THE TROPICA! . AGRICULTURIST. 
808a 
ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS CEYLON- 
REPORT FOR 1898:* 
TEA AND ITS ENEMIES; COFFEE VARIE- 
TIES AT PERADENIYA; CACAO; RUBBER 
PROSPECTS WITH PATENT PREPARING 
MACB INERT. 
The Administration Report of the Director 
for last year is swelled to an unusual size, 
mainly through the appearance for the first 
time of long and valuable extracts from 
the Report of the Honorary Entomologist 
indicating. As Mr. Willis puts it, "an 
immense amoimt of work during the year" 
got through by Mr. E. E. Green for the 
benefit of his brother tea planters as well 
as of the "paddy" and other native cul- 
tivators, and of the cacao, cardamom and 
coconut planters. What is said about the 
enemies of tea, in caterpillar, borer, helo- 
peltis, tea mite, &c., will be carefully 
considered by those concerned as also the 
section on "the introduction of beneficial 
insects." On the whole, however, the enemies 
noticed by Mr. Green are eminently con- 
querable if Ave may say so, and are chieny 
confined to limited spaces or districts. More 
seriously important is the "gray blight" 
of Assam, a fungus which has been giving 
some cause for anxiety in a few of the lower 
and older districts. Every planter concjjrned 
should possess a copy of Dr. George Watt's 
monumental work on the subject of these 
tea blights and study the chapters specially 
devoted to them; and we think ir v.cuid 
be advisable for the Planters' Asm lions 
in the districts at all troubled, to arrange 
some sort of concerted action for dealing 
with the pest when it appears. The lower 
and Older districts are specially supposed 
to be liable ; but we heard of the appearance 
last year of the blight on a plantation at 4,000 
feet elevation and we have been puzzled as to 
the exact force of the following expression 
of opinion by an experienced planter in a 
letter -written early in April:— "The low- 
" country and medium-elevation estates are 
"now scoring and the high-elevation estates 
"have now to take a back-seat with fi^ost 
"and leaf-disease: I wonder if the bushes 
"that are not prvined for two or three 
" years and the leaf constantly nipped 
"off are not more liable to fungoid disease 
"than tea bushes pruned every eighteen 
"months with the rest such treatment gives 
"them." Now this seems to imply that high 
estates are more troubled than those lower 
down and of this fact — if fact it be— we 
ourselves (and evidently Mr. Willis and Mr. 
Green) have had no proof. Indeed a short 
time ago we forwarded to Mr. Green, from the 
neighbourhood of Nuwara Eliya, a specimen 
of what was supposed to be Helopeltis ; but 
he assured us it was nothing of the kind 
and that he did not think the insect would 
be found troubling tea so high. We are 
aware of tea being a good deal troubled 
around the sanatarium this season through 
the effects of frost, and it is possible this 
result has been confounded with ' fungoid 
disea.se'? Mr. Willis adduces a good reason 
why 'abandoned' tea should be destroyed 
—at any rate we should say, biu-nt to the 
groimd, though, judging from Assam, the 
* See Supplement to thia issue. 
vitality of the shrub is by no means then 
extinguished, a few months seeing a new 
stem and crown of vegetation — so hardy is 
tea. In that fact lies the gi'eat difference 
between it and coffee, and therein we have a 
reason for reassuring planters in the midst 
of insect or fungoid enemies or rumours 
of enemies. We may experience a tendency 
to magnify the importance of such matters in 
Ceylon after our great trial during the coffee 
era, and there is certainly good reason why 
the planter should be on the watch and 
why he should fortify himself with all 
that science and careful investigation and 
experiment can make available to him. 
Mr. Willis is hopeful that, as the result of 
Mr. Kelway-Bamber's exhaustive study, the 
methods of tea manufacture will be improved 
and become less haphazard than is at pre- 
sent the case. We get some interesting in- 
formation in respect to varieties of coffee 
now growing at the Peradeniya Gardens ; but 
nothing is said as to whether the plants are 
even, so far, free of heniileia vastatrLv ? 
Hitherto— that is since 1870 — any new varie- 
ties of coffee tried in any part of Ceylon, 
manifested the yellow fungus almost as soon 
as the first branches with their leaves were 
formed. If such is not now the case, 
would it not indicate that the dreaded cofl'ee 
fungus is dying out in the island ? — Mr. 
Willis does justice to the work done by Mr. 
Cairuthers for cacao, and shows that 
hencefortli the treatment of the pest and 
the substitution, Vvhere possible, of the 
hardy kind rest with the planters them- 
.selves. The next matter of importance 
treated is India-rubber and we are told 
that not more than 10,000 acres of land really 
favourable to the cultivation of Para rubber 
are to be found in Ceylon. This, we should 
hope, is not only a moderate, but an unduly 
low estimate, if v/e take what should be 
available in the Western, Southern and 
Sa,baragamnwa Provinces. Rut as Mr. Willis 
shows, all speculations as to tlie best rubber- 
yielding tree to plant and the best situation 
to^occupy, must now be held in suspense until 
the full effect of the new patent method of se- 
parating caoutchouc from the latex or milk, 
is realized. Rubber-yielding trees, which have 
hitherto been despised as yielding a poor 
quality, may, under the new treatment, 
prove profitable and young trees and stems 
may possibly give returns without waiting 
for well-developed trees. If this prove to be 
the case, we may expect a rush into rubber 
planting after the fashion of that into cin- 
chona in the early "eighties." Meantime 
there will be enquiry for seed of the " Cas- 
tilloa elastica " — the ' i iibber-tree of Central 
America par excellence — even more perhaps 
than f(n' those of Para or Hevea ; and what 
may we ask of the almost forgotten " Ceara" 
rubber tree which grew like a weed when 
the industry was first tried in Ceylon — may 
it not under the revolution which patent 
machinery is to create, come to the fi-ont 
again ? Mr. Parkins' expei-iments ai'c not 
yet closed; but the results w ill he lookcil for 
with interest. — Here we must pause for to- 
day in our reference to the Report, from which 
we shall <iuote fully in an early issue, so as 
to give Mr. Willis's concise, and often sug- 
gestive, as well as practically useful, remarks 
in regard to Minor Pioducts, Arc. 
