568 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[February 2, 1891. 
passed the stage of initiatory effort and become 
a well-developed and settled industry, to obtain 
the prices which the planters of India secured but 
some twenty years back, the profits which could 
have been realized by us would have been simply 
enormous. 
Turning from our English files, we find that 
the Indian Planters' Gazette contains tables show- 
ing the results of working, &c, for the whole season 
1889, by which is meant up to end of June 1890, 
we suppose, of 26 Companies registered in London. 
These certainly shew a different result to our 
deduction from the interim dividends. The totals 
and averages are thus shewn : — 
Oapital paid up £2,951,886 
Total area of cultivation ... 64,953 acres 
Do. mature do. ... 54,769 ,, 
Proportion of young cultivation 15-68 per cent 
Yield (total crop) — per mature acre 422 lb. 
Outturn (Account S<des weight) 23,100,052 lb. 
Loss in Taring ... [Prom nil to 2-37 per cent!. 
Capital value— per acre of total cultiv- 
ation ... £45 9s Od per acre, 
The largest total area of cultivation is 9,185 
acres, of which 7,521 mature, in the case of the 
Assam Company. The highest yield per mature 
acre was 809 lb, in the case of the Dejoo Tea Com- 
pany Limited ; the lowest being 256. The results 
per lb. for the season are thus given -. — 
B. 
Total cost* average per lb. 0 
Surplus Commission to managers 
Do. Profit for shareholders 
Gross proceeds 
Shareholders’ profit— per mature acre 
d. 
8-42 
0-28 
2-45 
Do 
do per cent on total cost^ 
0 11-15 
£4 6s Id 
29 06 
Do 
do 
do 
capital 
8-53 
f ?f4-=Nil 
Dividend paid 
do 
do 
do 
1 22=8-83 
r 8=Nil 
Reserve Fund 
do 
do 
do 
1 18=9-69 
* Old non-dividend paying Companies. 
The highest shareholders’ profit per mature acre 
was £13 12s 2d. Four Companies, as shewn above, 
gave no dividend ; one gave 18 per cent; another 
15; one 14; one 11|; 7 gave 10; one 9; one 8 ; 
6 gave 6 ; one 5J ; one 5 and one 24 . Leaving out 
the 4 old Companies, the general result of an average 
dividend of 8-83 per cent seems good, but there 
must be a large number of indifferently paying 
Companies outside the list. 
Of course in our review of the differing aspects 
in which the results to the tea cultivation of 
Ceylon and India may be considered, we must 
take largely into account the fact that in very 
many instances of exceptionally large di-vidends 
accruing to the pursuit of that cultivation 
locally, the lands on which it is so successfully 
carried on were obtained under conditions which 
caused them to have been parted with for what 
was but little more than a nominal consideration. 
The collapse of the coffee-planting enterprise forced 
numbers of estates into the market, so greatly 
reducing their then purchasing value. This enabled 
the fortunes of the present to be largely built up 
upon the ruin of the past. Cases of this kind have 
been much rarer in India, and it is largely 
because of this that we contend that jt would be 
unfair to accept instances of exceptionally high 
dividends declared with respect to the_ Ceylon 
industry as the standard for comparison with those 
of the Indian Companies. l>ut when every allow- 
ance is made for these and the other conditions 
that we have mentioned, it remains evident that 
tea planting in Ceylon has distanced in its remune- 
rativoncBB that of the neighbouring continent. 
Much of our relative superiority as to this remu- 
nerativeness may be assigned to the qualities 
inherent in cur teas, which the taste of the home 
consumer has appreciated, and our brother planters 
in India have to contend against this superiority 
as well the local advantages possessed by us which 
have enabled us to produce at a lower cost. 
SALE OF FOREST LAKE IN HEWAHETA- 
The block of forest land which formed a part 
of the Mooloya Estate and was advertised for sale 
today by Messrs. J. Auwardt & Co. was purchased 
by Mr. J. G. Wardrop (for Mr. R. J. d’Esterre) 
for E7,2C0, or about E46 per acre for 157 acres. 
SALE OF HYNDFORD TEA ESTATE, 
The Hyndford in-operty near Nawalapitiya in- 
cluding Wallukelle and extending over 730 acres 
of which 212 are planted with tea, has just been 
sold by Mr. Evan Byrde as Fiscal and has been 
purchased for Mr. David Eeid (who had taken the 
place of Messrs. Dent Brothers as Secondary Mort- 
gagee) for E32,765 which we presume is the amount 
of the primary claim held by Mr. James Eobertson, 
P. W. D. The estate is to be carried on by the 
Ceylon Tea Plantations Co,, the leaf being prepared 
at the Mariawatte Factory, — in the interests of Mr. 
Eossiter and others concerned. Hyndford ought 
to become a valuable property under regular, care- 
ful cultivation. 
« 
CACAO THIEVES IN MATALE. 
THEFT OP CACAO PKOM THE YATTAWATTE ESTATE. 
Mr. J. E. Martin, superintendent of Yattawatte 
charged one Baronebi, a lowcountry Sinhalese man 
with the theft of a certain quantity of cacao— ripe and 
■unripe fruits — of the Forasiero and Caracas varieties. 
About the 30th December Mr. Martin was infermed 
of a man with a bag of cacao seen going from the 
estate. He therefore desired the headman of that 
village to make search and also gave him five men 
to assist him. On the morning ot the 31st the accused 
with the cacao was brought to him : the cacao was 
about 201b and valued at about ten rupees. Mr. Martin 
did not question the accused as to how ho got the 
cacao, as he understood from the headman that he 
had told him before. Having received information 
that a large quantity of unripe cacao had been strip- 
ped from the trees in the cacao field nearest to the 
accused’s village, Mr. Martin visited the spot and found 
that a large number of unripe pods had been picked 
recently, also a quantity of recently shelled pods. 
There are no bearing cacao trees in the vicinity 
except a few on an estate belonging to a Parsee gentle- 
man. At the request of the korala the arachchi of 
Udasgiriya, the village in which the accused lived 
searched the house of the accused and fonnd the, 
cacao seeds placed in a hollow scooped in a heap 
of paddy in the course of germination, and put 
them into a bag. The accused told the arachchi 
that he got the cacao from one Peris Appu of 
Moragolla. Peris Appu who was called as a witness 
said that he owned about three or four hundred cacao 
trees, and that he never sells the produce in the village 
but sends them to Matale or Aluwihara and that he 
never gave the accused cacao seeds or pods. 
Mr. Feasee, the laird of Wariapola, was called by the 
Court and said that he had had experience of cacao in 
Matale district for sixteen years, and that having ex- 
amined the cacao produced before the Court he found 
that most ot them were immature and that over 75 
per cent were unripe. 
The accused stated that it was true that the cacao 
was in his house as ho purchased it at diflierent rates 
from different parties whose names he did not J*now, 
