THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
385 
PLANTING IN NORTHERN DISTRICTS : 
KNUCKLES, &c.. 
CACAO -FREE RICE — WEATHER AND COOLIES — 
PLTTMBAGO— ROADS— LANTAXA SUQ— 
SANITARY REFORM. 
( Comnumicated. ) 
Cacao is a thing that lew people like to SDeak 
much of. If you press for information, "Well, 
there is not uiuch disease about liere," is what 
you are told, and arc asksd " Have you seen it 
in Dniubara'' ? You meet another fellow and you 
l)ose him v/ith the question: " Have you seen 
the cacao in Dumbaia " ? " OhI that's the result of 
the drought" says he— high and mighty— and later 
on, in the same keen pursuit of knowledge, you try a 
second man with how the drought has killed out 
the cacao inDumbara, and he evidently regards you 
as a kind of idiot. "Drought!" he exclaims. 
Then putting his hand to iiis mouth, he snys in 
a mysterious stage whisper,—" It's something 
— echo ! " And the Government is doing what ? 
But is the latter more supine than the planters 
themselves ? Only a few here and there make 
a stir ; the rest sit still. All the same the ex- 
istence of cacao is threatened and the whole, 
enterprise is at hazard. There is a cape to be 
doubled, anil with dirty weather about, the man 
M-ho is most likely to succeed in rounding it, 
Carruthers, is sent about his business at the 
critical time ! " What a world we live in " ! 
It is quite as bad with the case for " Free 
Kice." The apathy about, regarding this 
subject, is simply amazing. People icoiiH put them- 
selves to the trouble to understand it and with 
the clear and able expositions which have 
appeared in the leader and other columns of the 
Observer, ignorance now is inexcusable, if you 
tell them how much they themselves pay, then, 
there is a Hare up. \ou want a lot of that 
and there will be the blaze by and-bye. Mean- 
while, that big soulless stolid thing — the Govern- 
ment—has got to be made to move. " Dah, dah !"' 
you keep crying, and probe it up with another 
leader, pointed with the unanswerable ligures 
and facts ; but it is a weary business. Let the 
cry of "help for tlie poor" lill the land, and even 
our authorities will feel ashamed of tlieniselves 
in time— anyhow it will reach sympathetic cars 
at home and also willing hearts. Your constant 
hammer-and-tongs style is just the thing that 
is wanted. " The Obsrrccr keeps harping on the 
one string," is what is said. Exactly ; and there- 
in lies its -wisdom, Mr. Editor. You remember 
what John Morley says in iiis " Life of Cobden": — 
*' A political or religiuus agitator must not be 
afraid of incessant repetition. Repetition is his 
most ell'ective instrument. The fastidiousness 
which is proper to literature, and which makes 
a man dread to say the same thing twice, is in 
the held of propagan'dism mere impotency." Why, 
oh ! why, did John Morley forsake letters for 
politics 't 
If the Knuckles have been dry this year, it is 
not dry there now. It rains pretty steadily, 
and blows vigorously, like the burst of the 
S.-W. rather than its going out. The result is 
that Hush has retired, and the drooi>ing returns, 
which in August and September were looki g 
up a bit, are back to where they were. Only on 
manured and lately pruned tea, are any 
decent Hushes to be got j the rest is looking about 
for a sun which never shines now, and will 
dance to no measuie till it appears. The coolies 
are not hard worked — too many of them. There 
was short time during the drought which lasted 
so long, and to have short time now that the 
rain has come, is a little like having your disad- 
vantages pressed down and overflo^\ing — "rubbed 
in " in fact. Raniasami is not the only one 
who has been subjected to this style of massage. 
It seems, however, to have had a One humbling 
efiect upon him, and his old cry, when his wishes 
fur more advances were disregarded, of " Give 
nie my tundu," has died wholly out of the land. 
If you want now to tame the wildest Tamil 
on the estate, you have only got to touch him up 
with the threat of a " tundu " — to write one out 1 — 
then your office is besieged with pleaders, who 
can't say enough about the temerity and folly 
of the man who in those days lets a "tundu" 
see the light. The whirl-gig of time does bring 
rounrl some strange revenges ! [But are these 
coolies likely to return to Ceylon once they get 
to the Coast?-ED. T.A.] 
The hunt for Plumbago, which has been stimu- 
lated by the late high prices, is hot all about ; 
and I did hear of one planter who had struck 
a vein, which may yield a lot yet. Mining ia 
generally classed among the most speculative of 
pursuits, but tropical agriculture takes a let to 
beat it. A fellow who has the two combined 
need not complain of existence being hum-drum ! 
If the tide is I'unning in, he may soon be floated 
on to fortune ; but it it begins to turn, it 
may be "a tide as moving seems asleep," but 
it is dead certain to keep him lively anyhow, and 
would not take long about it either. 
It is a comfort to know that the KNUCKLES 
ROAD is now very much better than it was and 
when the repairs in progress are completed it 
will be, while driving over it, like a glimpse 
of " the days of old." 
The lantana bug is making its way about 
in quits a pronounced way : I saw it as 
far up the road as Panwila. It may have 
no heritage of bother for the planter, but — 
I don't like the look of it. For a bug, it has 
in a very short time taken quite a position m the 
landscape— come to stay evidently. It resembles 
the American pill that did not fool around, but 
went straight to business. I hope it will mind its 
own business and leave the planters alone 
These are great days of Sanitary Reform, and 
the doctors, when they want to be down on a 
bad spot, emphasize their opinions by signing 
themselves as the holders of this or that sani- 
tary diploma. Everybody is on the qui vive, 
ami it would seciu as if ofticialdom were bitten 
to make other folks clean up. You remember 
the old days, when estate hues were condemned 
freely which might have posed as models for those 
owned by the Government. This sort of thing 
still obtains— cvidentlJ^ Witness the sanitary 
condition of the Wattcfrania Resthouse. I knew it 
in the days of old ; they say it is not improved and 
complaints have gone in to Government, that it is 
too bad for anytliing. And yet nothing has been 
done to remeily it. The story further goes that 
a ])roniinent otiicial went out to see what all the 
noise was about. Placing his hand on the 
shoulder of the Resthouse-keeper, " Francis," 
said this wiseacre, " you know tiie I'lanters 
toill complain." 
I don't know how much there is in the above, 
but it is what one hears said, ami I'H' no is not 
inc lediblct 
