July 1, 1901.] THE TROPICAL AGfUCfcLTtrHIST, 
15 
BEING i'OUE OWN SACKS." 
The above would be for red leaf and souchong 
This would be a nnisance for the Superintendent, of 
course; it would be diificult, but not impossible, to 
check, and it might lead to thieving, which by the 
way would not be au unmixed evil, if they consumed 
what they stole. So much off the present market. 
(2) Get natives under some sort of contract to 
hawk tea round the towns for sale cheap. 
Here the Cess would have to come in. A certain 
amount of tea of low grades could be purchased 
from estates at ordinary Colombo rates, and sent 
round in carts and ladled out for cash at the doors 
of the inhabitants. It would not be advisable to sell 
at a profit at the start, I should say. 
(3) " Given away with a pound of tea " is a saying 
that does not convey as much now perhaps as it used 
to, but, when I was a podian, the village grocer 
used to tempt the rustics to buy tea by giving as 
presents cheap crockery and ornaments of sorts to 
those that bought. What succeeded in the old 
country, and it did succeed, might succeed here. 
If I were an enterprising Burgher lad, keen on 
making money and with a soul above commercial 
honesty, I would beg, borrovi^, or steal a waggon, bull, 
and stock ; 1 would traverse the outlying districts 
from end to end, and I would flood the villages on 
my way with the cheapest of teas and the grandest 
of Birmingham tea-pots and German neckties. 
There would be money in it. In towns Caddy- 
keepers might try the same thing. If too that enter- 
prising Burgher youth could only learn the " Cheap 
Jack " business, what a time he would have of it. He 
might end up in the Legislative Council; think how his 
training would help him there, and, mind you, every 
pound of tea he sold, so much the better for us. Tou 
ought to get plenty of other suggestions ; the difficulty 
is, who is to take it up ? It is everyone's business and 
no one's business. Why cannot the "Thirty Committee" 
appoint a man (there are plenty out of billets) to boss 
the show, approach the principal natives, get their 
ideas, and try and work with them to open up a trade 
between the tea planters and the thirsty millions? 
Who can deny that the object to be obtained is 
worth a little trouble and thought ? — lours, etc., 
" CHEAP JACK." 
I^UTS FROM THE COCONUT PALM, 
ANOTHER "BECOKD" NUMBER. 
Hanwella, June 15. 
Dear Sir, — Re the question about the largest 
number of nuts of all sizes on a coconut palm at 
one time, in your paper of tlie 10th inst., I have 
much pleasure to inform you that, on a visit to 
Madampe, the large coconut planning district, 
about tliree years ago, I came aecroas a few 
heavily ladcT palms, and out of curiosity I counted 
up the bunches and endeavoured to find out the 
number of nuts on one of the trees. 
There were 27 or 37 bunches in all, and counted 
over 400 nuts of all grades, but I failed to count up 
all. I think tiiere were about 500 to 600 nuts in 
all on that tree. As regards the largest number 
of nuts at a picking I know of .'iome trees 
in thb same district which gave 300 nuts at a 
quarterly picking. Of course, I admit that this 
is not the common yield of the district. 1 have 
a few well bearing palms here, some of whicli have 
about 20 bunches, havintr about 400 nuts of all 
grades. A NATIVi^ PLANTER. 
[Can any one beat this record ? Signed 
letters preferred. Ed. T.A.'] 
RUBBER CULTIVATION IN CEYLON : 
THE PRESENT STATR OF THE INDUSTRY; 
BACKWARDNESS OF TEA PL.-VN] ERS IN 
THE LOWCOCINTRY IN DOING THEIR 
DUTY BY RUBBER ; 
GREAT ENCOURAGEIvlENT TO INTERSPERSE 
TEA WITH PAEA UUBBER TREES IN 
MOIST LOW DISTRICTS. 
We have just had the estate returns 
analysed and summed up, and we are 
distinctly disappointed with the result as 
regards the extent to which rubber plants 
— especially of the Para (Hevea) variety- 
have been put out among the tea, oralons? 
boundaries, or in separate clearings, in the 
lowcountry districts which are most suitable 
for their successful growth. These specially 
include the districts of Kaiutai'a and Udagania, 
Ratnapura, Kuruwita, Lower Balangoda and 
Rakwana, Lower Morawnk Korale, and in 
fact all the South-west division of Ceylon 
with a large slice of the Kelani Valley, 
Kegalla and tlie host of minor districts in- 
cluded between tlie Kelani and Nil gangas. 
This is apart from the opportunities for 
successful planting in some of the Kandy 
and Mataie districts up to 1,500 feet 
altitude. But in saying we are dis- 
appointed at the result of our investigation, 
we have the satisfaction of finding that the 
total extent is much in advance of tlie estimate 
with which the Director of the Royal Botanic 
Gardens has favoured us. In March 1878. 
Mr. Willis estimated that the equivalent of 
750 acres were covered with rubber. On the 
13th instant he writes:— "I should double 
that now ; but, of course, this is <Jnly a rough 
guess : we have sold locally enough seed for 
1,200 acres ; but there is more private, than 
Government, seed now available." This is 
true, and considering that a census on only 
two estates— CuUoden and Heatherley, 
certainly the le.iding rubber growers— 
in the Kalutara district, shows a total of 
all ages of 40,000 growing rubber trees 
and that another estate in M.atale West 
reports 22,000 Paras (some up to 6 and 9 
years old) and that patches and interspersings 
of rubber are found on so many other places, 
the grand total must, in area, be a good deal 
in excess of the Director's estimate of 1,500 
acres. Of course, a great deal depends on 
how many trees should be covmted to an 
acre. One counsellor or specialist has actually 
gone so low as 50 trees. This, we think, 
many tod few. Counting 15 by 15 feet as a 
fair " allowance between Para trees, to 
do them full justice, we take 200 trees in 
round numbers as the equivalent of an acre 
and we find that, in May, 1891, we can 
count on 2,597 acres as the extent re- 
presented by rubber plantings against 1,071 
acres in July, 1808. Of course, if 100 trees 
be taken as the equivalent of an acre, we 
.should have 5,000 acres to deal with ; but 
in any case we do not get beyond the half- 
million of growing trees of all ages and 
kinds— chiefly Para, but including a certain 
number of Ceara— many of them old trees 
put out in the "boom" of 15 to 20 years 
ago— with a few Castilloas and some of the 
Landolphia vine. Now with trees up to 9, 10, 
and 12 years, it is time wc were liearing of 
