60 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [July 1, 1903. 
and equal packing in their factories as will 
prevent the necessity for opening chests 
and rebulking in London warehouses. 
We have already noticed precautions taken 
against fire through the two main buildings 
being separated, by a certain interval, though 
connected on the first (withering floor) by a 
light iron g'^,ngway. The establishment of 
electric light is another great safeguard 
and there is abundance of water close 
at hand; though may necessity for its 
use against fire never arise! We never 
inspect a Tea Factory, with its abun 
dant pile of firewood logs and the 
evidence of timber requirements in many 
ways, without thinking what a pity it is that 
the great convenience of a bench with cross- 
cut saw is not an accessory where ' power 
is so frequently available.* We find that 
here insurance rules interfeie, no doubt for 
the reason that saw-dust is inflammable, 
but not much more so, surely, than the 
chips from the chopping of firewood, or the 
shavings from the work of carpenters so often 
employed.! 
TEA PRICES IN 1886. 
It was intei'esting in looking at 
East records in the Factory "office" at 
>iyagama to see that the first sale of tea 
from the estate in London in 1886, realised 
Is. 9d, and Is. 3d. a lb. for first and second 
qualities. That was the era of good prices and 
yet how slow were many planters to believe in 
the new product ! 
[One planter we recall who, in opening 
new land in a.nothei* district, in 1878, utterly 
refused to take his partner's ?ulvice and 
put in at least 100 of a 300 acres' clearing, in tea; 
and so when a certain number of maunds of 
the best Assam-hybrid seed came down from 
Calcutta by the absenc partner's orders, he 
tried hard to sell it to Agents in Colombo ; 
but tvent round the whole of the Fort offices in 
wtn— nobody wanted the tea seed ! and so 
then he took it and " stuck in the stufi! " at 
the top of his coffee clearing on a piece of 
waste ground intended for grass ! There the 
tea bushes grew into flourishing seed bearers 
which proved the attraction of the property 
(when the financial crash came some six years 
later) to the next owner. Still worse was the 
case of T. C. Anderson of Dikoya, and his 
planting neighbours, who refused to listen 
about the same time or earlier to his brother 
" Charlie," the Assam planter, who found 
such an avenue of tea bushes from seed he 
had sent down, leading up to T.C.'s bungalow, 
that he urged in the strongest way the 
planting of a Ceylon tea garden in 
the "70's"; but was laughed at, over 
ruled, and over-persuaded to take back 
with him colfee seed to plant 100 acres of 
coffee in Assam ! An utter failure of course ; 
while for any one owning a tea garden, even of 
100 acres in the '70's and early '80's, there was 
a fortune with tea averaging Is. 6d. to Is 9d. a 
lb. in Mincing Lane. How well we recall when 
the average fell below the shilling, a leading 
merchant planter declaring to us that if ever 
the Ceylon average fell to nine-pence, three- 
fourths of the Ceylon factories might close 
their doors IJ 
VISITORS. 
But to return from this digression, it was 
interesting to glance over the book of 
of "autographs" of visitors lying on the 
Diyagama office table, and to find not 
a few of old colonists among the " familiar 
friends " of 20, 30, and 40 years ago, who 
have all passed that bourne whence no 
traveller returns. His Excellency Sir West 
Ridgeway has been a visitor to Diyagama 
on three several occasions. It is, of course, 
a convenient stopping-place in travelling 
from Nuwara Eliya via Horton Plains, the 
distance from the latter resthouse by the 
capital bridle-path being only 3 miles. But 
His Excellency's hope, at one time expressed, 
of seeing one of the first 
LIGHT RAILWATS 
running up into the heart of the " Agras, ' 
has yet to be realised. It ought to be % 
very different work in cost fi'om the Uda- 
pussellawa or Kelani line and should be a 
great convenience and saving of labour in 
many ways, and should pay fairly well. 
Mechanical improvements, t) save labour 
in every possible way, are becoming 
pressing necessities in the Planting Dis- 
tricts of Ceylon, In this connection what 
has become of the patent tea plucking 
machines ? Could they not be further im- 
proved and be of value to supplement hand- 
plucking, rather than lose flush ? Again 
who is to be the inventor of a means to 
prevent " broken " and ensure only leafy 
teas, such as the Russians, for instance, 
rejoice in?! Perhaps Mr. Jackson in 
Aberdeen, or Mr, Davidson in Belfast, or 
some keen young Engineer on the spot in 
one or other of our planting districts, is even 
now considering the problem ! The large- 
ness of single "breaks" of tea from Diya- 
gama -18,000 to 21,000 lb. at a time— is apt 
to interfere with much competition at Public 
Sales ; and so, both in London and (Colombo, 
occasionally a large consignmentof this kind is 
privately disposed of, sometimes for the 
Russian market. 
BUILDINGS. 
Begun in 1886 .and added to from time to 
time, according as the necessity arose, and 
means were available, the Diyagama Factory 
is necessarily a composite building; but 
for its size it is wonderfully compact and 
convenient, while in every way " pucka," 
as indeed are all the buildings on the pro- 
perty including the cooly lines which are 
well built and each provided with a good 
water-supply as well as arrangements for 
the open air washing and bathing so dear 
to oriental working people ; while open 
stone- drains surrounding each set of lines 
are daily flushed. All this should go 
far to conserve health ; but it takes a 
long time to get the Tamil cooly and 
his family to understand what is good for 
them The establishment of a Dispensary 
and Medical Officer on the place had, however, 
an immediate effect on the health-bill and 
when we give the total population as ap- 
proximating 3,000 (men, women and children) 
of whom about 2,000 should be working 
coolies in the field, it will hi seen that the 
responsibility for health as well as work is 
