726 
THE TROPiCAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[April i, 1891, 
the illustration it affords of the wonderful vitality 
of the genus of plants to which it belongs. Have 
1 not read that the roots of the red clover have 
penetrated the soil from 3 to 4 and even 6 feet 
down into subterranean drains, and not only that 
they conserve nitrates in the soil, but that the 
plf nts to which they are attached enrich the land 
in which they grow with nitrogen derived from the 
atmosphere ? The legwminosce are now found to be 
still more valuable in this respect, and some readers 
of the Observer may remember that Baron Liebig, 
writing to the late Mr, Cruwell, advised the coffee 
planters of Ceylon to grow lupins between the rows 
ot their trees, to be turned down as green manure, 
so imparting to the soil their stores of nitrogen. 
I suppose that tea, which is a leaf-crop, requires 
even more than coffee 
SUPPLIES OF NITROGEN" ; 
and it would be interesting to know if any 
experiment has been tried in burying green plants 
in the soil in which tea grows, before the blossoming 
or at any rate the seeding stage of such plants. In 
the experimental station at Cawnpore, hemp has 
been found an excellent improver of the soil by 
being buried in its green stage. I have never 
grown green crops for the purpose of being buried ; 
but early in its existence I treated a patch of 
tea to an application of green nilu plants laid 
along hollows between the rows, with China bean 
manure sprinkled over the nilu. We believe we 
see the good effects of that application to this day, 
a dozen years after the experiment was tried ; 
but, of course, the China bean cake being in itself 
highly nitrogenous, it is impossible to say what 
portion of the benefit was due to the nilu 
beyond the mechanical effect of 
OPENING UP THE SOIL TO AERATION, 
a very important process. If lupin seed cannot 
be easily procured, or if lupins will not readily 
grow here, any pea or bean will suit, — chick pea, 
gram, kollu or even scarlet runners. In our 
American exchanges we find constant reference to 
peas grown as green manure for orange and other 
orchards ; and we submit that experiments should 
be instituted in Ceylon. Clover, as well as beans 
and peas, might be tried, the only objection being, 
that, as our experience here has shown, it is 
easier to get clover into a soil than to eradicate it. 
The railway extension, the progress of which to- 
wards Uva we watch with interest each morning and 
evening as it is being completed across Abbotsford, 
was 
PROJECTED TO SAVE UVA COFFEE. 
For that purpose it was sanctioned too late, but from 
those best able to speak with authority, we have 
recently had the assurance that it is now certain 
that, in serving the new staple tea, it will receive 
more traffic than ever could have been yielded by 
the old. In how many other ways it may servo Uva 
and other districts on the eastern side of our 
“Great Divide,” who can possibly predict? It will 
facilitate 
THE INTRODUCTION OF MANURE, 
labour, capital and European enterprise, and as that 
enterprise prospers so will all native interests from 
the growing of rice, maize, legumes and millets to 
the culture of roots and leaf-vegetables and fruits, for 
the superior growth of the latter of which the climate 
is specially favourable. Cattle farming and dairying 
and even manufactures (that of paper from mana 
grass to begin with) are pretty sure to follow. Judici- 
ous irrigation schemes by all means, until even the 
arid parts ol Uva grow a surplus of cereal food ; 
but for the succoss of irrigation and all other 
onterpriso, the one desideratum is to be found in 
FACILITIES OF TRANSIT AND INTERCOMMERCE, 
such as good roads laid the foundation of, and to 
which the railway puts the crowning top-stone. At 
Nanuoya, as your readers are aware, our mountain 
railway attains an altitude of 5,297 feet above mean 
sea-level. The engine entered Abbotsford eastern 
boundary, 1| mile from Nanuoya, at an elevation 
of 5,497 feet, and will leave the western boundary 
for the Government forest at a few yards from 
the second mile, having attained an altitude of 5,658 
feet. The gradient at the entrance is 1 in 52-80 and 
towards the exit it is eased to 1 in 65. There 
are two large cuttings in this serpentine line of 
half a mile. One severs a ridge which runs 
down the estate and across which a foot and 
horse bridge will be placed to restore the con- 
nection. This cutting is over 31 feet high, while 
the much more formidable cutting at the outlet 
from the eastern side of the estate (the land runs 
more than 2 miles from north to south) is about 
53 feet in perpendicular height, A still greater 
cutting beyond the 3rd mile with which Mr. 
Eosling has to deal, and from which a slip of 
about 1,C00 cubic yards had at one time to be 
cleared away, is 80 feet perpendicular and fully 
100 in the slope. For a little more than a mile 
beyond Abbotsford, the line goes through 
BEAUTIFUL FOREST SCENERY, 
the forest sloping up the sides of the Eatapihilla- 
mana range. It then runs between the culiivated 
land of Penmynnydd and Calsay and the forest 
to the 5th mile. Hence to the 7th there is magni- 
ficent scenery of forest, river, waterfall, gorge and 
ravine. Beyond, the rolling grassy prairies known 
as Elk Plains open up, framed in by forested 
mountains. On these Plains the Ambawala station 
to suit the New Galway and other estates near 
Hakgala will be placed. The patanas stretch nearly 
up to summit level, which is practically the height 
of Nuwara Bliya, and where, we suppose, there will 
be a station, which the opening up of Horton 
Plains may yet render important. 
Just as I wrote the above I received a letter 
from a correspondent in Uva about the damJe tree 
He writes , 
“ In From the Ilille in your issue of 10th March 
you say ‘ the daniba,_ a mere variation of jambu, 
is, I suppose, the wal jambu of Trimen’s list, but cer- 
tainly the natives pronounce the name daniha.' They 
are ri«ht. That is the proper name of the tree. Next 
to Millille and Leang it is the best building timber 
in Uva. One store I built with it 30 years ago 
is now as sound as ever. It used to abound formerly, 
you will recognise the name in J)amba-gaha, Damba- 
temxe, DamhaweUevad Damba gas-talawa, — gas, the plural 
of (jaha — Jambu gaha is the tree bearing the jambu 
fruit, sometimes called the rose-apple, bright pink on 
one side and which I first saw in Bengal before com- 
ing here — is a totally different tree growing at a 
much lower elevation and not choice timber. The 
lual jambu is the wild tree in the jungle and like 
the wild mango, and wild nutmeg (molibodde) next to 
useless for building purposes. Our tea flourishing all 
over Uva flushes all through the hot W"eather and the 
continuous wet. By the bye, where is Uva, which 
name is not Sinhalese or English or any known lan- 
guage, is it Buvah or Youvah?” 
I gather, therefore, that while damba is, as I 
have long known, one of 
OUR BEST HILL TIMBERS, 
*he treo known as wal jainhu is very inferior. It 
is curious that Trimen, who gives dan and maha 
dan as Sinhalese names for Eugenias, ignores damba, 
which is no doubt the Elu form of jambu and 
applied to the mountain species. In Trimen’s list 
the Sinhalese name for one plant is actually fofol/ 
