July i, 1891.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
61 
at a certain period of the year, for crop chiefly, 
and when pruniog was finished, only a few coolies 
were required to keep the estates in order during 
the rest of the year. 
Now it is necessary to have a good force of 
labour all the year, as the system of tea cultiva- 
tion, now generally adopted, is to divide the work 
as much as porsible over the whole year. Instead 
of pruning the whole of the tea on an estate in 
one or two months, a pruning force is kept em- 
ployed quarterly, thus the larger portion of the 
estate is always in bearing, and the coo'ies fully 
employed at all seasons. 
With a Labour Fund Committee and its 
Secretary in Kandy, an estate manager in want 
of labour would forward his cheque to the 
Secretary to cover the advances required to 
procure and forward to him a certiau num- 
ber o£ coolies by a given date, fay withiu 
a month. The Secretary acknowledges the 
cheque and wires to the Agent of the Committse 
in Inlia by code the requirement, and follows up 
the message by letter. The agent draws on the 
Secretary for the amount required to procure the 
coolies an l through his sub-agencies arranges to 
despa'ch the coolies on a certain date, which he 
oommunioates by wira to the Seoretary, who aivises 
the applicaiit for the labor, to send a truatworihy 
person to meet the coolies. Now, in 1891, wo have far 
more facilities for eucoessfully carrying on suoh an 
agency than had our predecessors. The difficulties 
of the past need not deter the planters of the 
present from making an Agency a great success. I 
crave permission to further remark, that experience 
has told most of us, that advances aciually sent to 
the coast are freqnenily misapplied, the labor we 
expected and should have got could not te brought 
for want of Ihe further sum the kanganies wrote for 
and master did not send. 
Coolies may be plentiful and willing to come, but 
for some reason or other they don't come, and year 
after year the cry is for labor, and whole fields of 
fine tea hive frequently been allowed to run to wood 
for wai.t of the necessary labor to pinck them. It 
is our duty to seriously consider, whether an active 
Agency or an Intelligence Gcminittee is most 
required to meet the urgeucy of the increasing labor 
requirements. 
I believa that under a Labjr Supply Fund Com- 
mittee it v/ill be possible to ke«p an adequate force 
for all requirements at les? expense to proprieiors, 
and without friction which so frequently arises 
amongst managers about their labor supply. — Yours 
faithfully, JAMES WES I LAND. 
[Mr. Westland will be disappointed wi:h our 
remarks ot yesterday; but they contain our honest 
opinion. Mr. Westlnnd seems to think that coolies 
would flock to a Coast Agency and its sub- 
branelies in euoh numbers that there would never 
be any difficulty in meeting any planter's order. 
But suppose there were six (indeed, according to the 
picture of planters' needs, there might be sixtyi 
telegrams in, ordering 300 coolies and only 100 
available, or willing to move, how is the agent to 
act? Mr. Wtstland is nearer the mark in our 
opinion when he speaks of an "Intelligence Sub- 
Committee" to open up correspondence with Indian 
officials, or to send one of their number over to 
interview Collectors and Sub-Collectors of the oooly 
districts and to see how the labour needs of 
Ceylon can best be made known and supplied. — 
But if it be true that from want of labour, many 
fifilds of tea in Oeylon are not now plucked pro- 
perly or fully, where is overproduction and export 
of tea to end? In plaoe of 60 million lb. this 
year, perhaps Mr. Westland would say we might 
ship 65 or even 70 million lb. with more labour 7 
—Ed. T, a.] 
THE SILICA DISCUSSION. 
Sir,— When I penned a note (whiohby the 
way, has not yet appeared in print) for an agricul- 
tural publication a day or two ago, on the reply 
which Professor Geikie sent to a scientifio enquirer 
after truth in Ceylon, I was not aware, as is evi- 
denced by the letter of a correspondent to last 
Saturday's (May 23rd) issue of your paper, that the 
Professrr Johnstone referred to by Professor Geikio 
was Alexander Johnstone, late of the Edinburgh 
University I presume that the Professor Geikie to 
whom reference was made on the Silica question 
is James Geikie, Professor of Geology and Minera- 
logy at the Edinburgh University, and not Archibald 
Geikie, the predecessor of his brother, and for that 
reason still sometimes spoken of as Professor, 
though he vacated the University ohair for a high 
appointment in connection with Her Maji sty's 
Geological Survey. If this be so, then both Pro- 
fessor Geikie and Professor Johnstone are both 
" old friends " of mine. I sat at the feet of the 
former only some three years ago, and in the course 
of many a pleasant geological excursion found in 
him a kind teacher as well as a most entertaining 
companion, At this time Alexander Johnstoue was 
class assistant to Professor Geikie, a " night coach " 
in bf^laoy, and a fellow-stuir-nt of mine in agri- 
culture. I knew him well both in and out of the 
University ; and as I had the h;ghast regirH for 
him then, I have the kindest reoo lections 
of him now. I am unier an imp'ession, 
which I sincerely hope is incorrect, that it was in 
the columns of y'-ur own paper -or one of yoar 
supplemoiits — that I read of his death a short while 
ago. Alexander Johnstone was well up in hia 
gsolopyand a splandid coach in botany ; but while 
would accept any opinion of his on these subjects, 
I am hardly prepared to stand by hia original 
ideas on agriculture. Johnstone's intention was 
10 go up for the agricultural degree at the 
Urivorsity. Whether he did so, and whether he 
has started as a teacher or professor of agricul- 
ture and the allied sciences in Edinburgh or 
eisewherri ; or whether he has got a chair of botany 
orgtology in some University or College, I never 
hear,!. My observations on the statement attributed 
to him have, as I have before mentioned, been 
note! elsewhere, and I will not therefore repeat 
myself in your co umns. 
It seems quite natural that Professor Geikie, who 
does not venture on an opinion as to the agricul- 
tural value of silica, should think of quoting his 
quondam class assistant's opinion before that of 
eny other. 
Without intending the slightest disrespect for my 
" olil friends " (including " Old Planter "), I cannot 
help thinking that neither the choice of a professor 
of gecl gy as a referee on the question at issue, 
nor that of the opinion of his late class assistant 
— in preference to those of the shining lights in 
the agricultural world — by the Professor himself, 
has been a happy one. 
It is very ijimportant that those who take sides 
in a soieniifio discussion, though they be only 
"lawmen," should confine themselves strictly to 
scientific reasoning. Now when a correspondent, 
writing on the subject of the value of silica in 
agriculture, attempts to adduce ^arguments as to 
the importance of this common constituent of 
soils by making such statements as the following, 
he (however conscientious he may be) becomes 
both unscientific and illogical. iYour oorretpon- 
dent '-B." in, Saturday's (May 23rd) issue saya : — 
"Isupposeit will be conceded without demur that the 
earth was mainly created for the growth and support 
cf vegetation. _ Can we reconcile with our belief of 
an all- wise Creator the composition of the earth 
