Jan.  2r  1893.] 
THE  TROPICAL  AGRICULTURIST. 
46s 
THE  GREAT  TEA-PLANTING  INDUSTRY  : 
THE  CHANGE  IN  TEN  YEARS! 
Thb  Need  of  Planting  Timber  and  Fuel  Trees 
for  Shelter,  &c. 
About  the  middle  of  1881,  the  area  under  the 
eeveral  prinoipal  produots,  which  went  to  make  up 
“the  Ceylon  planting  enterprise”  (apart  from  palms), 
was  represented  as  follows : — 
Coffee — Arabica 
„ Liberica 
Cinchona 
Tea 
Cacao 
Cardamoms 
252,000  acres 
4.000  „ 
34,000  „ 
9,500  „ 
5,400 
1.000 
Ten  years  later,  the  return  for  the  same  enterprize, 
ran  as  follows : — 
Tea 
Coffee — Arabica 
,,  Liberica 
Cacao 
Cinchona 
Cardamoms 
..  250,000  acres 
..  38,750  „ 
1,650  „ 
..  12,900  „ 
. . 9,500  „ 
5,000  „ 
And  the  returns,  which  we  are  about  to  ask  for, 
in  reference  to  the  compilation  of  a new  edition 
of  the  “Ceylon  Handbook  and  Directory,”  will 
probably  show  that,  while  the  area  of  coffee  has 
still  further  shrunk,  that  under  tea  cultivation 
has  gone  on  until  the  total  is  perhaps  at  the 
end  of  1892  in  excess  of  260,000,  perhaps  266,000 
acres.  With  suoh  figures  before  us,  we  can  have 
little  hesitation  in  answering  the  question  so 
pointedly  addressed  to  us  personally,  by  an  old 
journalist  and  colonist  who  asks  if  we  are  pre- 
pared to  give  the  same  advioe  to  tea  planters  in 
Ceylon  as  we  have  offered  to  the  future  planters 
of  Uganda?  Certainly:  our  advioe  is  not  to  open 
new  plantations  of  tea  in  Ceylon  any  more  than 
in  Uganda,  or  anywhere  else — at  least  until  the 
hold  of  Indian  and  Ceylon  teas  on  the  American 
and  Australian  markets  as  well  as  on  those  of  the 
Continent  of  Europe  is  more  firmly  established. 
But,  it  is  a very  different  matter  opening  new  tea 
plantations  and  still  more  new  tea  districts,  to 
suoh  extension  of  an  established  planting  enter- 
prise as  is  involved  in  new  clearings  or  new  fields 
added  to  existing  plantations.  This  process  will 
inevitably  go  on  both  in  Indian  and  Ceylon  districts, 
unless  a deoided  oheok  is  given  by  another  fall  of 
price  or  the  enhancement  of  the  rupee.  All  on- 
lookers—and  perhaps  the  large  majority  of  planters — 
are  fully  agreed  that  Ceylon  has  for  the  present 
enough  of  tea  planted.  We  are  even  told  that  no 
inconsiderable  proportion  of  gardens  cropped  (especi- 
ally, we  suppose,  where  formed  on  old  coffee  land) 
exist  through  the  influence  of  the  debased  rupee  rather 
than  from  bona  fide  profits  due  to  the  returns  of  leaf 
in  proportion  to  value  and  expenditure.  Leaving  aside, 
for  the  present,  the  question  as  to  whether  or  not 
the  price  of  tea  in  the  London  market  would 
rise,  to  some  extent  at  least,  in  proportion  to  any 
possible  enhancement  of  the  rupee,  we  would  simply 
ask,  who  is  to  lay  dowD,  much  less  enforce,  a rigid 
rule  to  the  individual  planter : — ' ‘ Don’t  plant  another 
aore  of  tea— say  during  next  year.”  It  is  all  very 
well  for  the  proprietor  who  has  been  early  in  the 
work  and  who  may  have  got  his  fields  fully  opened 
in  proportion  to  bis  reserve,  or,  alas  ! as  we  fear 
in  too  many  oases,  in  excess  of  the  due  and 
safe  proportion,— to  say  “ Don’t  plant  any  more  ” 
to  less  fortunate  neighbours  who  are  busy  making 
up  a deoent  working  aoreage,  or  rounding  off  a 
few  fields  by  new  clearings.  Men  who  can  point 
to  a considerable  margin  of  profits  from  their  100 
or  150  aores  are  not  to  be  deterred  from  adding 
100  or  50  acres  more,  in  order  to  make  a plantation 
worthy  of  the  attention  of  a European  Manager  ; 
nor  are  proprietors  with  well-furnished  FaotorieB 
to  be  kept  back  from  extending  even  a larger 
aoreage,  - In  suoh  oases,  it  must  be  left  to 
individual  proprietors  or  the  directors  of  eaob 
