672 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [April 1, \m. 
certainly planter— in the district. Mr. 
Stephens learned how to deal with cinnamon 
and to manage his Sinhalese laboiu-eis from 
a Mudaliyar who could talk a little 
English. The young and active English- 
man, however, soon mastered "the situ- 
ation" ; and in the course of the next two 
or three years he had sev^eral additional 
plantations placed in liis charge wiLli a cor- 
responding increase of salary. In this way 
Mr. Stephens began to save money— there 
was not much temptation or opportunity 
to spend in those early days— and to make 
judicious investments of the same ; so that 
he soon became recognised as a planter with 
some capital. In 1819, Mr. Stephens married 
a daughter of Mr. Rudd, senior, who with 
his sons, had rapidly developed several coffee 
estates during the " forties " and built up a 
prosperous firm in Colombo. Mrs. Stephens 
still survives in wonderfully good health and 
the "golden wedding" celebration of her 
husband and herself is due this year. Their 
family of six sons and two daughters all 
survive, most of the sons being well-known 
Ceylon planters ; while the daughters 
both married to local planters, Mr. H. F. 
Dunbar (lately deceased) and Mr. Charles 
Laing of Dolosbage. 
But Mr. Stephens was not the first of his 
family to visit Ceylon : he had a brother who 
came out in 1839, and who engaged in coffee 
planting in the Central Province, and was 
well-known to all by the sobriquet of 
"Stumps." Mr. John Stephens frequently 
visited "Stumps", and after a time deter- 
mined to invest in coffee land. In 1851, Mi', 
John Stephens made his first investment in 
Crown land, situated five miles from Gam- 
pola, and began to open coffee, putting a 
Superintendent in charge. In that year his 
brother "Stumps " died. Another brother was 
Thomas who came out after John, but died 
whilst on his way to England. To the pur- 
chase of Cooroondoowatta, Mr. John Ste- 
phens soon added that of two other 
blocks of land, which he formed into three 
coffee plantations, namely, Cooroondoo- 
watta, Diggings and Somerset. In 1853, Mr. 
Stephens finally left the Negombo district 
and took up his residence on his Dolosbage 
properties and there, with the exception of 
certain visits home, he has remained ever 
since. Coffee proved very remunerative in 
the latter half of the "fifties" and in 1859 
Mr. Stephens left with his young family 
for England; but he himself returned after 
eight months' absence. His next trip home 
was in 18f53, when he had a spell of well- 
earned rest for three years, returning in 
January 18ii3, but only to inspect his estates. 
He left again in March of that year ; but 
i-eturned in 1838 to settle down once more 
and for 31 years now he li is not left the 
Colony. 
II indsome offers for the piuchase <if his 
estates were m;ulu to Mr, Stephens in the 
" seventies," when, although the coffee-leaf 
fimgus prevailed, no one believed it was 
other than temporary and coffee "boomed." 
Among others, Mr. H. S. Saunders and 
the late Mr. St. George Carey tried to tempt 
Mr. .Stephens to sell ; but he declined— un- 
fortunately for himself, perhaps. Instead, 
Mr. Stephens passed right thi-ough 
the coffee crisis when, although he cul- 
tivated well and manured highly, no 
remunerative return could be got from coffee 
fields. Mr. Stephens had been noted from 
the beginning as a liberal cultivatoi-, hia 
stock of cattle being one of the largest 
maintained in Ceylon by any one individual 
estate proprietor. So that it could not be 
said in his case that he took all out of the 
soil and put nothing back, or that the leaf 
fungus disease came through impoverished 
bushes. Still Mr. Stephens found hnnself 
in the early "eighties" with clean 
title-deeds for his properties; but with 
almost no value attaching to them — and 
indeed, the Banks could not hs got to 
alvance even a temporary loan, so low 
hid the credit of "coffee" and "cin. 
choua" fallen. We well recall a visit 
paid to the Observer Office in which this 
experience was related. Tea had, however, 
bagun to come to the front in Yakdessa and 
Dolosbage and in 1831, Mr. Stephens leased 
20D acres of one of his properties to three 
practical men, Messrs, Jas. Allan, J. Aj-mer 
and the late Geo. Kyd, who at once planted 
tea and benefited by the new product. This 
lease falls in with the end of the present 
year. In addition Mr. Stephens planted up 
200 acres with tea on his o^ti account ; so 
that he will very soon have 400 acres of 
fine tea, for his very competent Manager 
(his son Mr. Arthur J. Stephens) to deal 
with. We ought to have mentioned that 
some years back Mr. Stephens sold his 
Somerset property to Mr. W. J. Robson 
who has developed it into a tine 
tea plantation now known as Evalgolla. 
Mr, John Stephens has thus had during his 
island career, experience of four staple pro- 
