May i, 1882.] THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
957 
poor and unremunerative results. If, at the commence- 
ment of the plant-pestilence, some thirteen years ago 
now, (Tytler's cycle), the plants had been killed, they 
might have been replaced by the seed of those disease- 
resisting varieties for the existence of which Mr. 
Anderson so strongly contends. As matters stand, the 
existence of euch varieties, none of which seem as yet 
to have reached Ceylon, (unless Liherian coffee prove 
an exception*) can benefit only those who have the 
courage now to commence a pursuit on which so much 
of disaster has fallen. The question at issue is the 
existence of disease-resisting plants. Mr. Marshall 
Ward's contention was that trees which had apparently 
resisted attacks of the fungus, owed their temporary 
immunity merely to position with reference to prevail- 
ing winds and he recommended tree-planting not for 
shade, but for shelter. Mr. Graham Anderson, with 
all his faith in the processes of cultivation and manur- 
ing, has, it will be observed, no belief in the possi- 
bility of warding off attacks of the fungus by 
such "mechanical" means as shelter belts. In this, 
we hope, he may be mistaken. We surely, all 
of us, in Ceylon, fully believe in the value of 
the ground treatment of the coffee plant, even if, as 
Mr. Marshall Ward said, a ceriain portion of the food 
supplied to the tree roots went to feed the fungi in the 
leaves. As for root-pruning, the cockchafer grubs 
have dono and are doing only too effectually what is 
equivalent to that process, and we trust that ultimately 
all estates in the colony will benefit, as some have 
already done, when the insect pruners have ceased to 
graze on the feeding rootlets of a plant, the leaves of 
which are simultaueously used as food by the fungus. 
Light pruning too, we imagine, is the rule in regard 
to trees which have uot strength enough left to put on 
sufficient wood for a profitable crop. But surely due 
attention to the root-culture of the plant ought not to 
justify neglect of topical treatment, especially when, as 
in the case of Mr. -Morris's lime and sulphur and 
Mr. Schrottky's carbolate of lime, the topical ap- 
plication must benefit the soil and so the roots of the 
plants. The vast majority of those connected with 
the coffee enterprize aro much more anxious 
to know what will cure the plants already in 
the ground than to learn that " fresh blood," in the 
shape of seed from distant sources, might give them 
fungus-resisting trees. That involves beginning de. 
novo. Alkalies and phosphates were deficient in the 
period anterior to 1 SGI), and yet there was no visita- 
tion of fungus. Indeed it is certain that never in its 
history had coffee received moro justice in the shape 
ni cultivation and manuring than in the period when 
In mill in ni. ■<( ut 1 is first developed over tin- Ceylon 
estates. If the coffee planters violated any law at all, 
it was that, if it exists, in nature's code, which forbids 
extensive areas of one particular culture. Certainly 
the effect of the visitation has been to break up unifor- 
mity and direct attention to now and vnried products. 
In ono of these, Liberian coffee, there seems to exist, as 
yet, veiy strong evidence in favour of Mr. Graham 
• Wo believe small consignments have also been 
racoived here of Nalkhanaad seod : Mr. J. S. Mid- 
dloton of Mysore in I8S0 having first called local 
attention to this variety. 
Anderson's theory of fungus-resisting trees. Our re- 
cent visit to Udapolla, as well as reports of experi- 
ence on other places where the plants are cultivated, 
all tend to the conclusion tnat trees of a specially 
luxuriant and dense habit of growth, do resist — at 
least have as yet resisted— the fungus, which may 
prevail in a virulent form on trees in clo>e proximity 
to those which can claim a clean bill of health. We 
ought also to add that, in Capt. Bayley's experience, 
coffee trees from seed obtained from Mocha are 
specially vigorous and disease-resisting. Seedlings from 
West Indies seed, on the other hand, were at once 
and badly attacked. 
Mr. Graham Anderson does not, in the present 
letter, indicate the coffee of any particular district 
as noted for its disease-resisting powers. A writer in 
the Asian (a Calcutta paper) is, however, positive and 
definite, as will be seen by the letter which we quote, 
placing it after Mr. Graham Anderson's elaborate ar- 
gument. The habitat of the disease-resisting coffee is 
the district of Nalkhnaad in Coorg, and curiously 
enough this coffee resembles the Liberian species in 
great size and deep colour of foliage. The habit of 
the branches, however, is drooping, or what planters 
call " umbrella " shape, much as we remember Hapu- 
tale plants in 1874. Tho Coorg plant is said not only to 
resist disease but to give crops larger by 25 to 30 per 
cent than ordinary coffee. We believe coffee from seed 
of this variety is now growing in Ceylon, (imported in 
18S0) and we should much like to know how far it has 
fulfilled the conditions claimed for it ? Tho state- 
ment as to its superiority in Coorg is strong and 
unqualified. Has any Ceylon planter visited Mr. 
Chisholm's estates ?* All possible information is calcu- 
lated to be of value, although at present our hopes 
of revival for our old coffee, as a whole, rest more on the 
"cycle"and "effluxion of time" theories tlmu on anything 
else. Let us adopt for our motto, however, Mr. 
Graham Anderson's sentiment : " Nil desperandum." 
Since the above was written the letter of 
" G. W.", a well-known veteran writer on planting 
topics, has come to hand. His object, it will 
be seen, is to shew that as regards the efficacy 
of carbolic acid in checking and destroying the leaf 
fungus,- we are still at the very A. B. C. of scientific 
investigation. This conclusion of our correspondent 
todi us by surprise and we directed his attention 
to Mr. Ward's last report and to Mr. Storck's paper 
in the Gardeners' Chronicle with the result given in 
the postscript to his letter. But " G. W." must 
remember that a grave rellection will rest on Mr. 
Ward himself if he gave up his special mission 
in this island, declaring he had done all that wns 
in bis power to investigate the llnnUeia and the 
means of lighting it, while at the same time ho 
had not given careful and due attentii n to the 
virtues of an antiseptic universally admitted to 
be of so much efficacy as carbolic acid. The very ex- 
* Mr. K. II. Elliot ("the Mysore planter") attributed 
the freedom of his cotfee from the fungus to "shade' 1 !; 
far more prolwihlc causes are the isolated position ol hi-, 
property su rrounded by forest and the lonf- dry senmm 
experienced in Mysore. Mr. J. s. Uiddleton,an oldOoylon 
planter, uow holdiug proiiorty in Mysore for tweuty yearn, 
mentioned how an estate of his planted witli ordinal! coffit- 
was snuffed out, nud how he had planted u^aiii with tin 
" Nltakanoad" variety ami which -nivi r..-1'iiUy roi.-Ld k.it 
di»-jiBc. 
