April 2, 1900. J THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
697 
TEA IN CEYLON: 
EXPORTS IN PROPORTION TO AREA 
PLANTED. 
IS IT WELL TO MANURE TEA 
ON VIRGIN SOIL? 
The question has lately been raised in 
practical quarters as to whether the export 
of tea from Ceylon of recent years has kept 
up with the extension of planted land. We 
have heard a decided negative given, and 
the explanation ofEered that, apart i^ojoo. 
actual abandonments of unprofitable fields, 
much tea on poor land had fallen off in yield 
and that, even if manured, such poor tea 
failed to respond for more than one or two 
seasons and then fell back into a worse 
state than before, more especially if a 
stimulating fertiliser had been used. In 
these days of almost universal belief in the 
virtue of manure— properly selected and 
adapted of course,— it is somewhat refreshing 
to meet with practical men who are not only 
doubtful, but sceptical of the advantages 
of manuring from the proprietor's point of 
view, if a series of years be taken into 
consideration. Given a decent soil with a 
carefully planted field of hardy hybrid jat 
in a suitable climate ; and " leave well alone 
would be their motto. "Content yourself 
with an average 400 to 500 1b. yield; do all 
justice in careful pruning, weeding, tillage, 
burying prunings with a little lime perhaps ; 
and leave the rest to Providence,"— is very 
much their idea of what is right. "No doubt, ' 
they add, " by manuring you can increase 
your yield by 'from 25 to 40 per cent, for 
some years ; but your trees suffer in the 
long run and the yield eventiially falls off." 
Now as regards a problem of this kind, 
no doubt a good deal will be learned from 
the forthcoming Report of Mr. Kelway 
Bamber, in which, of course, the virtues and 
effects of manure for tea plantations are 
most fully discussed. Nor is this done simply 
from the point of view of the Laboratory 
and Analytical Chemist. For, Mr. Kelway- 
Bamber has had a special advantage m visitmg 
every tea district in the island, in gettnig 
the fullest information respecting typical 
estates in each, and in profiting by the ex- 
perience and observation of many of the 
shrewdest and most successful of our practical 
planters, an incalculable gain to the scientist 
hewever advanced he may be in his own 
Department. Nevertheless for the purpose 
of answering the problem now raised, we 
should think it preferable if scientific at- 
tention had been directed to two typical 
and therefore old plantations— one of which 
had never been manured, while the other 
had had systematic if not continuous appli- 
cations. Now, for the former, we should be 
inclined to suggest, above all others, the 
Loolecondera estate with perhaps the oldest 
continuou.sly bearing tea in the island. We 
have been accustomed to get reports at 
intervals from the manager of this estate 
for embodiment in our " Handbook and 
Directory." The latest was courteously fur- 
nished by Mr. G. F. Deane on 20th May, 
1898, when he wrote as follows :—" Replying 
to youi letter of 17th, the oldest field of 
87 
tea" (30 to 32 years of age) "on Loolecon- 
dera is still looking remarkably well and 
continues to give yields varying from 400 
to 500 lb. made tea per acre per iiunum. It 
last year received a heavier pruning and 
cutting down than it ever had before and 
looks all the better for it. The ground is a 
a network of roots and the steins of the 
bushes are very thick. This tea is now some 
30 years old, is very wind-swept in the South- 
west monsoon and has, I believe, never been 
manured." There is one exception (and but 
one only, we believe) to the last clause : in .Tuly, 
1891, (about a year before his death) Mr. 
James Taylor, who first planted the tea on 
Loolecondera, reported to us: — "The field is 
as good as ever, giving about the same 
.iTops : it was manured once only with castor 
cake in the beginning of 1885." The one 
exception may surely he said to prove the 
rule in the case of Loolecondera if the tea 
of this field still continues up to the mark 
at 32 to 34 years of age ? Now, it ought to 
be of great interest to have a special report 
on this unmanured estate, giving, from a 
scientist's point of view, the reasons why 
the tea is still in such good heart, with 
yields if anything increasing, or at any rate, 
steady year by year. Surely there is en- 
courageme»t in the case of Loolecondera to 
proprietors of tea fields formed out of virgin 
forest, to follow the same course of careful 
cultivation without manuring ? Of course, 
the lesson might be still more instructive 
if Mr. Kelway-Bamber were to find a similar 
estate where an opposite, or "manuring", 
policy had been adopted from an early 
age, with a better result in crops and 
with trees — at 25 to 30 years old— if 
such there be in ^Ceylon — even healthier 
and more vigorous than those of Loole- 
condera. 
We are leaving out of view here the case 
of tea planted on old coffee estates, or on 
land otherwise used up or washed out. There, 
the choice may be : " manuring " or " aban- 
donment." The question we propound is in 
respect of tea estates formed out of virgin 
land, doing well and in good heart, or if 
showing any slackness, only of a few months' 
duration, due to seasonal influences. 
We must now leave this subject, to revert 
to the more particular and statistical enquiry 
raised in our opening sentences, naibely, Has 
the Ceylon export (or crop) of tea of late 
years increased in proportion to the area of 
young tea coming into bearing ? This de- 
mands a very careful examination of the 
figures in our Handbook — more than we are 
prepared to give today— but before closing 
for the present, we should like to lay two 
sets of figures before our readers, making the 
following contrast : — 
In 1888, the total area planted with tea was, 
as near as we could make out, 183,000 acres, 
(of course, most not in bearing) the 
total export of tea that year was 
24,381,296 lb. 
In 1893 — six years after — the area had 
risen to 273,000 acres : the total export to 
84,406,064 lb. = an increase of 90,000 acres 
under tea and 60 millioias lb. more ts&i 
exported. 
