59* 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. f March t, 1895. 
one of the famous zigzags in Kotmalic ! Now, I 
with the Government cart road from Watagoda | 
station — (and what a precedent this forms for j 
Uva Railway roads !) — joining on to the grant-in-aid 
road, few districts in the island are better 
served. The Chetties and cartmen often lind it is 
best to cart rice up from Gampola, rather 
than incur the extra railway rate to 
Wattagoda ; but then the carters are 
clever enough after coming so far, to get 
loads of tea to the upper station and often to 
get loads of general goods back. How the men 
of forty years ago in Pundaloya — dear old sci- 
entific Nietner of ' the enemies of the coffee tree' | 
(who is succeeded in the same district by the | 
equally accomplished Mr. E. E. Green with the j 
"enemies of the tea tree"), P. D. Millie, Hux- 
ham, Le Pelly and Lyon Eraser — would stare if 
they saw the change and progress which mark 
the present day. To us who had never entered 
the district before, we could only imagine what 
it must have been in a roadless and bridgeless 
state. Transport should be a simple matter for 
every estate in the Valley now. Even Pinehill 
with its rich fields of tea — geographically in Kot- 
malie— has its leaf carried by a wonderful wire- 
shoot across a great chasm and the river to the 
Company's factory on Wavahena, aad the ma- 
nager, Mr. Trimen, lias his aerial bridge, or 
higher up the ferry boat and a long patena ride 
to bring him to the farther division of his charge. 
The only estate of Kotmalie proper visible from 
the Pundaluoya side is Doombegastalawa— long the 
home or headquarters of a Famous pioneer and 
sportsman, the late Capt. Fisher, father of the 
present Government Agent for Uva ; and there 
is besides a prominent and outstanding mark 
on the patana known as " Tyspane tree" indi- 
cating the whereabouts of a well-known property. 
We certainly admired very much what we saw 
of the lower part of Pundaloya, and we heard 
famous accounts of Meddetenne, — the property 
of a well-known Dumbera manager — which 
is a good way done the Valley towards 
Pusilava, though included in Pundaloya. The 
Kandyans have not yet done much in tea about their 
villages in this valley, so far as we could learn ; 
nor yet thought of following the Nawalapitiya 
example about transforming paddy-fields — some of 
them admirably suited — into tea gardens ; but 
Muttu Carpen Ohetty has planted two or three 
fine tea fields and sells his leaf regularly to a local 
factory ; and we suspect it will not be long 
before his example is copied in a small way by 
many more natives, from Lower Dinibula down 
to Gampola. Pallerakelly, Choisy and Tava- 
lamtenne bring back recollections of days of old, 
and we were pleased to hear of them all flourishing 
in tea. Higher up, we have Eton, one of the few 
places with coffee, a field of which stands 
clearly out from the hillside, looking 
still vigorous. Fine tea fields here and on 
North and South Pundaluoya, Sheen, Harrow, 
Fernlands (redolent with the memories of Nietner), 
lead us on to what is undoubtedly one of the 
finest properties in the district, if not the island, 
namely Dunsinane with its grand lay of land, fine 
jat of tea, and ample reserves of forest. We take 
Kaipoogalla last, though it is by no means least. 
Forty years ago it was owned and indeed opened by 
Messrs. Kershaw and Le Pelly ; and we recall the 
day when it was managed by Mr. Lawrence St. 
George Carey for Mr. Dobree and Colonel Mac- 
mahon-Salt from whom it was bought by Messrs. 
E. Hope and W. S. Bennett. It was famous for one 
field that never yielded less than 12 cwt. per acre of 
coffee ; and a famous V. A.— of memories of whom 
the district Is redolent, — was fond of taking any 
visitor to see thi* held — a walk on the level — 
and then saying, — "Now it's all like this; we 
may as well make for the bungalow." All >ve 
can say is, that if it was rich in coffee, Mr. Hoj>e 
by his careful work and good management has 
transformed Kaipoogalla into one of the finest 
tea plantations of its size we have seen in the 
country. It is now the property of the Scottish 
Trust & Loan Co. who took it over in the dark days 
of coffee depression, and whose agent Mr. Thou. 
Dickson on a recent visit, wa> delighted with all 
he saw. Mr. Hope is a planter of the old, 
thorough school, and it is a real pleasure to walk 
over an estate so elean, well roaded, drained and 
planted and with so pukka and convenient a Fac- 
tory as Kaipoogalla possesses. Mr. Edward Hope 
one of the best liked as lie is one of the best 
planters in the country, is going home on well 
earned furlough very shortly and it is a pleasure 
to have the opportunity to testify to what we 
have seen, and to note the pluck and j>ersistent 
industry of an old friend who has exi>enenced as 
many ups and downs as any man in the island ; 
but who has never lost heart or the cheerine>s 
which distinguished him 38 years ago when he first 
went to Matale. We casually asked Mr. Hope 
— in view of recent discussions on the kangany 
question — if he hail any very old servants. He 
turned out two kanganies, one of whom held 
his stirrup in lSotj while lie mounted at Matale 
resthouse, to ride up to N-ickoloya to take up 
his post as Assistant. This young Tamil m-e 
to be kang-ani and has followed Mr. Hope ever 
since ; another kangani, whom we found busy 
over a weeding contract, has been with Mr. 
Hope for :t0 years. There are not many plan- 
ters in Ceylon now who have a similar experi- 
ence to show. 
Tea flourishes in the Pundaluoya district from 
5,500 or clo ?e on 6,000 feet, down to 3,000 feet in 
the warm Wavahena ami Meddetenne valleys. 
Though bounded and divided by rivers, water 
is not so freely distributed as we expected in 
the district, and steam-power is availed of in 
most of the factories. We are puzzled as to 
the meani ng of the name " Pundalu Oya." 
"Inge Va " gives it as "the river of full tanks" 
with a query ; but there is no tank along the 
course of t\vi stream or in the neighbourhood. An- 
other interpret at iou connects it with "leeches" 
— "pudawa" getting altered into " pundalu " ? — 
and this meaning is felt to be nearer the 
mark by plantters ; but what say our Sinha- 
lese authorities ? We were struck with the size 
and luxuriance of the clumps of giant bamboos 
near Kaipoogalla bungalow, exactly 4,000 feet 
above sea level ; while the monster blue gums 
w : e had measured, gave 9 feet 4 inches and 9 
feet 6 inch es in girth at 2 feet from the ground ; 
and a gravid cupressus measured 7 feet 4 inches 
under the same conditions. These are surely 
hard to be- beaten 9 
BUTuKING TEA IN LONDON. 
In Messrs- Wm. Jas. & Hy. Thompson's Indian 
and Ceylon Tea Circular of 31st January, Ave 
have the f ollowing good news : — 
By a recent Customs' order, breaks passed with 
an averat/e tare may now be turned out, bulked, 
and re-filled., without having each package re-weighed 
and separate 7y tared. "We have also reason to hope 
for a General Order enabling Importers to bulk to- 
gether here two or more invoices brought by different 
ships — a me asure will facilitate putting larger breaks 
before buy<}rs, and so lessening the number of 
samples shopm. 
