lis 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [Aug. 1, 1900, 
As far as coffee is concerned we have a cer- 
tain amount of data to go upon, the most im- 
portant of which is that coffee is already grown 
successfully in the Karen Hills, which lie only 
a little to the south of the part of the Shan 
States here alluded to. This one coffee planta- 
tion is not of new formation, but has been pro- 
ducing successfully for many years, and although 
of small extent it yields moat excellent returns. 
There can then be very little doubt that similar 
ground suitable for cotfee may be found in the 
above portion of the Shan States, which lies only 
some lUO miles north of the existing plantations, 
and in the hills which, as will appear from the 
map, are a part of the same range as those of 
Karenni. 
Lastly we have the question of climate, 
reference to which is still more encouraging, 
and a general summing-up of the conditions 
of life and work in the Shan States, which 
should tempt many dissatisfied colonists 
from elsewhere to the heart of this attractive 
region : — 
The climate is a delightful one for Europeans. 
There is no part of the year when out-door work 
cannot be engaged in tiiiroughout the wliole of 
the day, and with due ijrecautions as to clothing 
and good housing there is absolutely no doubt 
that the climate is an exceedingly healthy and 
bracing one. There are now large tracts of 
country as peaceful and well governed as any 
of the districts in Ceylon, India, or Assam, where 
life and property would be absolutely secure, 
both in the Southern and also in the Northern 
Shan States. There is suitable soil and climate, 
and a very large choice of locality and 
altitude. 
After this well-informed eulogium, we can 
hear a few of ottr readers exclaiming : " Who 
would not go to Burni;i ? " But what to 
grow : why not cinchona and camphor trees H 
Any planter dissat.sfied with tea sales at 6|d 
and in search of "fresh fields and pastures 
new," might do worse than shij) to Burma, 
and proceed 
r. • ; ■ " from Rangoon to Maadalay." 
A FARMER'S EVBRY-DAY LIFE. 
No. X. 
(Bii " Cosmopolite.^'') 
In these notes I have frequently made use 
of the expression 
"A PRACTICAL PARMER," 
and, perhaps, it would be as well for me to 
give some definition of this somewhat vague 
appellation, such at least as I have been 
given to understand the expression to mean. 
A practical farmer is said to be one who 
thinks he knows a deal more than he really 
does, and, whenever I have heard a man 
boastfully priding himself on being a practical 
farmer, I have surely found, on enqtiiry or 
from personal knowledge, that such a man 
is one who is self-opinionated and who sj)eaks 
contemptuously of those who try to be 
guided by science as " book-farmers." Such 
a contempt has he for this class that he 
shows it by reading no books himself; by 
possessing a greatness that never descends 
to reading an agricultural paper, and by 
Idindly walking along the track that his 
father and grandfather went before him. 
far ins on the old short course shift, has 
moi'e weeds than crop on his ground, wastes 
his time by attending every market within 
a radius of twenty miles and bemoans the 
hard times, instead of ttiking the goods the 
Gods provide him and trying to be thankful. 
But what, more th;in anything else, I notice 
about the self-styled pr.ictical farmer is the 
slovenly state of his steading; straw and 
turnips lying about wastmg, the dykes broken 
down, and the liquid manure running across 
tlie roads and down i)ast his dwelling-house." 
Of course, the practical farmer grows poor 
crops, nor will he try to learn how to inijn'ove 
them, because, forsooth, he considers that 
what he does injt know about farming is 
not worth learning. Anf)ther peculiarity of 
the practical farmer is his 
DISIN'CI-INATION TO PAY HIS MKN, 
the wages due to them ; he invariably 
does so with a very bad grace, and, 
not unfretinently, gets rid of the man 
who asks for tiie money to which he is justly 
entit'ed. Some of them even make a point 
of getting drurik when asked by anj' of their 
servants for some of their wages, a jjro- 
ceeding for whicli I can find no excuse. I 
have always considered it a very humiliating 
thing for any one to be compelled to 
ask for what is his own, so that I liave made 
a point since I took this farm of -jaying my 
men ev'ery fourth Monday which enables 
them to go with cash in hand to the shops, 
and thus buy goods at a n)uch lower rate than 
if they had to ask for credit I see no reason 
therefore, for a practical farmer becoming 
suddenly and dangerously excited, because 
asked to pay what he k)iows is justly due to 
his men ; he himself is paid hard cash for 
everything that he sells— -stock, wool or grain 
— and why should he not also paj^ cash? Now 
that (lovernment is sending to the different 
parishes, 
LECTURERS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, 
the practical farmer may be improved 
of himself, for, although he would never 
drean:i of listening to any lecture on any 
farming subject, feeling convinced in his own 
mind that he knows more about it than the 
lecturer does, still his own children go — just 
for the fun of the thing -and they pick up 
a few new notions which in course of time 
they may utilise. Lately I took a ride on 
my bike round a district which is still cele- 
brated as the home of many practical 
farmers, and I felt txuite melancholy as I 
gazed on the many nice homesteads sur- 
rounded by fine trees, looking gloomy, de- 
serted and di.sreputable. Here and there a 
farm, evidently in the hands of an ^^n- 
practical farmer, looked like an oasis in a 
desert, its garden as trim and well kept 
as those of the practical farmers were weedy, 
overgrown and desolate. I was told that the 
laird of the property on which these farm were 
was in the hands of mortgagees, and could 
not alford to help his poor struggling tenantry. 
But I failed to see what claim the tenantry 
had for help ; they took their farms at their 
own valuation, and should have been pre- 
pared to implement the conditions of their 
leases without bemoaning their fate ; and 
the fact of some of them doing well, although 
by no means holding the best farms, showed 
that it was the illiterate practical faji'Ui^j 
