April 2, 1894.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
649 
his tedstead in his earliest bungalow or shanty 
as a plank laid on two boxes and his only 
seat another box. A :foung Scot not afraid 
to " rough " it after this fashion, of course, 
managed "to live on his piy " of £70 per 
annum, and in the following year he was 
drawing £120. His employers had discovered 
the value of his sei vices, and indeed if John 
Gavin did not feel bound in honour to the 
firm that had first taken hini up, he could 
have commanded in the outside market £200 to 
£250 very early after learning his work and 
showing of what stuff he was made. Many 
young men of that time felt no scruple about 
throwing up engagements on the plea of being 
underpaid ; but John Gavin was not one of 
them ; and in his case as in that of others Ave 
know, who regarded their word as their bond, 
even though they were sometimes called " softies " 
by their companions,— there A\as no loss but 
great gain eventually from holding to their 
posts on limited pay and building up for them- 
selves, the most valuable thing in the world, 
namely, character. Of his interest in his work 
as planter we have evidence in an extract from 
a letter placed at our disposal, wiiich Mr. 
Gavin wrote to his brother-in-law, Mr. Thomson, 
so far back as November, 1844, some fourteen 
months after his arrival in the island. He 
writes : — 
" The grand item of expenditure on a coffee 
estate is weeding. This the beginners did not think 
of Tery material importance, and when they found 
out the mistake committed, why the ground 
was thoroughly filled with seed, and from the 
rapid manner in which vegetation goes on, it 
is next to an impossibility now to have them ex- 
tirpated. Now had this been attended to from 
the commencement, a very great annual saving 
would have been effected on this one item- 
And further, is it not natural to suppose that 
by judicious management in this respect the 
trees would have yielded a better crop, and a 
better sample. The present generation of planters 
enjoy the advantages of the well-bought ex- 
perience of those who have gone before them, 
and I have no hesitation in saying that under 
ordimxry circumstances an estate may be formed 
and brought into bearing for little more than one- 
half what many of the old ones have cost. 
"The cultivation of sugar is .at present oc- 
cupying a considerable share of popular attention, 
but many seem doubtful whether it will succeed 
so well as anticipated. It is not cultivated to 
any extent in the interior, I am well acquainted 
with one estate which is certainly very pro- 
mising. * ' ' * I hear that the lialf of it 
was sold the other day for £23,000— one hundred 
tons is the estimated produce -for thie season," 
VISIT HOME AND RETURN. 
Mr. Gavin paid his first visit to the mother- 
country nfter eight years in Ceylon, in 1851 — 
the year of the first Great Exhibition in Hyde 
Park. After his return he had some six 
years of assiduous work in Kaiidj% building up 
and extending his influence as a businessman 
and latterly greatly strengthening the position of 
his firm, " Kek, Duudas & Co." One who knew 
him in those days, reports to us that 
" the small ttilk of the great Kandy Agency 
House was in the department of Mr. Dundas, 
while the practical business was attended to 
by Gavin He was a very shrewd man of 
business — a capital judge of men, and as a 
hard worker himself, he full}' appreciated the habit 
among his subordinates and superintendents." 
Ml'. Gavin was a great admirer of Sir Heniy 
Ward, and a great believer in, and advocate 
of, the Colombo and Kandy Railway. He 
had seen .so much of the difiicultics attending 
the transport of crop in his early planting days, 
that he went beyond his fellow-colonists and 
quite as far as the Governor himself in his 
determination to support a locomotive line at 
Siny cost. We find that in a letter to his 
brother-in-law, Mr. Thomson, under date so 
far back as March, 1847, he writes of the 
difficulty of transit of produce to Colombo, and 
speaks of a line of rail, but was not then vefy 
sanguine of it ever being made. Here is an 
extract: — "Much of last year's crop has still 
to finds its way to Colombo owing to a deficiency 
in the means of transit, and to remedy this 
evil a ConvcyoMce Comjiany is being energetically 
organised for the purpose of establishing a 
regular and safe mode of conveving produce to 
the shipping port until the line of rail is carried 
out, which ^vi^ not be, I fear, for some years to 
come, and I doubt if it will ever be completed, 
at all events for the sum estimated. Many unfore- 
seen difficulties will, I am confident, encounter 
the Engineer on approaching; the mountainous 
region, and sundry gorges and ravines will meet 
him which he little dreams of. These obstacles 
may, however, be got over, but it is impossible 
that any engineer from home can estimate 
Asiatic labour at its proper value." 
" THE L.\ST ROSE OF SUMMER." 
1 1 was perhaps not to be wondered at, therefore, 
that wlien the majority of tlie public in Colombo 
and Kandy got alarmed at the unconditional 
way in wliich Sir Henry AYard pledged the 
Colonial revenue and credit to the Railway 
Company formed to construct the Colombo and 
Kandy line, Mr. Gavin stood out as one of the 
two or three Colonists who alone supjiortcd tlie 
Governor in this cri.-is. At a public meeting 
in Kandy called to diecues tlie ititnation, Mr/ 
