy 
showers to enable them to spring into maturity and 
and absolute virulence. Here then is consolation as 
well as most valuable information from the "Scient- 
ist" for the planters in Uva, and indeed in other 
comparatively dry districts, and they must hence- 
forward remember that the rain they often long 
for is not the unmitigated blessing they have been 
wont to regard it. But perhaps even more import- 
ant is it to recall the fact which Mr. Ward and Dr. 
Trimea repeat and emphasize with all the assurance 
of matured conviction that the hf.mileia in no way 
affects the vitality or healtht'ulness of the coffee 
tree save throgh the leaves. The absence of the 
same display of feeding rootless as in days of old» 
the dying back of wood, the non-ripening of crop 
have all been regarded as indubitable signs that the 
coffee-tree was dying beyond recovery — that the dis- 
ease had entered the sap and marrow of the tree 
and that the periodical dropping of leaves was merely 
a further and external indication of its ravages* 
Now Mr. Ward will not admit this for one moment. 
The disease is confined entirely to the yellow pin- 
spots on the leaves and it is quite compatible with, 
indeed the fungus prefers, healthy and luxuriant 
trees, and it is only as repeated and persistent 
attacks, fostered by continuously wet weather, denude 
the tree of its leafage that it begins to suffer and 
manifest indications which have been accepted as 
independent evidence of internal disease. There is 
encouragement in this to continue the battle with 
the pest with the additional light which this in- 
vestigation has thrown on its mode of working. In 
gathering and burying fallen leaves, in the judicious 
use of caustic lime, in timely pruning and careful 
manuring, the planter may be able to do much to 
combat and cheat his great enemy even in districts 
where the rainfall will continue to bring forward!, 
successive crops of fungus-spores. 
"THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST !" : 
COFFEE PLANTING IN THE PHILIPPINES. 
The Agriculturist is likely, as a London correspond- 
ent hinted in our Saturday's issue, to bring Ceylon plant- 
ing (and publishing) enterprise into wider notice than it 
has ever yet obtained. We have received compliment- 
ary letters and support from places so far apart as 
Jamaica and Borneo or still farther to the South-east, 
Queensland, and from Calcutta to Natal. A felt want by 
