15* 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [May i, 1895. 
A MODEL HILL PLANTATION : 
HIGH-GKOWN TEA — AND THE BEST GUM 
TBEES FOR CEYLON. 
Pedro estate, the property of ( apt. Bayiey, 
lying under the Eastern portion of the Pedro- 
tallagal la range, about three miles from Nuwara 
Eliya, may well lie described as a model Ceylon 
plantation at a high altitude. It covers some 
400 acres ot Which 300 will shortly he under tea, 
running from fields twenty years old to the pre- 
sent season's clearings. The planted area extends 
from 5,000 up to close on 7,000 — or at any rate 
6,800 — feet above sea-level and tea seems equally to 
flourish at both extremes. Indeed, as has been 
frequently noticed in the Nuwara Eliya ami Kan- 
dapolla districts, the higher the planter goes the 
richer the. soil and the more luxuriant the tea 
though it takes longer to mature. On Pedro, 
however, such comparisons do not. stand ; he- 
cause nothing can be liner than the splendid 
expanses of tea on the lower levels Bats or undu- 
lating slopes — and indeed during out walk ovei im- 
plantation, we saw no poor held nor weak bushes-. 
The grand advantage of Pedro lies in the inex- 
haustible supply of deep rich soil inexhaus- 
tible because it is certain to he replenished 
year by year, by the gradual crumbling of 
tbe mountain mass above the estate For the 
present, the Pedro "basin" could afford to 
part with hundreds of tons of its desirable 
deposit as fertilizing material for poor estates, 
elsewhere, without feeling the loss. 
The veteran proprietor of Pedro ha« been 
among the most public-spirited ami enterprising 
planting pioneers Ceylon has ever known. 
The Colony would be a poorer and less inter- 
esting place in many departments had it missed 
Captain Bayley's efforts to introduce new plants, 
products, flowers, &c; and the gardens and 
grounds of Pedro are in this respect, among 
the most attractive and interesting in the 
island, so that it is no wonder one hears of 
Mr. Nock of Hakgala saying that he had never 
spent a more enjoyable day in Ceylon 
than that on which he went over Pedro. 
Captain Bayiey as a coffee proprietor (and he 
still maintains a good deal of the old staple 
on Nonpareil estate,) fought as stubbornly 
against "the inevitable " represented by henpUeia 
vastatrix as any man in the island. He intro- 
duced uncontaminated Mocha and other kinds 
of seed ; but with no very satisfactory result. 
He was, however, one of the first to do full 
justice to cinchona"; and Pedro was, originally, 
mainly opened for the quinine-yielding plant 
from which many tons of bark had been har- 
vested before the collapse in prices arrived. 
Still more notable, Capt. _Bayley was among 
the earliest to give a fair trial to tea, and of 
his first importation of seed from Calcutta in 
1874, he gave some maunds to the proprietor 
of Abbotsford to make a beginning in the same 
direction. At that time, there was not above 300 
acres planted with tea in the island. We had the 
pleasure of going over the oldest field on 
Pedro, recently pruned, and we have never 
seen larger or ' healthier bushes, the size and 
vigour of which may be realised by planters, from 
the fact that their pruning cost 50 per cent 
more than the ordinary rate. Capt. Bayiey and 
bis active, interested Manager believe in what 
-may be called "severe" pruning of tea, but 
only once in three years and that we found to 
be the rule at the top of New Galway district, 
Glenorchy yielding its heaviest crop between 
the second and third year. The twenty year old 
tea on Pedro may well be regarded as a tiutw- 
lield ami we are not surprised to learn that Mr. 
Geo. White, head of the well -known lirm of 
London tea- brokers, bad declared that nowhere 
in Assam h;ul lie seen the equal of it. Tbe 
largest tea bush in the island is talieved to be 
one on St. John's, an estate not far off; but 
there are many on Pedro it would be hard to 
beat, while taken as a whole, we repeat, the 
tea-fields can be second to none. 
Capt. Bayiey has always taken an interest in 
Australian timber trees, of which a grant variety 
have been tried on Pedro where the- belts have 
been as numerous (though not w> closely plaeed 1 
but more diverslied than on the ad jaeeu't Lover** 
Leap. The growth in the case of some of the 
Acacias and Eucalypti has been very remarkable : 
but Capt. Layley has been thinning and clearing out 
with advantage to the tea, his plan bein;: to ring 
the condemned trees for some four feet from the 
ground and leave them so for a year or two 
to wither and harden before l>eing cut down. 
One belt cleared away ha- opened to the pro- 
prietor's bungalow a delightful prospect over 
forest and pat an a to the distant llaputale range, 
below which the course of the locomotive I rains 
can be (dearly marked. We had one magnifi- 
cently lofty specimen of a small-leaved Eu- 
oalypt standing near the bungalow, measured, 
with the result that we got a girth of 7A feet 
at 3 feet from the ground. For his new clear- 
ings, Capt. Bayiey intends to put in for shelter 
and timber E. Pilularis, a tree which ha* 
done exceptionally well on one or two places 
in Dimbula. Seed has been ordered from Aus- 
tralia and it will have a full trial on Pedro. 
Of this tree we have the following account, as 
well as of some other useful Eucalypti, from the 
Manager of Abbotsford : — 
E. Pthilaris is undouotedly a very fine tree, but 
I shouldn't like to say it is the best gum tree in 
the country, though there is a very good specimen of 
it indeed at Carlabeck. 
E. Diversicolor 
„ Marginata 
And several others grow well in some parts of 
Ceylon and those old blue gams at " The Grand " 
Hotel. Nuwara Eliya are moreover not to be despised 
I think. The general usefulness of the various tim- 
ber, for building purposes should be the proper test 
to applv to all the gums not grown solely for fuel ; 
but T doubt if there has been a sufficient quantity 
of any of the finer sorts used so far as to enable 
any one to judge fairly of their qualities. Blue gums 
are not to be desired except when you have a trouble- 
some contractor you 'd liko to see lodged in the 
Home for Incurables at Colombo. 
Here is what Baron Von Mueller says of E. l'ilularis: 
— " Found in wooded country from Eastern Gipps- 
landto Southern Queensland, advancing into mountain 
regions but confined to the littoral slopes. 
" A tree attaining under favorable circumstances a 
height of 800 feet and a stem circumference of 45 
feet, but as a rule of much less dimensions. 
" Timber excellent for general purposes used largely 
for building, furnishing material for flooring, boards 
and superior shingles, also utilized for telegraph poles 
and railway sleepers " and so on. 
[Our correspondent should not despise ordinary 
gums : we quote from another authority : — " The 
blue-gum timber is greatly used by colonial ship- 
builders, also by mill-wrights, carpenters, and 
implement-makers, and by engineers in the construc- 
tion of works requiring beams of great span ; it is 
exceedingly strong and very durable. A plank of the 
swamp-gum, forwarded to the International Exhibi- 
tian of 1863, measured 230 feet in length." The 
swamp-gum we take to be E. robusta or red gum 
now so plentifully planted in Ceylon.] 
