136 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[August i, i8go. 
THE HABEAS GOVEEKMENT BOTANIST ON 
CINCHONA CULTUEE. 
To neither the Madras Government nor Mr. Lawson 
its botanist and quinologist, are we, as yet, in 
debted for a courtesy which might very well have 
been expected, in the shape of a copy of Mr, 
Lawson’s Report on Cinchona Culture in the Wynaad. 
Baron Rosenberg, however, indicated its chief points, 
in the letter we published, and now we find the 
report substantially quoted in the Madras Times. 
We see no reason to alter our opinion that the 
Madras quinologist attaches too much importance 
to “food starvation’’ as he calls the supposed 
effect of the absence of humus or its deficiency, 
and too little to the mechanical condition of the 
soil. We long ago discovered in Ceylon that in 
stiff clayey soil, largely impregnated with iron,— 
soil in which tea flourishes, — cinchonas cannot be 
grown. Also that soil rich in humus, but water- 
logged, was equally fatal to the fever plants. But 
we have had no confirmation of the principle 
which Mr. Lawson so positively propounds, that 
“ what kills coffee kills cinchona.” Although cin- 
chona is of the same natural order with coffee, 
it has never been attacked by, far less has it 
died from, the effects of Hemileia vastatrix. The 
trees have grown together side by side in the same 
field ; and while the coffee has been debilitated to 
death by repeated attacks of the fungus, the cin- 
chonas have never suffered from this cause. 
Now that the price received for ordinary bark scarcely 
pays gathering and sending to market, it seems like 
mockery to be told that the more manure used the 
better, and to be advised to resort to costly cross- 
trenches mulched with hill grass. The latter is said to 
be collected at small expense. But in the days when 
mana grass was used largely for cinchona nur- 
series in Oeylon, and the grass had to be conveyed 
any distance, we know that the cost was not small 
but very serious. Recommendations to manure 
and till liberally ; to plant widely ; not to take bark 
until the trees are six years old, and subsequently 
to harvest only at intervals of three years, are no 
doubt excellent in theory. But practically the 
question is will such cultivation pay, now, or at 
any period in this nineteenth century. 
THE CEYLON AMERICAN TEA COMPANY. 
We are by no means favourably-disposed to the 
proposal made by Messrs. Wattson & Farr for the 
re-organisation of this Company. If the enormous 
proportion of shares required for themselves really 
mean a return for very large expenditure, they 
ought for the sake of their good name at this end, 
among people not accustomed to American ways 
of doing business, to be much fuller and more 
explicit in their explanation of how they proposed 
to spend the money in order to secure the floating 
of the New Company and its profitable support over 
Blithe States of the Union. But at the same time 
we most fully recognise the dilliculty in which the 
local Directors of the existing Company were placed. 
What is there, for instance— according to the law 
of the United States— to hinder Messrs. Wattson 
A Farr starting their own “ Ceylon-American 
Tea Company ” any day they please, free of the 
encumbrance of paying back (as they offer to do) 
the capital in tho existing Company ? Tlioro 
is no power at this end to prevent their trading 
with the name of “ Oeylon ” or “ Ceylon planters ” 
in the States, and it would seem wise therefore not 
to cast thorn off, but to make the best of the ‘ 
responsibility attaching to a Company working in 
co-operation with a local Directorate. A planting 
shareholder who takes this view and who criticises 
a contemporary’s utterances, writes as follows : — 
July 18th.— I do think the local “Times” leader on 
the Ceylon American Tea Co. Ltd., as given on the 
12th, in good taste, and is it not very misleading? Of the 
6 000 shares of the original Co. only 1,747 are subscribed 
for, leaving 4,253. To buy those and assist in the 
formation of the New Company, looks to me very 
like buying R2 for Rl. For every share held at present 
by stockowners, the New Company will allot 2 
shares of §20 each or §40 = to say E108. So 
the present holder of a R50 share will get in the 
New Company’s stock worth R108, for each share, or 
he has the option if he prefers it (read last paragraph 
in Wattson & Farr’s letter) of retiring from the con- 
cern and receiving from them the R50 he has paid. 
They say — -‘We personally agreeing that if the new 
Company is undertaken, we will take up any 
shares of parties who may now be stockholders 
should they not wish to accept the proposal.” 
Surely this is good enough ; at any rate 1 shall 
stick to my stock, and think it worth while just 
putting a trifle more in. Your contemporary further 
says something about exigencies of trade compelling 
the new Company whose name is registered, to sell other 
than Ceylon teas. But the writer forgets it is a 
Company to be formed stricthj for the represen- 
tation of Ceylon Industries.” i,See Wattson & Farr’s 
letter last para but 2.) And to watch this, there 
will be the Board on this side. 
The 28,000 shares to be handed over for getting 
up the Company and for advertising, travelling &o., &o. 
(see Wattson & Farr’s letter) only mean £112,233. 
And what is this for an American Boom ! especially 
if as the local “ Times” editor says, it is “ to register 
the Company in every State in, the ineriean Union'’? 
At any rate it may be said that “ the £112,233 ” 
are not to come from Ceylon, but from the country- 
men of Messrs. Wattson & Farr who are generally 
credited with remarkable acuteness about their 
investments. We suppose the prospectus of the 
new Company will be laid for approval before the 
Ceylon Directors, and clearly there must be a better 
guarantee for this new Association dealing in pure 
Ceylon produce under the joint arrangement, than 
if Messrs Wattson & Farr established a tea busi- 
ness of their own without reference to the existing 
Company. 
Davidson’.s Sirocco. — Can any of your readers tell 
me how a steady heat is kept up on a Davidson’s large 
size Down-Draft Sirocco Tea Dryer. I find that the 
temperature drops from 385 deg. to 210 deg. before it 
hits the tea on the lowest tray. I also find that it 
takes 5 maunds dry wood too each maund of tea, that 
it does not turn out anything like 2 maunds per hour. 
Bach one of these points contradicts Davidson’s adver- 
tisement. Can anyone with practical experience tell 
me how to remedy them ? A Darjeelingite. P. S. — I 
do not find that it puts price on tea, it only enables 
you to dry with other material than charcoal. — Indian 
Planters' Gazette, July 1st. 
Rakwana, J uly 12th. — Gemming operations are not 
progressing in such a satisfactory manner as was ex- 
pected, and Mr. Baddeley does not seem to be at all 
satisfied with his Sinhalese laborers. To tell the truth, 
tempted by the liberal wages offered by Europeans, 
several persons of questionable character with no know- 
ledge whatever of gemming took up work under the 
Gemming Syndicate. Mr. Harding of the Gemming 
Syndicate is expected here tomorrow. The plumbago 
mine on Barra is paying very well. Recently a sap- 
phire weighing 19 carats was found by one Adonis 
Rerera either on Spring Vale or Know Hill Estate in 
Kukulu Korle. The finder, not knowing the value of 
the gem, sold it to a Sinhale.se boutique-keeper for 
R350. The later, who has a good knowledge of gems, 
had an offer of Rl, 900 for it ; but he declined to part 
with it, and expects a much larger sura.— Co?’., local 
“ Times,” 
