Dec. 1, 1900.] THE TEOPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
375 
tea it is iiecessari/, as it is practically impossible to 
get a twist on such wet leaf. If the leaves are 
attached to the stem, many of these shoots will be 
found to have rolled into a big ball without 
separaiing at all; but the system of plucking as 
described nb ve rendeis more frequent pruning neces- 
sary, though of course, not s j heavy as is usually 
done in Ceylon. Th's i-eminls me to say that I 
firmly believe this heavy pruning is at the bottom 
of all our troubles. We hack our bushes down in 
a most unmerciful manner, in order to make them 
run 18 or '10 months (hachinq is the only too'd for it — 
we can't call it pruning) ; and the result is we have to 
wait 6 or 7 weeks before we can begin plucking ; and 
then, for the next two months or more, we get leaf 
that is utterly useless for making tea, and if shipped 
by itself, would barely realise enough to cover costs. 
This is the leaf that should be destroyed if any, but 
what I say is don't gkow it. 
By pruning lightly every year, we should avoid all 
this useless rubbish, and I don't think we should lose 
anything in quLUtity, as a lightly pruned bush is 
ready for plucking in about a month, and begins 
at once to give big and regular flushes, whereas a 
heavily pruned bush not only takes longer, but after 
all the pruning shoots have been gathered, it takes 
a rest for another month or so before it begins to 
yield big and regular flushes : so that, in the one 
case there is a loss of two-and-half to three months 
as compared with a loss of oniy one month. Heavy 
pruning is necessary only once in five or six years. 
I am glad to see that the Indian planters have at 
last made up their minds to do something to relieve 
the London market; but, even now they don't seem to 
have hit upon the right way — which is to capture the 
local market. I hid some experience of that years 
ago, when I was myself an Indian planter, and I am 
positive, from what I saw and heard then, thit, if 
the planters would set about in the right way to 
introduce their tea to the native commanity, 
50,000,000 lbs. would not suffice to supply the 
demand that would soon spring up. Can't we man- 
age to persuade them to do this?— Old Cha. in The 
Times of Ceylon. 
TROPICAL PRODUCTS. 
A Dsmerara paper of recent date contains the 
following relative to cultivation of tropical products 
as pertinent here in these islands as there. 
Persons unacquainted with the past history of the 
colony are contmually asking " Why don't you grow 
coffee?" or why not cultivate fifty other things'? 
They hand you a long list, including cotton, cacao, 
rice, apices, and even ground nuts, without thinking 
of the local conditions ot the countries in which 
these articles are already grown, and of the possi- 
bility of overstocking the market. Calculations are 
oft n made showing that a certain product will pay 
at the present price, but no tho'ight is given to the 
probable effect of increased production. 
Sugar is a food, and as such its possibilities of con- 
sumption are greater than perh^,ps any other food 
products, except the different kinds of grain or corn. 
Rice may be put down as the best grain f ir this 
colony, but no one vpho has thought over the 
difficulty of turning a sugar estate into a rice 
plantation, and then of putting the product into 
competition with that from the East Indies, can 
come to any but an adverse conclusion. With other 
foods there will always be the possibility of over- 
production, and that very quickly. Indian corn and 
cassava can be grown here to advantage, but in the 
case of the first we shou d have to compete with 
the United States, and the second with Brazil. There 
is no probability of any very great increase in the 
consumption of cassava starch, farina or tapioca, and 
maize is so cheap that it is out of the question. Plan- 
tain flour might be useful, but unfortunately there 
U no market for it in quantity at present, 
The story of sugar cultivation in the colony is an 
interesting one. It was commeuced by the West India 
Company aoout two centuties ago in the neighbour- 
hood ul Kyk over-al, from where it gradually ex- 
tended down the Bssequebo and into the Oemerara 
But, although commenced in the upper districts, it 
Was never anything of a success uutil the coast lands 
were taken up. I'he experience of the ed,rly settlers 
agreed with the late deductions of the 'J-jvernment 
analyst, that the river banks beyond the alluvium 
were barren, and hardly worrli cultivating after two or 
three crops had been taken off, Oaly the high price 
of sugar once made it possible to carry on the culti- 
vation by clearing new land as the old gave out. 
When it was discovered that on the lower banks and 
coasts this was unnecessary, the die was virtually cast 
which made British Guiana a sugar colony. jVever- 
theless the final decision was not come to all at once. 
Even then a sugar plantation required a large supply 
of labor, and many a poor man with but a few slaves 
found It suited his pocket to grow cotton and coffee, 
which then fete .ed what we should now consider 
magiuticeut prices. 
Coffee was introduced into Essequebo jin 1725 but 
at first it was a failure. The comparatively barren 
soil in the neighborhood of Kyk-over-al did not suit 
it, and then again the troubie of picking and prepar- 
ing the berries was against it. So great was the 
failure that, although bags were shipped in 1728, 
a few years after the Commandeur haa to git a 
supply for his own table from Surinam or Berbice. 
In the last colony coffee cultivation was more success- 
ful. It was introduced from Surinam in 1720, and 
soon became of so much iaiportance that Berbice 
coffee was well known in the markets of Europe 
down to the emaneipitiou. After Demerara had be- 
come settled coffee came to the front and took its 
place besides sugar. In the year 1745, when the first 
land grants in the Damerai-a river were made, only 
one bag of coffee was shipped from Essequebo, but 
from mat t me the export increased until it reached 
in the early years of this century about ten million 
pounds annually from Demerara, besides nearly 
seven millions from Berbice. Java, iu No. 1 Canal 
seems to have been tne principal coffee estate in 
Dsmerara, and Anna dementia the most important 
in Berbice, the latter producing 530,525 pounds ia 
1811. 
Besides the high prices of coffee and cotton, there 
were other factors which helped to prevent losses 
on their cultivation. Slave labor was reliable 
there could be no strikes, nor was Saint Monday 
observed anywhere. Iiien again the estate owners 
worked together. "You scratch my back, and 111 
scratch your back" was in effect their motto. One 
lent his gang for picking, and in return similar help 
was given wuen required. Coffee picking was no 
doubt tiresome, although by no means laborious, still 
it had to be done, and done at the right time. It is 
generally considered that coffee came to grief oa 
ace milt of the emancipation, but this was not al- 
together the case. A timo came when sugar and 
coffee were equal iu price, or when advantages of the 
the former were so great that, wita a small labor 
supply. It would be foolish to keep up a plantation of 
of tue lower priced product. 
Although cotton was one of the articles brought 
from ijruiaua by the first traders, who brought it from 
the Indians, it was uou cultivated to any extent until 
the middle of the last century. In 17(52 the produce 
of Demerara aad Essequebo amounted to only tea 
bales, and it was not until the surrender to Great 
Britain m 1796 that anything like a " boom" took 
place. Then the three rivers were really opened, froe 
grants of laud were made, with the result that the 
whole coast from the EsSequebo to the Coreutyue, and 
even across to Nickerine, was a succession of cotton 
firtlds, Virgin soil, impregaated with salt, produced 
good crops, which sold at what would now be considered 
fabulous prices. The exports soon reached to over 
seven million pounds, and there seem to have jbeen 