Company,  to  settle  the  point  of  adding  to  the 
planted  area,  for  themselves.  Still,  it  may  be 
safely  said  that  no  considerable  addition  to  the 
cultivated  extent  under  tea  is,  for  the  present,  to 
be  anticipated.  And  one  good  reason  for  this  is 
found  in  the  faot  that  nearly  the  whole  of  the 
available  area  is  praotioally  planted  up.  Taking 
into  consideration  the  necessities  of  plantations 
in  timber  and  fuel,  it  is  certain  indeed  that  the 
total  unplanted  reserves  in  private  hands  are 
less  than  the  requirements  of  the  case.  And  these 
reserves  are  most  valuable.  Only  the  other  day, 
we  had  suoh  a reserve  in  forest  pointed  out  to 
us,  some  20  to  30  aores,  whioh  the  proprietor,  in 
a high  distriot,  was  said  to  rate  as  highly  per 
acre  as  he  did  his  planted  tea  1 
To  judge  by  what  we  have  just  seen  in  Dimbula 
— and  the  same  is,  we  suppose,  true  in  Dikoya 
and  Maskeliya— the  transformation  from  ooffee  to 
tea  is  praotioally  complete.  No  doubt  there  are 
certain  fields  of  ooffee  still  carefully  watohed  over  : 
it  was  oheering  to  learn  from  the  laird  of 
Tillicoultry  that  he  waB  satisfied  with  his  orop, 
and  from  the  cheery  managing  proprietor  of 
Middleton  that  he  had  his  2J  owt.  pioking  per 
aore  of  the  old  berry  ; and,  no  doubt,  this  could 
be  parallelled  in  Agrapatanas  and  Bogawan. 
talawa,  as  well  as  in  Udapussellawa  and  Haputale. 
But,  for  all  praotioal  purposes  Dimbula,  Dikoya 
and  Maskeliya— the  hundred  square  miles  of 
plantations  formed  out  of  the  “ wilderness  of -the 
Peak  ” — are  now  tea  districts.  It  is  exceedingly 
pleasant  in  this  connection  to  h’ear  that  experi- 
ments in  planting  the  old  staple,  ooffee,  are  being 
made  in  selected,  sheltered  parts  of  Uva,  and  we 
wish  all  success  to  the  young  olearings,  while 
we  think  a great  deal  more  might  be  done  in  the 
lowcountry  with  Liberian  Ooffee.  But,  for  the 
present,  suoh  oases  do  not  affeot  our  arguments 
that  in  the  established  districts— leaving  out  of 
view  those  favoured  with  caoao  or  oardamoms  to 
any  extent — the  planters  have  only  tea  fields  to 
attend  to.  The  change  visible  to  the  traveller 
through  Dimbula,  for  instanoe,  is  simply  marvellous. 
Travelling  by  the  road  from  Nanuoya  to  Talawa* 
kele,  with  its  almost  unbroken  expanse  _ of 
vigorous  leaf-abounding  tea,  who  could  imagine 
that  only  a few  years  ago  this  was  all  under  an 
entirely  different  plant  ? Looking  along  the  verdant 
fields  of  Wangie-oya,  Galkandewattie,  and  Great 
Western,  or  again  at  the  young  and  old  olear- 
ings of  tea  in  splendid  jfit  which  oover  the 
easy  slopes  of  Palmerston,  not  to  speak  of  the 
valuable  younger  properties,  higher  up  the 
valley,  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  anything  but 
their  present  staple  ever  supplanted  the  original 
forest.  And  yet  we  remember  Eoalpa  and  Great 
Western  when  they  were  being  revived  and  re- 
planted, under  the  indefatigable  superintendence 
of  Mr.  R.  Porter,  as  a coffee  plantation  after  a 
long  period  of  negleot  if  not  abandonment.  Now, 
under  the  speoial  care  of  one  of  the  leading 
managers  in  the  country,  Great  Western  may  be 
taken  as  a model  of  a well-ordered  Ceylon  Tea 
Plantation.  No  lesB  startling  is  it  to  note  the  series 
of  extensive,  well-finished  and  well-furnished 
factories,  whioh  the  tea  era  haB  called  into  ex- 
istence in  Dimbula.  There  was  surely  cause  for 
reflection  in  seeing  the  old  ooffee  store  by  the 
riverside  near  the  ferry  on  Great  Western— 
where,  among  others,  Mr.  G.  A.  Talbot  had  his 
first  lessons  in  preparing  and  despatching  ooffee— 
in  ruins,  levelled  to  the  ground ; while  on  the 
59 
