724 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [February r, 1882. 
fungus mainly responsible for the one effect ; Brazil 
entirely for the other. There will be a reaction in 
Brazil, the natural and inevitable effect of her ex- 
travagant action. We look for a reaction here, also, 
but in a very different direction. We have but to 
hold on tenaciously, persevere bravely for a few years 
longer, and the cloud will not only shew a silver 
lining but brighten all over with the light of re- 
stored success. We have seen dark days before now, 
and they have passed away. Have we not a right 
to look into the future by the light of the experience 
of the past ? Thirty-five years ago, all the probabil- 
ities seemed to support the conclusion that the scale 
insect pest and low prices combined would snuff out 
the coffee enterprise in Ceylon. But coffee recovered 
from depths of depression then, lower than our lowest 
depth now, and it is surely only reasonable to look 
for a like process in the near future. As a Haputale 
proprietor (Mr. H. C. Bury) now on a visit to his 
fine properties, said to us yesterday :— There is far 
too much outcry over the falling-ofi in Ceylon coffee 
production. Taking the estimate for the current 
season of 600,000 cwts. and contrasting it with our 
highest outturn, the decrease is not much more than 
a third. Now what would British farmers say 
if they could during their cycle of depres- 
sion point to crops of even one-half those they 
harvested some years before. Ceylon is not alone in 
her planting depression ; agriculture all over the 
world (save perhaps in certain favoured portions of 
North and South America) has been suffering; but 
a turn in the tide must be approaching. It cannot, surely, 
bo in the designs of Providence that the fungus 
should be permanent in Ceylon, any more than 
that the iniquity of slavery should continue to exist 
in Brazil. The latter is doomed, and so, we hope 
and believe, is the former. 
As regards consumption, while Britain (largely 
©wing to the iniquitous and semi-legalized system of 
adulteration) is worse than stationary, looking at the 
great increase of population, America is largely increas- 
ing her use of coffee. So is the Continent of Europe, 
even in the face of a policy which wastes national 
wealth in bloated armaments. 
" FKOM THE HILLS." 
Shade and Shelter trees foe Nuwara Eliya. 
It is natural and justifiable that the destruction of 
trees in and around Nuwara Eliya should be regretted 
by other than ethereal beings, seeing that the great 
want of the Sanatorium is the shelter which well-grown 
trees can give. The difficulty is to get trees to grow 
in tlie exposure and on the grass-peat soil of the plain. 
Dressings of caustic lime would probably help. On 
the sides of the hills, in what was forest land, the 
blue-gums are growing splendidly, and the contrast of 
the strange bluish-green hue of the long straight rows 
of eucalypti with the normal greens both of the native 
forest trees and cinchonas is very striking. When I 
speak of the normal green of cinchonas, I must not 
forget the red tints of withering or withered leaves of 
suecuubra and officinales, or the brilliant scarlet 
of the calisayas. The scarlet colour as well as the 
bewildering variety of type in the yellow barks can 
be seen to perfection in the plantation up the Pass, 
on the road to Ramboda. The '" sporting " propen- 
sity of the calisaya is so well known, and nature, 
as a general rule, is (Tennyson to the contrary not- 
withstanding) "so careful of the type," that I long 
resisted belief in the hybridizing theory. But "facts 
are chiels that winna ding," and, besides what my 
pood friend Mr. Moens shewed and told me of the 
doings of butterflies and bees in Java, there is my 
own experience, I got seed from what I considered 
a fairly good description of calisaya growing in Cey- 
lon. There were no trees of other tpecies of cinchonas 
near them. The highest succirubras were on an 
opposite hill, about a quarter of a mile away, and 
officinalis trees were still further off. The resulting 
plants were, in foliage, so like succirubras, that I 
ai-ked my superintendent if he had not put out 
the wrong plants alongside a jiath. There was no 
mistake; but, to quote Wordsworth, " Oh ! the dif- 
ference to me." The plants have developed into 
everything except pure calisayas. It is vain to rtsist 
the evidence of one's senses. Variation has its bounds, 
but hybridization plus sporting has apparently none 
For one plant which conveys the idea of calisaya 
there are a dozen shading off from officinalis to 
succirubra, with new and astounding varieties, some 
specially robust, but nearly all seeding prematurely, 
between. Very reluctantly do I become a believer in the 
crossing theory, but the evidence of my senses, added 
to the testimony of scientific experts, is conclusive. 
Take the one fact, that the progeny in Ceylon of seed 
sent by Mr. Moens himself from some of his best Ledger- 
ionas were nearly all condemned as in erior on his visit 
here by the Dutch quinologist, who, to secure the purity 
of the superior trees, has got his government to consent 
to the extirpation of Calisoija pahudiana, hasskrxrliana 
schuhkrafl, j'S'phiana.javanica, &c, from the Java cinchona 
plantations. Meantime lie has resorted to the grafting 
process, about which, and an important Ceylon improve- 
ment upon it, we hope to have something to say at an 
early date. The dwarf habit and rudiy tints of the 
calisayas above Nuwara Eliya seem to shew that elevation 
is too high, exposure to wind too much, or soil unsuitable 
for this species. A group of succirubras, on the other 
hand, at the foot of the range behind Barnes' Hall, look 
flourishing, although naturally, at an altitude of 6,300 feet, 
they are somewhat slower of growth than the officinalis 
species, which flaurish abundantly all over the eastern face 
of the rango which bounds the plain on the westward, up 
to 7,000 feet altitude. How little General Frase% Major 
Skinner and Capt. Galwey imagined, when, in the c urse 
of their triangulations, they fixed the first "trig-point" 
on the summit of " One Tree Hill," that the name would 
be rendered a misnomer by the invasion and presence of 
treei from the far-off Andean regions of the great Western 
Continent! There has been so much of the unexpected 
in the past, in the introduction of the fever trees, the 
cocoa and the "rubber" trees from the. Americas ; anew 
species of coffee from Africa ; cardamoms from India, and 
fast-growing forest t ees from Australia, that we ought, on the 
soberest grounds, to he sanguine and hopeful for the future of 
agricultural, horticultural and aboiicultural enterprise in 
Ceylon. We have a vivid recollection of the emphasis 
with which Sir Wm. Gregory, in the course, of the dis- 
cussion he originated on the permanency or otherwise of 
coffee, repudiated the idea that eyen if coffee disappeared 
from the list of its products Ceylon would he played out. 
He anticipated a process of which he saw the beginnings, 
which is going on, and the end of which no one can 
foresee, of the intr duction and culture of new produc's 
suited to our soil and climate. Not the least valuable 
addition to our exotic sylva has been the introduction of 
the Australian eucalypti and acacias, with some of its 
auracarias. The blue-gum flourishes to the highest 
altitui e in Ceylon, and it does not seem so liable to be 
infested by that insidious parasite the loranthus (close 
relation to the English misletoe) so prevalent on and so 
destructive to the acacia which is known as the black 
wattle. So highly is this fine timber tree valued in 
Australia, that, when all other trees on "runs" ara 
ringed and burned, these are spared. Besides its value 
as a timber tree (blackwood of Australia) the frequent 
pyramidal habit of the black wattle renders it very 
ornamental, and as it preserves its lower branches 
and their thick foliage up to maturity it is most valu- 
able for shelter purposes. Amongst the most striking 
sights in Ootacamund are enormous single specimens of 
this tree, and we recollect a closely planted avenue of 
black wattle tree which was very effective. In Ootaca- 
mund the loranthus attacked these trees with such de- 
structive effect that Dr. Bidie was, some years ago, specially 
deputed to enquire and report on the subject. There, as 
