*5o 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[Sept. t, 1894. 
Brown at once to the Colombo office of Messr 
Read, Davidson & Co. to assist in winding up 
its affairs, necessitated by the financial crash 
which overtook so many Ceylon firms and 
proprietors in 1846. Mr. Brown very soon had 
the whole responsibility of winding-up on his 
shoulders; but he proved erpial to the occasion 
and when he had finished, Mr. Gerard, Estate 
Agent, Katukelle, Kandy, invited him to join 
his firm. Of this he quickly became Manage! 
and the firm of R. D. Gerard & Co., soon after 
became Gerard, Brown & Stainbank or Gerard, 
Brown & Co. (1852 to 1854). But this house 
did not live long, and very speedily (18.35) Mr. 
Brown blossomed into a full-blown Estate and 
Mercantile Agent on his own account, having 
his office in Brownrigg Street, Kandy, while 
he resided two or three miles out at 
Bellevue below Hantane, where he built a hand- 
some bungalow for himself and surrounded it 
with about 100 acres of coffee. Here lie lived 
for many years till the collapse of his fortunes, 
when the place was taken over (in 1869) by 
Messrs. J. I. Strachan & Co., renamed Augusta, 
and later on, it became, as it now is, the property 
of Mr. W. B. Seton with 212 acres (180 in tea, 
some cocmut palms and grass) and valued, as 
we heard lately, at £7,000 sterling. 
To return to Mr. A. Brown, few men of his 
age (35) had a better start than he in 1855, 
when he began business on his own account. 
Coffee planting was just entering on a long 
spell of prosperity ; the country was being rapidly 
opened up under the vigorous administration of 
Sir Henry Ward ; and Mr. Brown himself had 
not only the reputation of being a clever and 
sound man of business — a total abstainer from 
his youth — but through Mr. Davidson, he had 
secured a capital Uva connection as Agent for 
the fine Kahagalla, Leangavella, Haputale and 
Canavarella group of estates. Had he only 
been content with his Agency and Commission 
business, all would have been well ; but the 
temptation to become an extensive proprietor, on 
his own account, was too much, and before many 
years had elapsed, " the Banff loon " — who 
had come to the island a dozen years before 
without a cent of capital, but with a splendid 
simple of "northern brains and energy," — was 
the proprietor or lessee of no fewer than 21 
plantations ! 
Through Mr. A. Davidson, the enterprising 
proprietor of Kahagalla and Leangavella 
estates, as already stated, Mr. Brown got 
his first introduction into, and connection with, 
Uva ; and he was fond of relating how, as his 
Agent, he not only got good prices for the coffee 
crops which Mr. Davidson brought over to Kandy 
once a year, but how he also was able to arrange for 
Mr. Davidson securing a good and suitable wife ! 
The story as told by Mr. Brown in one of our New 
Year numbers is so characteristic of the early 
days of planting in Ceylon and the loneliness 
of planters, as well as of Mr. Brown s erisp 
and direct style of writing, that if ipaee 
permitted, we would have reproduced it hen 
Suffice it to say, that Mr. Davidson who usually 
accompanied his crops of coffee once a year 
to have them sold in Kandy or Colombo, told 
his Agent on one occasion, he would lika to get 
married before he returned to lonely (Jra- 
and the Agent (a bachelor himself) thinking 
over the few eligible ladies in Kandy, fixed on 
a niece (lately arrived) of the well-known Dr. 
Thwaites ; took bis client in to the Doctor to 
examine liis heart which was pronounced "sound 
as a bell" ; this led to an invitation to dinner 
where he met the young lady, and in a few 
weeks he had wooed and won her and carried 
his bride off to Kahagalla, Haputale! 
On Mr. Davidson winding up hi* affairs p, e vi- 
ously to going to California in 1858, Mr. Brown 
became proprietor of this splendid Kahagalla 
plantation— still a very fine Uva property— a* also 
of Leangavella and Cannaverella. If Again, the 
subject of our notice had confined his proprietorship 
to these estates he might have become a wealthy 
man ; but he had always a great hankering for 
lowcountry places in the Kurunegala. l'o)gaha"vela 
and Kegalla districts, as well as in Lowe* Matale 
Lower Hewaheta, rtc ; and the large profits made 
from coffee in Uva were more than sunk in 
trying to get Oorakanda (the great " pig rock " 
estate as seen from the Alagalla incline ^Marok 
watura ("the w hite man's grave" near Anibepussal 
Ballywhindle ami such like to become profitable 
places which they never did. 
We find Mr. Brown in the year J860 owning 
or leasing the following plantations :— 
L'adulla Vutrict: Kih»gall ; Le„ngavellH; Haputale- 
Dod.ng.e'.la ; Jf.efamoud. tt^/^^JiaUvwhtodte 
Kaawjannami.— P.unepetti.t and Johanisbuit- VVrmi 
HonKock; Colpetybili ; Wagmkaude. £J//„ 
Marokwaluia ; Oui-.ikanda. Kuruneaala • \\ ■ 
K.nda; Uockh.ll; Bonaccord ; liuoiweiL (jT° 0 "° 
Lessee). Matah East Godapo la No 1 Y;,).,i ™ ' 
Kabtragalla; New KaUeiaga la. ' ' a '' aexsa ■ — 
Later on as proprietor or agent, Mr. Brown 
became connected with Banff and Dunkeld estates 
in Dikoya; Wiharegame in Matale East: Koslin 
Upper ami Lower in Kadugannawa Maiyniount 
in Hewaiieta; and Angamone in i^ussfllawa 
Mr. Biown made, iu 1863, for the proprietor, the 
famous valuation of Spring Valley Estate, Uva 
which led to its sale for £40,0uu" to the Sprhu' 
Valley Cumpany. He was s.nt on by Mr. Banna° 
tyne, the proprietor, from Nuvara Eliya— the latter 
who had come all the way from Glasgow to see 
his estate, refusing to go any.farther on account of 
the terribly bad condition of the roads ; but urging 
Mr. Brown to bring back the Manager, Mr. Thos 
