NoVEJIBaR I, 1890.1 
THE TROPICAL AGRlCULTUmST. 
357 
planters that tea could never be a success in an 
island so near the equator, without a winter and 
with the raintall distributed over so large a pro- 
portion of the year. There never was a case per- 
haps where preconceived ideas and the traditions 
of an enterprise were so falsified by actual results. 
The immunity of our tea from insect and fungus 
pests is also remarkable. The grubs, brown and 
white, which were so fatal to coffee in its young 
and mature stages, find nothing attractive in tea 
bushes. We could wish they were equally indifferent 
to nurseries of timber trees and greensward. 
For small patches of the latter which have been 
attempted here, the white grubs have a most an- 
noying predilection ; what is one day emerald green 
becoming brown tomorrow, as if sun-withered, 
although copious rain continues to fall. The num- 
ber of cockchafer beetles we ever see, seem in 
entirely inadequate proportion to the prevalence of 
white grubs. But the latter spend three years 
underground eating the feeding rootlets of such 
plants as are acceptable to them before they 
develops into the winged stage. Even (he moths 
which have been pretty abundant lately are inno- 
cuous as far as tea is concerned. For several years 
now the species which lays its eggs in young flush, 
the young leaves curling up and withering, has been 
absent, or if present has altered its habit. There 
is neither helopeltis nor preen fly, red rust nor 
scale insect to meddle with flush which is so 
plentiful that work in the factory had to be carried 
on until ^ past 2 this morning. I speak, of course, 
of estates within my purview, while I have heard of 
one estate and one only where the prevalence of 
scale insect necessitated the cutting down of some 
aorea of toa. Free planting ought lo be c-rrried 
out, however, not merely for !. sujply of fuel, but 
to interrupt that continuity of one product iu wide- 
spread expanses, which seems to invite the visita- 
tions, such as have proved so injurious to potatoes, 
and in Ceylon so fatal to cotfe ■. At high elevations, 
too, the shelter of trees seems beneficial to tea, 
while their shade does not seem injurious. In 
•lapan, as we have lately read, they shade tea to 
increase the proportion of theine in the leaf. 
THE TROPICAL SDN— THE TSA PLANTER'S ENEMY — 
CINCHONA ELODRISIIING — UBIQUITOUS TEA — HOSES AT 
HaKGALA — THE SOURCE OF THE HAHAWELIGAKGA — 
GROWTH OF TOONS AND CUYPTOMEEIAS — TREES IN 
NUWARA ELIYA — CURIOUS ACACIAS— A FINE BLUE 
GUM- ATTRACTIONS OF THE SANATORIUM- THE WILD 
FLOWERS OF THE CEYLON HILL COUNTRY — PAUCITY 
OF PLANTS INDIGENOUS TO INDIA AND CEYLON. 
Nanuoya, Oct. 7tb. 
After the morning mists had cleared away, 
yesterday was, here and at Nuwara Eiiya, a 
glorir us sunny day. Indeed the sun during noon 
and forenoon allowed of no mistake as to our being 
in the tropics, even when standing on one of flie 
knolls in tho Sanatorium at an elevation of 6,400 
feet. At the meeting in “ The Town Hall ” between 
3 and 4 p.m., the temperature was oppressive, due 
I suppose to the heating of the iron roof. In 
passing through the Inverness forest, eii route, we 
were struck by the beautiful white inflorescence, 
contrasted with the large, deep green glabrous leaves 
of a tree, which turned out to be the stjmplocos so 
fatal in tea plantations from a fungus which forms 
ou its decaying roois. But still mere remarkable 
was the profuse and beautiful flowering of fine 
Cinchona ivhusta trees, of which there are still so 
many on Inverness estate. Apart from tlie value 
of this hardy hybrid, few plants can be more 
ornamental, the prevailing tint of the flowers being 
a rich orange-red. If the cultivation of cinchona 
is to be continued in Oeylon, this is certainly the 
kind to plant ; and it seed is, as it is likely to be, 
iu proportion to flower, Messrs. Cross and Bal- 
lardie will be able to supply a very large demand. 
Meantime I have to report ledgerianas as flourishing 
at 5,700 feet elevation, where at the commence- 
ment of the enterprise they had to be coaxed 
into growing. Is this valuable species adapting 
itself to our higher elevations ? Inverness, like 
Mariawatte, shows what a plentiful application of 
manure can do for tea. In these high altitudes, 
as might be expected, the young tea plants are 
longer in “coming away,” and the older plants 
require two cr three more years in coming to 
maturity than in the medium elevations or in “the 
lowoountry” ; but the tea which runs up the side 
of “One Tree Hill” to the verge of 7,000 feet, shows 
that the plant with this qualification is at home 
at nearly our highest as well as our lowest eleva- 
tions above sea-level — responding fully everywhere 
to high cultivation and fertilizers. At Nuwara 
Eiiya we met Mr. Nock of the Hakgala Gardens 
and we were sorry we could not go down to enjoy 
the spectacle which he described to us : 5,000 blooms 
on his collection of rose bushes, of which 675 
were counted on one bush of “Lamarck.” We 
had our day’s work cut out for us in examining 
the progress of the Cedrela tooiui and other trees 
on a ten-acre lot of land near “the Bund,” where 
the waters of “the Mahaw'eliganga,” as the river 
which forms the lake is called in the Nuwara 
Eiiya titlcdeeds, are thrown back to form a lake. 
But the Agraoya which rises on Kirigalpotta is 
really the main source of the great sand river. 
We found the toons, wilh their red-coloured heads 
of foliage, looking really grand in their luxuri- 
ant growth and in' their complete and striking 
cootrast to the olher vegetation around, native 
jungle or introduced plants. Th.e loons and the 
cryptomerias {G. japonica) which are inter- 
spersed amongst them were planted out in Sept. 
1886, so that they are now just four years old. 
We measured a toon, one amongst the tallest, 
which turned out to be 40 feet high and 16 inches 
in girth a foot above the ground. The rate of 
growth, therefore, was 10 feet per annum upwards 
and 4 inches in girth at the lower portion. Con- 
sidering the rapid skyward growth the girth is 
satisfactory, and a few years hence, judging by our 
11 years old trees, the Bund toons will devote 
their energies to the thickening of their branchless 
trunks. The average growth of the toons in the 
four years may probtbly be taken at 34 feet. The 
cryptomerias have maue as nearly as possible half 
the vertical growth, hut a lateral growth more in 
proportion than the toons, besides covering their 
trunks with a series of branches from the very 
roots. One of the tallest cryptomerias which 
W 0 measured was 19^ feet high with 101 inches 
girth. Some Australian eucalypts planted in 
our grove only lately will soon overtop even 
the toons. Amongst ornamental trees obtained 
Irom Hakgala, prominent for beauti ul and luxu- 
riant growth is Piniis sinen-'<is. For ornamental 
purposes it cannot be surpassed even by Films 
long {folia. The only question is, as regards economic 
use, whether its tendency to go ofi' into numerous 
stems cannot be corrected. Some of the wattles 
in Nuw'ara Eiiya were in bt-auliful blossom, but 
for rich, deep golden bloom the furze or gorse or 
wliins, near Bellwood,— truly a sight of glory, — 
far excelled the acacias. Fity it is “ the lang 
yellow broom” ia not equally successful. New 
species of Australian acacias have been planted out 
on the Plain, and the time seems to have arrived 
when all should be identified and described for 
the benefit of planters iu search of the best firewood 
plants. The grevillea, which grows so well at 
