April i, 1891.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 
693 
Profit and Loss Acoount for the year ending 
31st December 1890. 
Dr. L c. 
To Proats to 31st December 1889, tranferred to 
Cost of Land as per Balance Sheet 8,981 09 
To Cost of Growing, Making, Transport, &c.. 
Tea Crop, 1890 (including Kll,051 depre- 
ciation) .... 
To Directors* Fees, Secretary’s Salary, and 
Office Kent 
To Interest 
To Auditor's Fee 
To Stationery, Postages, and Sundries ... 
To Balance 
K101,327 99 
Cr. It c 
By Balance of Account at 31st December 1889 8,489 93 
By Value of Tea on account 1889 realised in 
excess of the sum estimated ... 491 10 
E8981 09 
By Transfer Pees ... 69 00 
By Net Sale Proceeds ot 248,887 lb. Tea (in- 
cluding value o£ Tea not sold in Decem- 
ber as per Balance Sheet) ... 101,267 99 
B101,327 9 
^ 
TEA AJSTD COFFEE IN NUWAKA ELIYA 
DURING THE “FORTIES.” 
With reference to the tea planted at Nuwara 
Eliya under the oare of the Rev. Mr. Gepp 
(unole of Mr. Gepp, Colombo), when living in Sir 
Anthony Oliphant’s family in the early “forties,” 
it is interesting to know that some of the seed or 
plants of the same or a subsequent supply were 
given to the late Mr. Cornell who put tlieiu 
in on his Essex property. Mr. A. J. Keilow 
writes : — “ I have now got the local history 
of the tea plants I lately referred to. Mrs. 
Bullock tells me that Mr. Cornell planted a 
few at Essex Cottage (now Naseby) in 1847 
and they grew to be very large trees. They 
were put in where the old bungalow stood 
and were the same that I wrote to the Observer 
about in 3873. Were you aware that the late Capt. 
Fisher tried coffee in Nuwara Eliya ? The patoh is 
still to be seen, but I do not know if any of 
the coffee trees are in existence. Mr. Nook and I 
purpose going up some clay to see.” 
73,024 28 
1,600 00 
2,018 IG 
52 50 
81 87 
24.551 18 
Tea in the United States seems at length 
to have taken a start upwards. From a value of 
$14,179,000 in 11 months of 1886, there was a 
fall to $10,658,000 in 11 months of 1889. For 
the 11 months of 1890 there was a rise to 
$13,400,000. The imports of coffee have gone up 
from a value of $39,922,000 in 11 months of 
1886, to the enormous figure of $78,266,000 in 
the 11 months of 1890, or 6-fold the value of tea. 
The Rabbit Pest in America. — It is not only 
in Australia that rabbits have increased so as to 
be formidable enemies of farmers. A paragraph 
quoted in the Indian Agriculturist runs thus: — 
In many localities in the Western States of America 
rabbits have become a serious pest. For a timo the 
price paid for them h.ad induced hunters to kill many 
of them but notwithstanding this they have increased 
and the larger numbers offered the city dealers have 
brought prices to the poiutthat will prevent an increase 
in the number killed. In some places it required 
four rabbits to bring 6 cents last winter, and the 
hunters quit in disgust. It is probable that before 
long several States will find it necessary to take 
measures for the deetructiou of rabbits. 
SETTLEMENT AND EXTENSION OF NATIVE 
CULTIVATION IN CEYLON: BIG TANRS 
A NECESST Y. 
We direct ’attention to the following mature 
opinions on the best means of promoting new 
settlements and the extension of native cultivation 
They are from a resident as competent as any man 
in the country — and far more so than speakers and 
writers who have never spent a month continuously 
in a purely native district — to advise authoritatively 
on the subject. What is said about big tanks de- 
serves careful consideration, more particularly when 
weremember that it took twenty years to demonstrato 
the full success of the Battioaloa tank works begun 
by Sir Henry Ward and Mr. J. W. W, Birch. — 
We quote as follows:— 
“ I have thought the matter well over ; and my 
conclusion is that (with exceptions here and there) 
we are settling up the island quite fast enough, and 
that the only impetus required is to give the laud 
(waste) on very easy terms, whether to the poor 
man or the capitalist, if he will accept it in un- 
settled parts, where at present there is no demand. 
I do not believe in dealing out money to make 
settlements, though I would give it to a ‘ Zemin- 
dar ’ as they would call a large landlord in India — 
especially a European, if he would undertake to 
clear and settle a number of families in any place. 
Of course they would first come as coolies, and the 
most industrious would in time become tenants. 
But disappointment would come I think if money 
was given direct into the settler’s own hands. 
“Of course where paddy cultivation is to be en- 
couraged — and it is and will long be the branch of 
agriculture the natives best take to — irrigation must 
be provided, and must keep pace with the culti- 
vation ivhich it has not done in the past, coconuts, 
cotton, &a. follow. 
“ Wherever the population in the island is dense, 
there is always not far off a ‘ hinterland ’ into 
which it has been for years spreading, extending 
and occupying. Open this up with good roads and 
you will help and attract settlers. 
“Matarais now flowing over into the GiruwaPattn; 
and before many years the country under the 
Walawe works will be occupied. Civilization it is 
said spreads from centres, and we must work for 
the extension of the cultivated area on the same 
principle in Ceylon. But you must have a bold 
policy, not hesitating to launch out because there 
is a doubt if ‘ it will pay,’ and not frittering the 
revenue over village tanks, which are a snare and 
a delusion as a rale, and pro rata much more ex- 
pensive than the big works, as was shown in your 
columns some years ago. 
“I see a great deal of nonsense has been recently 
talked and written about Kalawewa having failed. Of 
course it will not fill when the monsoon fails, 
but in the first place such failure is twt the rule. 
Next my experience shows, if the rain does not come 
at one time, it does at another part of the year, 
as it has done this year, and having a big reser- 
voir ready, wa are able to bottle up a lot and 
keep it until required, and once you get one of 
theso big tanks full, it is wonderful how it can be 
eked out. Suppose, as is frequently the case, the 
rains are short or late, tiiere is little or no cul- 
tivation, and much of what did come at length 
would be allowed to run off. But with a big 
tank, it is all saved, and with this behind them, 
cultivators go on merrily. The tanks and works in 
Batticaloa and Matara were decried just as. Kalawewa 
is now; but they have lived it down and so will 
Kalawewa." 
