./AN. 1, 19®.2.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTORIST. 
48S 
NOTES FROM THE NORTH. 
HAKVEST AND OLD COFFEE DAYS IN 
CEYLON. 
TEA AND WEEDS VS, CLEAN TEA AND BLIGHT. 
Abeidesnshire, Nov. 25. 
I see you are oS to the land of the wild 
Hindu, and am sure you'll enjoy it. I always 
think Hindustan and its people are so high caste 
compared with any other nation.- There is some" 
thing swagger about those high caste Kajahs that 
we can't come up to in our sober Britain. I'll be 
looking forward to your notes on your travels. 
We have had a very good harvesting, although, of 
course, farmers are never pleased. I am, however, 
struggling along, glad to have good health, and 
always working beneath my estimates. That is 
the only plan to keep on the safe side. Grain 
is going up very much in price, which we rejoice 
in, but beef and mutton are drooping, the people 
are eating too much foreign stuff. Live stock 
killed at the port of landing must be poor 
eating, as they have been sea-sick and the meat 
soft. In an interesting article in the Observer 
jinder the heading of '• Planting in Java," the 
vrriter deprecates an ultra-cleanliness from weeds 
as being conducive to an increase of diseases in 
tea, and thdt ' grey blight ' first made its appear- 
ance, in Java, on an estate, kept extra clean by 
a Ceylon planter. I quite agree with him, and 
have always maintained that hand weeding was 
the worst thing that could be done, as it caked 
the surface, and kept the air from getting at 
the root?. Of course it is very pretty to see a 
clean estate, but one, not quite so clean, with the 
weeds dug in with forks, is much more profitable. 
I also observe that Mr Henry Cottam, in his 
" Uva Revisited," in reference to the coffee which 
he was still flourishing, says that it evidently 
likes to grow native fashion, and that cultivati' n 
and artificial manures helped to kill it. This is 
also quite true ; the coffee estates which were 
most highly cultivated, and got the greatest 
quantity of artificial manures applied to them, 
are now the most dead of any in the Island, — 
Queen Anne is much more lively than they. 
This same penchant for artificials has ruined niany 
a farmer in this country, beside leaving the farm, 
which he had on lease, as barren as the desert 
of Sahara. 
In JLS.'s notes of his planting career, he 
refers to the Directory of 1864-65, and does so 
in a somewhat disparaging way, because it ap- 
peared without his name in it, although he had 
been several mojiths in the Island. I also have 
the same complaint to find with the 1864-65 Vol. 
for I had been several months in K D «& (Jo's, 
office in Kandy before it came out, and yet my 
name was conspicuous by its absence. I remem- 
ber visiting Gona-Adika, when J L S and Spencer 
Shelley were sina durais to Greenwood, and we 
played cricket on the barbecue, with a gang of 
coolies to field for us ; and, although that was 36 
years ago, 1 have no doubt we three are still 
good for a game of cricket, if we had the leisure 
and the opportunity. I dare not write more of 
those old days, else I'll weary you; so with plenty 
salaams and best wishes for a Merry X'mas and 
a Happy New Year, COSMOJfOHTE. 
62 
THE LATE SIR GEORGE BANNER- 
MAN, BART. 
{By one who knew him ) 
"'Mr. Baiinerman ' had been settled 
in Canada for ten years when he took a 
run home to Aberdeen, where he was 
born and his family had been located from 
time immemorial down to modern times' 
and a city his uncle. Sir Alexander Banner- 
man, had represented in Parliament. In 
Aberdeen lie met R B Tytler who told 
him that Ceylon was the place, and coffee 
the means, by which to acquire a fortune. 
The advice sounded good to the Canadian; 
so he determined to follow it, and clear 
out of Canada as soon as he could. He 
came out to the island, bringing many 
letters of introduction, including more than 
one to the great firm of that day as 
agents for coffee estates— Keir, Dundas & Co., 
Kandy— and sought a billet. None of the 
introductions provided a berth for him. 
John Gavin, the managing partner then of 
K D & Co., a rough diamond, brought 
out more of the roughness of his nature 
than the better side when the applicant for 
a berth sought him. But this better side 
was amply shown afterwards when Banner- 
man, ill with fever, lay almost friendless 
in Nuwara Eliya. Often in after years did 
he talk of the great kindness he there 
received from the Gavins. Often also did 
he ' yarn ' about his experiences when 
after first landing at Galle he proceeded to 
Colombo ; but any one of that date could 
probably very fairly fill up the details of 
that journey themselves. 
"One of tne first estates he stayed on was 
Charles Dixon's 
MAHABEEBIATENNE IN DUMBARA. 
They had travelled by the same steamer^ 
Here he mane acquaintance with Ceylon 
parrots and pigeons, and afterwards used 
to declare they were not to be equalled in 
beauty elsewhere, any more than the road 
thither from Kandy was easily excelled in 
beauty. He was always a keen admirer of 
nature, and especially interested in birds, 
which he skinned skillfully and very readily 
for friends who formed collections. At 
Mahabeeria was a tall old Scotchman, named 
Bruce, of about 6 feet 6 or 7 in height, to 
whom he at once took. Bannerman was 
well above 6 feet and broad in proportion ; 
but he felt small beside Bruce who came 
from some sugar estate in Jamaica, and 
used to tell of having yellow fever there 
and of his coffin bemg prepared by an 
enterprising carpenter, and not being required 
that time was kept by the tradesman 
standing in his shop on end like a great 
sentry-box. It was there when Bruce left 
the West for the East Indies ! Bruce got 
on well with coolies though he could master 
no Tamil, and only addressed them in 
broadest Scotch. He was when first Banner- 
man saw him stoking an engine with ebony 
—no doubt small wood and worthless but 
