220 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, [Oct. 2, 1893. 
''give the kepi to the kangany, take opening 
medicine, ana put their feet in warm water !" 
Tlie letter gave mortal offence to many, and for 
weeks the Observer was inundated with fierce, 
fighting lettern in reply. " Who cares for R. B. T.'s 
impertinence" was tiie burden of the comments 
upeountry. "It will only stimulate us to per- 
severe" said " B. W." (" Baekswoodman or W. 
Abeiorombie Swan) and so said Matale generally. 
Grand old Criiweil was particularly savage, thongli 
the time soon came when he generously relented, 
as I see from a letter addressed to R. B. T. begin- 
ning "My dear old boy. Glad to se« youi iwt whicl) 
I should like to shake very much again. ' As for 
the Matale Volunteers, they in a few months 
vnsely disbanded, and sought the shelter of their 
own pulping-houses. From all of which, we can 
only surmise, that if a few plucky R. B. T.'s were 
now to arise, it might fare badly with that 
grotesque body of Don Quixotes, yclept "the 
Mounted Fut."* 
Retuens to Ceylon. 
Mr. Tytler returned to Ceylon about 18G2, in 
order to carry out certain experiments with re- 
ference to the special manure he was now having 
prepared. He was not a man to do anything by 
halves, and certainly no man ever went more 
patiently and systematically to work to ascertain 
the exact requirements of the coffee tree in the 
shape of sustenance, for day after day he wouM 
sit studying the different groups of trpes. Here 
under the sloping rock a vigorous tree bearing 
at the rate of 15 cwt. an acre ; there within a 
few yards a tree planted at the same time from 
the same nursery, year after year with only a few 
beans ; what is wanting in the one ease which the 
other has got? Here said Mr. Tytler "art certain 
conditions, theie they are awanting ; let us but 
ascertain Avhat these are, and the difficulty is 
kraaled." 
SOMBREOEtrirf. 
. Carefully he had the heavy bearing tree lifted 
ifn. with half a ton of the soil in which it grew, 
not forgetting portions of the sloping rock al)ove, 
and ail was packed away in huge cases. The 
same was done with the unfruitful tree, and 
home he Avent with his cases to the eminent 
chemist Professor Brazier of Aberdeen University. 
The writer accompanied Mr. Tytler on this occa- 
sion, and well remembers the eagerness, care and 
thoroughness with which the whole matter was 
o-one into. The ultimate result was " Soni- 
%reormn" his remarkable letter of April lS6(j, 
addressed to the Observer, and something was said 
about a sealed packet to be opened when all 
Ceylon was again bearing bumper crops. Many 
planters now set confidently and zealously to work 
to apply tlie elixir. There was much real enthusi- 
asm' an; I not a little chaff. The Volunteer letter 
had not been quite forgotten, and two Matale 
men put their heads together and hammered out 
the following specious parody on 
TULLOCH-GoEUM. 
0, Sonibreorum's ray delight, 
In It gude qualities unite; 
And ony Uori wha shows si^ite, 
May puku copee smoor him I 
* Times^ are greatly changed since the "fifties "— 
one of the chief objections then was the diiSculty 
of moving about and getting together a decent 
number of recruits ; roads and railways have altered 
that, as time has also brought a heavier mili- 
taiy' tax, of which the success of our Volunteers 
paay justify ua in claiming a reduotlQU.—EB. T,A, 
Glad and busy coolies a', 
(Jlad and busy, glafl and busy, 
Glad and busy coolies a', 
yf i' plenty coffee o'er them. 
Ower a' the totums that I ride 
Baith " bones" and " poonac " I have tried; 
And o er guano I have cried 
And even cattle orum ! 
They're puir and feckless at the Ijest, 
Puir and feckless, puir and feckless ; 
They're puir and feckle.sB at the best, 
Compared wi Sonibreoruiij : 
Hemileia Va.stateix. 
Nevertheless, tlie effects of Sombreorum were 
very striking, the mixture had unquestionably 
a potent fertilising and sustaining power, and 
for some years gave ))romi8e of a revival of coffee 
crops, wherever applied. Alas ! these hopes were 
but short lived, and were destined to l>e more 
completely sliatt*ired than any previous promises, 
by the appearance of the new and unlooked- 
for enemy Hemilem Vo^tatrij:, an enemy 
which baffled the scientist, rendered worthlefis the 
experience of forty years, and ultimately brought 
irretrievable ruin upon nearly; every coffee plan- 
ter in Ceylon. No single individual suffered 
more from this calamity than Mr. Tytler. 
The Age of 10 % 
It is true he still had his pet product Camo 
to fall back upon, a product he had been 
carefully nursing and acclimatizing for 20 years, 
but to thoroughly establish this in the 'place 
of coffee, still meant five or six years. How to 
get over this interval was the difficulty ; and 
with the income from coffee reduced from 
£5.000 or .«6,000 a year, to less than noth- 
ing', and compound interest accumulating at 
\0/^, the prospect was not encouraging. The 
age of 5 % block loans and 50 % reaction 
in the cost of production (which depreciated 
silver i)ractically means to the planters) had not 
yet come, a fact which men who marvel at 
Ml-. Tytler's inability to surmount the difficulty, 
would do well to remember. 
The Coming Struggle. 
R. B. T., naturally the nio^t sanguine and 
cheerful of men, began to give way under the 
growing load. He found the pillow indeed a hard 
one, an<l frequently when sleep forsook him 
\\ould rise up, look once more at the uncon- 
scionable balance piled up against poor king coffee 
by those who had most profited by his gener- 
osity. And as often would he seek and obtain 
comfort from the only Source he implicitly believed 
in, and iew wlio met his cheery smile on the 
morrow could dream of the agony he had passed 
through during tlie night-watches. 
His Chaeitv. 
And yet, it was not for hunself that he 
grieves,— " not so much for the planters as 
the poor patient wives and helpless bairns 
dependent upon them." "0 man, ' he would 
write, "I am dowie, I continually am, I can. 
not rise out of it, and the only cure would b« 
a return to coffee of its former capacity for 
crop-bearing. I am aware that my own 
prospects, bad as they are, might be envied 
by many, and I am not unthankful, far, from 
it, only dowie and wae, and no small degiee of thai 
comes from thoughts of others. God help us all I 
" There's tliat p.opr widow Mrs. — —; my heart 
I bleeds for herj coul<i yoii convey the enclose^ 
