Sei'T. 1, 190-3.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 
2C7 
PLANTING FORTY YEARS AGO.* 
A Fi'.w Reminiscences by Ed. T.A. 
Oar first inspection of a cofiVe e^^tate was 
Of Aliweteiiatemie in the Medenialiatiuwnra 
'district ; that was in lS6i. The owner— a Mr. 
Turner — hail tlind sixddeuly, and bein^ in Kandy, 
Mr. Kichard Eudd invited ns to a drive to 
Tekleniya and a ride thence up to tlie far-famed 
Gap in the Eastern mountain range, near the 
■'spot wiiere ilie last Kini,' ot Kandy was cap- 
tured in 1815. Ell route wc were stopped by 
chierry "Ned Mortimer" — t!ien in liis piime — 
who shouted " Oisnie and see 15 cwt. of e()fl''e 
(cherries) per aeie on U'.ji'.vella No. 2" 
At our journey's end we w.-re met by iMr. 
Kichard liurke (then quite a youuf; planter) 
Who begpred the owner to come and inspect the 
' finest eoll'ee clearijiEr in the island on Anoru- 
well.i in llanff.'illa district. 
Tlie followin;;- week we accompanied '■ Alier- 
crombySwan" to " V^^icarton " and "the Bor- 
ders " — to inspect his line coffee, clean estates 
and crops of " Sepoy Coolies " in West Jlatale. 
" A rapes for eve>y weed yon pick up in my 
fields " was his iriumphanb clmlleuf^e to visitors. 
James Grant (John had begun pioneering in 
Travancore) Donald Bain and John and Chailes 
Forbes ware neighbours ; — (but we are merely 
giving a skeleton sketch ; details and incidents 
iiiust await the future Autobiography ?) We 
fode across to Elkadua, up by Sylvakatide where 
We encountered Edward Young, riding down 
from Kellebokka on a big horse which threatened 
f.p kick our pony into the ditch ; looked in on 
D. Watson on Dambulagalla ; had a grand 
afternoon outlook over the Valley (a picture of 
jstreen framed by the everlasting hills), got to D. 
Weba'er on Wattekelly ; and then made the 
round of the Knuckles and llangalla. Heigho ! 
'what grand shows of coffee every wliere ; and what 
'iiright ardent spirits among the 
KNUCKLES BRICKS ! 
',^9 tliere any one of them left in the island now^— 
'save "Mr. (Jhanning Esdaile who is revisiting liis 
Madul-'inia property ? 
Next year 1SG5 found us in the wake of Sir 
Hercules Robinson on his memorable tour throujzh 
Uva and Sabaragamuwa, the veteran M;ijor 
Skinner piloting the new Governor and bidding 
'ffllrewed hiniself to scenes with which he had been 
familiar since 1825 ! Who can foreyer the delight 
of the veteran head of the Public Works Depart- 
ment with the Farewell Address which the 
Haputalc planters, headed by "clever Henry Don" 
presented to him (ihe best expressed Address he 
declared, he had ever read and he wished to know 
who was the writer:— 'a feather', as we told the 
old Major ten years afterwads in England, 'in the 
cap of the young Sub-Editor and Ficporter ' who 
had been asked to draw it up !) AVho remain of 
all who met Sir Hercules Robinson at Kalupahane 
in 1865. save R. E. Pineo (Colombo Club) A. 
Macphail, W. H. Wright and ourselves ? 
Next year (1866) brought a 
* The hyperciitical will say. that means 18(52 and 
Ed. " T.A." though he arrived in 1861, never saw 
Kaiidy or a coffee e-itate till lS6i ! It was Dr. Johusou 
who retorted ou the old lady— who found fault with his 
saying a certain poar-tree wa^ " lo.^ded with fruits," 
because ahs had counted and there were only 40 pears— 
■' Od's Uadiuu would you have ua swear to the truth 
of a song !" 
