846 THE TROPICAL AGEICULTURIST, [June 1, 1900. 
kind of manuring required by tea and that 
the necessity for such manure can be detected 
either by analysing the made tea or the soil 
producing s ;ch tea. 
John HuGHiis. f.i.c. 
District Agric It^iral Analyst 
for Herefordshire. 
Analytical Laboratory, 79, Mark Lane, 
London, S.C., April 6th, 1900. 
ANALYSES OF CEYLON TEA. 
BROKEN ORANGE PEKOE. 
Marked. Nos. 1 2 3 4 5 6 
Sale Room Price 
per lb. l/4i 1/2| 1/2^; 7i ^ %i 
By infusion for 
five minutes. 
I. Soluble hot- 
water extract 
per cent. 43-15 46-55 45-30 44-40 :42-95 39-70 
Containing : 
Nitrogen 1-72 1-88 2'16 1-57 1-66 1-35 
Mineral Mat- 
ters (ash) 3-75 4-45 4-25 4-35 3-70 3-65 
Potash 1-87 2-13 1-92 2-07 1-98 1-98 
II. Insoluble Re- 
sidue per cent. 54-85 53-45 51-70 55-60 57-05160-30 
Containing : 
Nitrogen 2-73 2-57 2-77 2-37 2-34 2-44 
Mineral Matters 1-47 -83 -71 1-25 1-64 1-89 
Potash -29 None -20 '4C -14 "21 
Total Nitrogen per 
cent. 
4-45 4-45 4-93 3-94 4-00 3-89 
Total Mineral 
Matters 'or ash) 5-22 5-28 4-96 5-60 5*34 5-54 
Containing : 
Potash 2-16 2-13 2-12 2-47 2-12 2-19 
Phosphoric Acid -87 "92 -87 -66 -71 -58 
Lime -49 '58 '47 -53 -58 -60 
Sand & Quartz -16 -08 -20 -32 -28 -32 
John Hughes, f.i.c. 
District Agricultural Analyst for Herefordshire. 
. - 
"UNDEVELOPED RESOURCES." 
No man in the island by this time 
knows more probably of our different 
wild and unoccupied districts than the 
Conservator of Forests. This we have 
long seen from his valuable annual 
Reports and we gave a sample of out-of-the- 
way information received from the same 
source in our London Lecture. Mr. Broun has 
lately returned from the Hambantota 
district— a scene, for a great extent, of 
desolate chenas and hopeless scrub ; but we 
are interested to learn that he came across 
cotton growing wild over considerable areas 
between Kirinda and Palutupane, and yet 
not at all on a kindly looking soil. The enter- 
prising Parsee lessees of the Colombo Cotton 
Mills should send an agent to inspect these 
•' wild " cotton fields. The Conservator has, 
of course, had experience of cotton in India, 
and he pointed out long iigo a lai-ge stretch 
of cotton soil between Giant's Tank and 
Tunakkai in the Northern Province, which 
after proper working up, ought to grow 
cotton well. Unfoi'tunatfly, this is by no 
means a very paying product at present, 
even under favourable circumstances ; and 
we cannot count ourselves of those who think 
that the railway is to bring a rush of 
capitalists or settlers all at once into the 
country. It will be a case of festina lente. 
It was auiusiug to read a would-be local 
authority the other day saying that the 
Northern railway would at once lead to 
English investments ; while on the other hand 
ha denounced all money spent on irrigatioH 
as worse than wasted. Th's was the 
converse of the memorable scene in Mr. 
Chamberlain's private room when a worthy 
knight descanted on the grand resources to 
be developed by the new railway and the 
leader of the Deputation who had, as Go^ 
ernor, travelled m that region a good deal, 
asked ifhe could name one single product that 
could be profitably grown without water 
and " Goompane could make no reply." 
There lay the secret, we believe, of the sudden 
determination to include "Irrigation" so largely 
in the Public loan. Of course, there are ex- 
tensive forest and timber resources capable of 
being dealt with and we still hope to see a 
big sugar experiment begun on the banks of 
the Mahaweliganga. But time and patience 
will, be required. As to the coupling of a 
railway and investments, it must be remem- 
bered that our very x'emocest planting dis- 
tricts were invested in before ever there 
was a mile of rail in the island, and when 
even the nearest road was 50 to 80 miles off 
— so sure is a really remunerative invest- 
ment to be found out ! 
Returning to our original topic, and the 
Hambantota district, it is of further interest 
to learn that there was discovered there a 
fair sprinkling of acacia sundra. believed to 
be synonymoiis with A. catechu, which, in 
Burma, yields a large revenue over 
Cutch manufacture. It has been found 
before in small quantities in the Puttalam 
district. 
CEYLON TEA CROPS AND INCREASED 
YIELD OF TEA PER ACRE. 
The question was asked some time ago as 
to whether the export of tea of recent years 
had kept up with the extension of planted 
and in Ceylon. One of the best answers was 
that afforded by Mr. G. Thornton Pett. of 
Pussellawa, who, taking our "Directory" as 
his guide, produced the following set of 
figures- (all but the total planted area for 
1899 which we have ventured to fill in) : — 
Total Tea Tea in Yield per Total Ex- 
Planted bearing acre ported 
Year, acres. acres. lb. lb. 
1883 32,000 6,500 256 1,641,810 
1888 183,000 77,000 309 24,381,296 
1893 273,000 205,000 401 84,406,064 
1898 364,000 289.000 414 119,769,071 
1899 380,000 .305,000 42S 129,894,156 
It will be seen that the yield per acre 
from land in bearing has steadily advanced. 
Of course, as Mr. Pett said, " an important 
factor to be taken into consideration with 
the increase of yield, is when the bulk of 
the tea in the lowconntry came into bearing, 
this would give the yield per acre for the 
whole island a perceptible rise. There is no 
doubt as yet that the lowconntry tea has not 
gone back, in spite of sporadic attacks of 
grey blight." 
