April 1, 1902.] THE TROPICAL AGEICULTURIST. 
685 
' not exaggerated in the very least.' Perhaps he 
had the writer ia his eye ; if so, this is the correct 
information, both for foreign and home consump- 
tion. During ray tenancy I paid 28s lOd per acre 
for the 311 acres arable of Monyruy, and afterwards 
obtained my present holding (Buruside, Turriff), of 
240 acres at lis 8d, a difference of 17s 2d per acre, 
or on the 240 acres a difference in tenant's favour 
of over £200. As to the crops, and these can be 
verified, Monyruy (and please remember I was 
bound to bring it from a five-shift rotation into a 
six of three grasses) in no season yielded more than 
5 qrs. 7 bushels per acre — the average for the seven 
crops I reaped being 5 qrs. ,3 bushels and 4 bushels 
per acre. On 'Burnside' I have reaped a crop of 
6 qrs. 7 bushels oats and barley per acre, and from 
several fields the yield has been from 8 to 10 
quarters. But further, it was my fate to become 
proprietor of this farm, and by good cultivation and 
mostly on an S course rotation of 4 grasses, and 
other improvements, the property had been con- 
sidered worth some 60 per cent more than I paid 
for it, and I believe it will be a better bargain to 
the purchaser than it has been to nie. 
But who can say that my last siage'is worse than 
the first ? Whether I can be counted a far from 
practical farmer or not is matter of small moment, 
but is for my neigiibours and the public to judge — 
not the grieve of Monyruy, or Mr Duncan. 
This is an instalment ; there is more shot in the 
locker. — 1 am, etc., 
JAMES BEATON. 
Barn.side House, Turriff, 14th Feb., 1982. 
[We do not find space for mere personal 
bickerings ; but " Francis Grose " in the Peter- 
head Sentinel seems to take a sensible view of 
the matter when he writes in reference to 
an interesting artic e in the N. B. Agri- 
culturist : — 
We did not see fit to refer to the article in 
the AgiciiUtirist. It was written in a distinctly 
acrimonious spirit, the writer apparently quite 
failing to see that Mr Duncan was first of all 
a humourist, while at the same time the writer 
could not know whether the racy claims made 
by the Buchan farmer were in any degree accurate 
or not. 
Mr Duncan, writing to a Ceylon paper, might, 
without breaking any bones, allege that his pre- 
decessors had " konnached " the lands of Monyruy. 
Probably nobody in Ceylon knew whom those 
predecessors were. And even then, the statement 
is probably only half serious, and doubtless means 
only that Monyiuy was not cultivated as the 
present occupant prefers to cultivate it. Mr 
Duncan is a joker, without an ounce of malice 
in his composition. For the rest, he is a vara 
avis among Buchan farmers. The son of a pro- 
fessional man, himself well educated, much ti avelled 
observant, and accustomed to sheep as regards 
farming, it is only natural that hi;; ideas 
of fanning and of things in general should be 
greitly different from the ideas and methods of 
his neighbours. I have always understood that 
Mr Duncan succeeded with his sheep, paying 
twenty shillings in the £, and finding a good 
deal of leisure for the entertainment of the lieges 
in his district. Farming has by no means reached 
its ne plus altra, either in Buchan or anywhere 
else, in this year of grace 1902. I have no donbt 
criticism and suggestion are just as much wanted 
today as ever they were ; and certain I am of 
this, that few people are likely to go about the 
bii.siness of criticism with less of animus than is 
the yeoman of Monyruy. 
It is customary to keep the pleasant things we 
have to say of a man until he is dead. I have 
always jibbed against the injustice of just praise 
being deterred in the utterance till obituary notices 
have to be wiitten. Without at all believing that 
Mr Alfred Duncan stands in need of special 
pleading, I am glad to avail myself of this op- 
portunity of saying that I have always found 
him the same— good-natured, waggish, energetic, 
entertaining, courteous, versatile, a man of his 
word— altogether the most interesting and satis- 
factory farmer / have met with in Buchan. 
Whether it be to deliver a lecture, to take the 
chair at a public meeting, to sing a Song or to 
write one, to "scrieve" a column of breezy "copy" 
— story, notes, article or what not— there is not, I 
believe, such another in his class in Aberdeenshire. 
A facnlty for racy extravaganza in his metier: 
we would not have iiim without it ; and if the 
editor of the North British Agriculturist could 
only hear him making sport for the Longside 
public in St. John's Hall, he would never want to 
write such scornful comments as those he penned 
a month ago on this "Buchan farmer." Long 
may the Flockmaster of Monyruy live to apply 
the surgery of tar, and to say with Corin " I earn 
that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy 
no man's happiness ; glad of ther men's good, con- 
ten', with my harm ; and the greatest of my 
pride is to see my ewes graze and my lambs suck." 
FKAi^lCiS GROSE. 
—Ed. T.A.] 
TOBACCO-GROWING IN TRINCOMALE 
DISTRICT. 
NOTES BY A CULTIVATOR. 
Dear Sir, — Correspondence about " tobacco 
growing in the columns of your paper of the 
19th instant prompts me to address you on the 
feasibility of the cultivation of tobacco being 
successfully and profitably grown in the Trin- 
conialee District under European auspices, owing 
to the existence of most appropriate and suitable 
tracts of land to the south. 
THE PLAIN OF " VELLAI " 
lies 12 miles away from " Mutur " village, in 
" Koddiarpattu." It is now used as pasture ground 
by cattle speculators who bring droves of black 
cattle from India, and from Kraals at different 
points. It abounds in Guinea grass washed in 
by the " Mahaweliganga " from upcountry. 
The last deviation of the river is about 3 days' 
journey from its entrance into Koddiar Bay, and 
this abandonment occurs over a hamlet called 
" Pavana " near Kuringamuwa — Brooks channel, 
lying between— and the oft' shoot forks or splits 
itself into two branches, the one called the 
" Verugel aar," the boundary of the Trincomalee 
and Batticaloa Districts, and the other called 
" Vellai aar," deriving its appellation from the 
locality, and both of these flowing streams of 
fresh water meet at a point, above the sea, at 
a place called " Periavelli," where the feeder 
of " AUai " tank takes its rise, and flows as a 
united river called the Verugel river, between 
Trincomalee and Batticaloa, Thus it will appear 
that the vast plain of " Vellai" is quite surrounded 
by fresh water, the virgin soil is alluvial and 
rich, and well-adapted for tobacco cultivation, an 
aecount of which, as it is carried on here, I append. 