BLACK FPaO.W 
in London Overend Gnrney & C'.i, down) and great 
depression in Colom^jo ; so that £500 could not bo 
raised in the Fort to buy an estate which a f.!W 
years after sohl for £5,0J0 ; and ba>hels ot coirio 
were exchanged for as many bushels of rico to 
keep coolies fr(,m starvation. 
Hani work was the order of the day dtiring 
186'3-7 8 ; and oui- ne.\t trip upcountry was to 
visit " Logie Elphinstone " on Wc-ithall and 
Macleod on K idieulen.i, early in ISG'.J. A id what 
a deliglitlul ride we all tiiree had into ' 
DI.MliULV FIOMX 
as it was called— for, the Wilderness of the Pe.ik 
was, comparatively, still terra incojniia — L');iie 
and BdijiMvia were then the f.irtliest estate-, 
witli a .jO-acre clearing in Matakelle as an excu-^e 
for sport ; and all the region beyond np to the 
(i.irges and the fo'it of the Bopats was '-Sportin;; 
Reserve ' never to be cultivate 1! Dimbula now 
counts 50.000 acres in cultivation out of 5-3,000 in 
private hands. In 18o9, only 8,0)0 acres ■.vero 
openeil— much of it newly burnt off as we saw it — 
and only 20,000 acres in all had baeri taken no. 
Fores'', forest everywhere: our ride through forest 
from Forest-creek to New Valley, Dikoya, was de- 
clared to have its risks — bad fords, or ro:ten 
wooileu attempts at bridges, perhaps a prowling 
elephant, or the chance ot getting bogged in a 
morass in some of the gu'lies belo v Kotrigala. 
Rut our chief enemy proved to be heavy persistent 
rain. [This was again the case on crossing from 
Dimbula to Dikoya, in 1872, v.-hen we were glad 
to accept Mr. Stvpford SackviPe's hospitality at 
Drayton and pass a pleasant foren )on with hin:, 
the late Walter Campbell, one of the Camerons 
and John Buchanan now in Braz 1.] In 1869 Dikoya 
and .Maskeliya (the latter with four blocks sold) 
had only 6,00i) acres cleared : .S. Le Cocq and T. R. 
Dobree were chuckling at tiie foolish rush into the 
region beyond ; they had ha ' enouj;h of rain^ and 
were soon aftjr off to select land, the one in Mora- 
wakkorle and the other Nitre Cave! 
The land was all before them 
Where to choose, — 
and they left behind them Bogawantalawa, the 
Agras and the best of Maske iya, to fix on two of 
the poorest spots in our hill country. But then the 
old Damerara coffee planter Sir Wni. Raid (who 
for himself in 1810, selected Spring Valley, the 
finest block in Uv,i) after passitig througli and re- 
jecting Haputale, fixed on a corner of ilakv/an-i 
for his nephew Charles Shand's future eott'ae 
plantations ! 
Where are the Dikoya men of 69 — James 
Mac Donald, the cheetah-slayer, L. H. Kelly, 
Sillery, Mackinnon, Davidson, MacLellan of the 
bagpipe-, Reid ? Two only remain in Cej'ion, we 
believe, Giles F. Walker who was superinteiidei:t 
on Del Rey, and D. W. H. Skrine wlio managed 
his own compact Warleigh property of 120 acres 
planted, a perfect "gold mine ''' in coffee. And 
yet poor Dobree ami Lecotq with all their 
Dikoya experience, would not touch, but rather 
an away from such laiui ! As for Alaskeliya, theie 
were only four blocks taken up in 1869, the pioneer 
being Tom Gray with Banyan and Ovoc;i. Time 
and spice fail us to record here any of the many 
planting adventures of those early days before 
roads and briilges came ino existance. Tiiere were 
'scapes hy Hood and field, — 
and there were actual fat;i!ities — deaths by drown- 
ing in trying to cross the D;koya river in monsoon 
