554 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[Feb. I, 1898 , 
Close planting has something to answer for. 
16 hy 16 is quite close enough for Forastero and 
alternate trees could be taken out when it is 
13 or 14 years old and the field, left at 16 hy 32, 
later on reduced to 32 hy 32, and then cacao 
walks would he worked as orchards, and we 
should get twice and tlirice the crops we do now, 
Janihed in 10 by 10 in the early days of inex- 
perience, it is a wonder, worse has not happened 
to cacao, one of the very best investments a 
man can make. Bide-a-wee and we’ll see a boom 
yet in Theobroma Cacao. “ Calahacillo ’’ishardly 
a new name. It is the calabash shajied variety 
red and yellow and the most inferior but hardiest. 
Possibly we h.ave not the soil of some more 
favored cticao countries ; but we have a climate 
it would be hard to beat, and I much mistake 
my fellow cacao Planters if they cave in to 
any of the i^ests that have yet attacked their 
trees. Helopeltis was and perhaps is in some 
parts bad enough in all conscience but it is most 
arbitrarily local and nearly always confined tea 
few corners exposed to paddy fields, swamps or 
bare chenas adjoining. 
Of canker we’ll say nothing till the experts 
speak. The case is snbjudice, but the disease is 
not incurable. It is 7wt general, and it does not 
attack some varieties— at any rate it has not yer. 
Contradict most emphatically the utterly un- 
founded statenient that Cacao dies lilt, I may 
say, universally, when it reaches the age 
of 13 or 14 years ” because facts prove otherwise 
and many Forasteros arc not full cjrown till past 
that age ! ! — Your.s faithfully. C. G. 
No. II. 
Matale, Jan. 2. 
Dear Sir, — Our experience of cacao in Ceylon 
does not certainly limit its life to 13 or 14 years. 
The writer referred to by you contributing to 
your morning contemporary may well be termed 
a startler and can have no experience of Ceylon. 
The bold assertion “at any rate cacao dies out, I 
may say universally when it reaches that 
age”— (13 or 14 years) needs greater authority to 
support it, than the experience of the writer 
can claim. There are plantations in Ceylon vdiere 
thousands of trees may be seen of 20 years o f 
age at least still in their prime. While there is 
a tree in Kandy opposite the Military Hospital, 
on the premises now in the occupation of Dr. Keyt, 
which cannot be less than 40 yeais old. The late 
Mr. Blackett mentioned to me, when we were 
discussing this same question regarding the 
longevity of cacao, that he knew the tree from his 
earliest recollection of Kandy. Where therefore 
writing about the limit of life enjoyed by this tree, 
it would be more safe to rely upon such writers 
as Berthelink, than to take the statements of 
modern paragraphists writing from London. 
The extracts from the Trinidad Agricultural 
Society reported by you are very interesting to 
cacao iilanters.— Yours truly, 
A CACAO PLANTER. 
SALT IN AGRICULTURE. 
Dear Sir, — I was very much interested 
in the discussion in Council on the Salt 
question and much cheered in the way the 
Government acce|)ted the motion. It was over ten 
years ago that I attempted to get up an agita- 
tion for the issue of salt at cheap rates for agri- 
culture in general. I pointed out to coconut 
planters that considering the natural home of the 
coconut palm, it became imperative for them to 
apply salt freely to coconut trees growing inland 
so as to compare as nearly as possible with the 
natural conditions under which the palm grew. 
My agitation met with no response and Dr. Trimen, 
who was appealed to, pointed out to the analyses 
of Lepine as a refutation of my contention. He 
stated that the small quantity of salt a coconut tree 
required was supplied to it bj' one !S.W’. monsoon 
storm. I pointed out that apart from its manu- 
rial value, salt benefitted vegetation by the me- 
chanical and chemical changes it effectea in the 
soil. Mr. Cochran’s interesting analyses establish 
the necessity for salt as a manure for coconuts. 
It will be invaluable tor application in the heavy 
and dry soil of many favourite coconut districts. 
Wherever did the Colonial Secretary get his 
figures of the probable consumption of salt for 
agricultural purposes? They remind me forcibly 
of the figures of the estimate of goods traffic on 
the proposed Puttalam Railway. In both instances 
the figures are based on assumptions. In the one 
case the existence of so many acres of coconuts 
is a fact that that : salt will benefit them is a 
fact. It is therefore assumed that salt will of 
necessity be applied to all existing coconut plan- 
tations. I will be agreeably surprised it one- 
tenth of the estimated consumption will be reached 
in the near future.* Government may, I think, 
safely dismiss the fears they now run to enter- 
tain that should cheap salt be issued they will 
be unable to meet the demand. 
1 do not know whether it was under inspira- 
tion you wrote recently that in spite of the scheme 
for railway extensions sheltered by the Governor 
and in spite of what was placed before the 
Secretary of State for his consideration and sane* 
tion, there may yet be a possibility of the 
Chilaw-Puttalam route being adopted to the 
North in place of the Kurunegala-Auuradhapura 
route. If it be so, it shows that the recent 
journey of the Governor has borne good fruit in 
that, it has convinced His Excellency that the 
better and more reasonable route had not been ori- 
ginally adopted. Everything seems to have been 
sacrificed to serve the cost of construction of a few 
miles of railway to reach the Terminus at the 
North. Given a cheaply constructed railway, 
statistics prove that it will pay. This news must 
prove very pleasing to the Puttalam resident 
who so persistently fights for a railway to his 
adopted home.” — Yours truly, 
MARA VILLA. 
DAYS OF OLD IN UDA PUSSELLAWA. 
Haputale, 5th Jan. 1898. 
Dear Sir, — I am glad to see by your New Year's 
Correspondent signing “ Y.”, that another of the small 
band of pioneers who first opened the Udapussellwa 
district, is still to the fore, “ may his shadow never be 
less ” and may he have many more happy New Years 
to spin us a yarn of the days of old ; but if he will 
pardon me, I will correct him on a few minor points 
in which he has erred. On the 1st of January, 1858, 
I relieved poor “ Dick ” Crawford on Alnwick, James 
■Wilson on St. Margarets, William Boyd on Tulloes, 
and A. Vallance on Kirklees ; we were a small band 
of four, who trod those hills and valleys in 1858, but 
your correspondent dates from a year or two earlier. 
—Browning opened Alnwick, the first 100 acres, an- 
other 100 acres being opened by Crawford, after 
which I got charge, but in a few months’ time, I had 
to exchange billets with John Ward and go to Massena 
in Balangoda, both estates then owned by the Baron 
Delmar. James Wilson died in Stainton’s Hotel 
* Of course, a possible maximum has to be pre- 
vided fer. — Bn. T.A. 
