Aug. i, 1 899. J 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 
i25 
To the Editor'. 
TEA ON VIRGIN SOIL; AND HOW 
FLAVOUR IS KEPT UP BY 
PROPER CULTIVATION. 
June 15. 
Dear Sir, — I see in one of your leaders 
you quote Mr. T. C. Owen as saying — 
" Do what he could, he could not keep 
vip the quality of tea to what he got the 
first few years from tea in virgin forest 
|land." 
I am well aware it is easy to sweat lands 
by allowing plants to grow up and spread 
out to their own sweet will and to allow 
them to bear fruit or leaf to such an extent 
that tlie trees will soon become sickly, will 
not be able to bear even part of the crops 
they did before and even the ci'op they do 
bear is of inferior quality — why is this ? 
Well, the pomp of the tree has been used to 
the utmost of its capacity and the roots be- 
came contracted, so sap could not lie taken 
in sufficient quantity to nourish the fruit 
and leaves, -leaves drop off and fruit does 
not get ripe or get the same flavour as fruit 
did on same tree before it was allowed to 
overbear. 
On the other hand, an expeinenced Agri- 
culturist is able to e^row fine trees on land 
where not even a blade of grass did grow 
before he took in hand this barren land. 
Your own Tropiail Agriculturist books of 
the past, bear evidence how, I, on Maria, 
tended one Arabian coffee tree grown up as 
native coffee and picked one year, one bushel 
and one measure parchment from that tree. 
2. — How I planted one tea seed in another 
part which became a tree 25 feet high. .8. — 
When I had one cacao tree which gave tliree 
varieties of cacao from three branche?, and 
another from the stem 20 feet high. 4. — 
How I planted out tea plants on Raxawa 
estate after my Agents advised me to sell 
the plants, as that soil would never grow 
tea, got some bushes to spread seven and 
eight feet, and tea now giving over 609 lb. 
made tea per acre and tea of good quality. 
5. — How on Frankland estate, wliere at first 
cacao would not come on by judicious man- 
uring, I have many trees over 20 feet high 
and had excellent crops — from the same estate. 
I sent you the largest cacao leaf grown in 
Ceylon, and sent also the largest pods. 
You will remember hov^r I have repeatedly 
•written advising the use of green manure 
(weed and foliage from trees), cattle manure. 
The latter is purchased from villagers by some 
planters because it costs on the spot from 3d 
to 6d a cart-load. They, however, forget that 
it is not pure cattle manure but a mixture 
of cattle-dung and earth, besides village 
cattle eat all. kinds of foliage even lantana, 
so you get a lot of seed in your manure, 
and in addition you take to your estates, 
beetles and their eggs, whicli require to be 
picked out. Then also you require one basket 
jwli to each tree, wUeveas I Ayau-aat \ 
basket of poonac and straw-fed cattle manure 
collected on roadside cattle shed, carefully 
heaped up on a stone floor will be twice as 
good as one basket village rubbish ; but green 
manure is the most essential to keep trees 
up to the original standard, and in Ceylon 
we are blessed with a large variety of plants 
and trees w^hich I have discovered and I 
will undertake to increase yield aiad improve 
flavour in tea, with this green manure, wood 
ash, lime and in some cases bones added in 
any ptii-t of the island. — Yours faithfully, 
JOSEPH HOLLOWAY. 
USEFUL TIMBER TREES (CASU- 
ARINA.) 
Dear Sir, — With reference to your notes 
on the above in the Observer of the 16th insti 
(see page 122) Casitarina eqioiseti folia, as 
well as some other species of the Jfamilyj 
fincls in Ceylon a congenial home, growing 
rapidly and producing seed in abundance 
both in the low-country and up to about 
4,500 feet elevation. A tree of this in 
Peradeniya Gardens which was killed by light- 
ning in 1896, was found to measure 150 feet in 
length, with a girth of over 11 feet at the 
base (which was buttressed), the diameter 
being over 40 inches, thus exceeding by 10 
inches, the maximum diameter recorded for 
it in its native country, Australia. In India 
the same species has been rather extensively 
planted, especially in unreclaimed areas, for 
the purpose of supplying fuel to the railway, 
as the wood makes good fuel and leaves but 
little ashes. The heart-wood is hard, heavy, 
and fairly durable, though in the latter 
quality it does not equal some of the Ceylon 
woods, e.g. Palu, Satinwood, Keta-kala, &c. 
The Sinhalese call it " Kassa-gaha," meaning 
whip-tree, on account of the slender cord-like 
leafless branches ; while in Avistralia it is 
known under the names of She-oak, Forest 
oak. Beef-wood (on account of tlie colour of 
the wood), Horse-tail oak, &c. The latter as 
well as the specific names signifj^ the Horse- 
tail herb of temperate climes. This is one of ' 
the handsomest species of Casuarina, and 
is highly esteemed as an ornamental pot-plant 
in Europe. — Yours faithfully, X. 
BAMBARA "BEE." 
Sir, — Is tliere any other man in Ceylon who 
tamed the Bambara Bee. I kept them in an open 
Lee box ir my verandah, till their young were 
ready to fly, when one day in my absence they 
left the box and had settled on three different 
trees, but my cooly was afraid to catch them in 
boxes I had prepared, and when I came back I 
could not trace them. 
J. H. 
[We rather think the late Mudaliyar Jaya- 
tileke of Kuriuiegala — a great bee-keeper— suc- 
ceeded well with ihe two indigenous bees of 
Ceylon. Does "J. II." recall tlie experiences of 
Mr. Benton, the Americaa Apiarian, when iifii ? 
—Ed. ^\A^^ 
