400 
THE TEOPICAL 
AaRICULTtJElST. [Dec. 1, 1902. 
SUBSIDIARY PRODUCTS IN THE 
CEYLON PLANTING DISTRICTS. 
When our Governor Sir West Kidgeway 
in one of his home speeclies said that if 
Tea were to jro, Ceylon might stagger, buc 
would in time right lierself, he doubtless 
had in his mind's eye, the Subsidiary Pro- 
ducts in the Planting Districts, together 
with Coconuts, Cinnamon, Mining and Trade 
generally, as the ground of his confident hope, 
Individually none of these subsidiary products 
may count for very much, nor run in 
statistical tables into the magnificent line 
of figures which tea can tabulate ; but they 
are there as helps, and in the event of a 
disaster to tea— which Heaven forbid — 
would prove as useful in such distressful 
times, as cinchona did when coffee suffered 
its total eclipse and the outlook for the 
Colony was hopeless in the extreme. 
Homilies on the ancient text "Don't 
have all your eggs in the one basket," have 
been preached in these columns with a per- 
sistency which to some, may have seemed 
tiresome, but cannot by any be adjudged 
unwise ; and to place planters, who were 
desirous of embarking in a subsidiary way 
in products other than tea, the Observer 
press has issued from time to time up-to- 
date Manuals and Handbooks for instruc- 
tion and guidance, not to speak of 
the evergreen Tropical Agriculturist. We 
are glad to think that although the 
wilderness we had to cry in was at one 
time wide, we have not cried in vain ; and 
today, planting opinion fully recognises the 
wisdom of having more than one string to 
the bow, and has acted on it. 
The difficulty, which meets the man who 
is bent on an extension of interests, and a 
partial insurance for the future, is to find 
the product that will pay best in the long 
run. We would emphasise "the long run"; for 
the energy of the Ceylon planter is pro- 
verbial, and it is not once nor twice his 
zeal has so outrun his discretion that an 
opening which would have led the few to 
pleasant fields and pastures new, has been 
rushed by the many, and trampled into a 
waste which was profitable to none. We 
have had cinchona which helped many a 
man in the transition stage between coffee 
and tea, turned at last— through oyerpro- , 
duction— into a commercial drug in every 
sense, sinking into chaos. The "deepest 
deep" "which memory can recall in the 
case of Ceylon produce, being a parcel of 
" bark" which failed to cover shipping and 
London charges, and brought as its only 
return to the unfortunate proprietor— a 
debit note from London : reminding us of 
a Kentish fruit farmer who in return for 
a consignment of plums to Covent Garden, 
got a memo, showing Is 6d balance he had 
to pay ! Cinchona has not been the only 
minor product that showed a fair 
prospect of a decent return for a time 
and then gradually shrank into the 
limbo of the »in profitable. There is, of 
course, an outside public that benefits by 
all this ; but planting is not a purely 
j)hilatttbropi« occupation, nor ie it yun fo 
the benefit of the outsider; and enterprise 
is liable to be checked when disappointment 
so frequently dogs its footsteps. Still, the 
lesson to be learned from the past is not 
to cease from doing ; but to be wary in 
your doing. There is a call for men to 
think for themselves, for independence of 
action, and for avoidance of the ruinous 
policy of " Follow the leader." 
Among the subsidiary products of the 
island. Cacao takes a first place, and given 
a suitable soil and location, it has, on the 
whole, done handsomely for its growers. 
It stands, however, more on its own feet 
than most other by-products, is a cult of 
its own, needs unwearied attention, special 
observation, and each tree has to be studied. 
The scare of the bark fungus has now 
given the coarser and stronger varieties a 
first place ; but there has been of late a 
return to the old love, and the plump round 
red beaned Caracas is again in evidence, 
" We know now how to deal with the 
fungus when it appears " say the men whj 
are venturing on it, and as " knowledge is 
power," the chances are in their favour. 
_ Cinchona, after years of a discredited life, 
IS again being played with ; but there is a 
fearful pleasure connected with it. Not to 
speak ot_ the chances of snuffing out— es- 
pecially in the richer varieties— was there 
ever a more sensitive market than the 
bark one ? The late slump in prices, brought 
cxbout by unusually large shipments froin 
Java, was not, we were informed, at all 
justified by the statistical position of the 
article. Yet a mere temporary increase in 
imports was productive of a serious alarm 
which found unpleasant expression in the 
lessened value of the unit of quinine. It is 
clear that cinchona is not a good stand-by 
for the man who must harvest; for if their 
numbers were to sensibly increase, there 
would be history repeating itself, and the 
tale of a vanished fortune would have again 
have to be re-told. 
Cardamoms have, for some time, done so 
well that they have been extended both on 
estates and in native gardens. Activity too 
is reported from the world outside Ceylon. 
Companies, who have properties in favour- 
able localities, sanction grevillea and other 
fire-wood clearings with cardamoms as an 
adjunct, to cover in time the cost of the 
extension ; but while exports increase, prices 
decrease, and as the market for this spice 
is a limited one, the future is not without 
clouds on the horizon. 
About RuBBKR there is a glory. It, at least, 
cannot easily be over-done and Ceylon has 
shown that it is capable of producing a 
quality which commands top prices. Its 
growers are enthusiastic : old planters who 
meet them, with the pride of possession 
tinging their speech, are reminded of the 
halcyon days of cinchona culture, when by 
a species of simple arithmetic the growing 
plants were panned into sterling coin, and 
the owner, who was usually the demons- 
trator, was proved to be in possession of a 
prospective fortune. It went in this way :— 
Bark is worth so much. Each tree carries 
so maoy pounds; there are *vn ascert£|iUi' 
