THE TROPICAL AGRICULTDRIST. 
March i, 1898.] 
THE CACAO DISEASE. 
A RBCOKD OF ITS RAVAGES. 
There is ahroad some sore feeliii" in regard to 
the cacao disease ; those whose places have heen 
spared inclining to “cut up rough,” and would 
have no mention niade of it, for fear cacao pro- 
perty should be depreciated. But it is a thousand 
pities that the “hue and cry” had rob been 
started earlier. Much money might have been 
saved, and by this time we might have b.een 
well on the road to successfully combating the 
pest. As it is, the inquiry is just beginning ; 
and although we hear now and again that one 
local scientist is on the track of the enemy, 
has marked him down, and will be his death 
erelong ; yet it is but the wish being the 
father of the thought — the thing is only in the 
air. Mr. Carmthers has not himself spoken 
and while he is silent, things pretty much remain 
as they were. We have no wish whatever to 
exaggerate the extent of the harm done, not 
the strenuous efforts which must yet be put 
forth to stamp the pest out ; for it goes without 
saying that in a land like this — the very paradise 
of insect and fungoid life — it will nob be exactly 
a “ walk over” which the cacao planters will have. 
Nevertheless, if there be hope, the men who 
grow cacao will undoubtedly be ready to grapple 
with the enemy, and have a sturdy wrestle for the 
mastery. 
Up to this time, so far as we know, facts 
and figures as to the extent of the harm done, 
have nob been forthcoming. Those who minimise 
the evil, speak of a tree here and there dying 
out, jauntily refer to it as a thing to be expected, 
common in all kinds of cultivation ; and trace 
the cause to ‘wet feet,’ improper conditions 
of the soil, or anything in fact. It ought never 
to have been referred to at all, they say, and 
especially in the public prints. Those who 
have been and still are “under the harrow” 
have already enough to pub up with, and do not 
particularly see what the public have to do 
with their bothers and losses. It is hard enough 
to bear them without being made an object- 
les.son for an agricultural community. All this 
is natural enough, and we are inclined co sym- 
pathise with both classes. Happily there is a 
third class, who, with the view to emphasise 
the need of action, are neither so sensitive nor 
reticent as the others, and we are today able 
to give the cacao crop, gathered from 110 acres, 
for the last six years. The planter who has 
obliged us with these figures does not desire that 
the name of the property should be known, 
nor that his own name should appear, but we know 
of what we write, and can vouch for the correct- 
ness of the figures. The crops run as follows : — 
cwt. or. lb. cwt qr. lb. 
1892 .. 318 '2 1 1895 .. 317 1 25 
1893 . . 432 0 17 1896 . . 329 1 26 
1894 .. 394 3 3 1897 .. 193 2 12 
The disease first appeared on the estate at the 
end of 1894. but nob until last year did it become 
very bad. The figures given are eloquent enough, 
and perhaps those planters who are inclined to 
charge us witli the sinister motive of depre- 
ciating cacao property, exaggerating the evil, 
and such like nonsense, will now be convinced, 
that there is a constituency in Ceylon who feel 
that the publicity which has been afforded to this 
serious matter was certainly called for. The 
existence of the evil was smothered too much at 
the outset, and now it would seem as if the day 
of reckoning had fully come. 
6ij 
At present the Planters’ Association is issuing 
a ciiculai to all cacao growers, asking’ for sup- 
port toward remuneration of the scientific ser- 
vices of Mr. Carruthers, whose aim, as we all 
know, is to find out a cure for the cacao disease, 
lhat this appeal will be well supported we 
doubt not, and the sum needed is not a big 
one. If the ravages of tlie cacao disease are to 
mean in all gardens where it appears, anything 
like what it has cost tlie proprietors of the 
estate whose returns we have been permitted to 
quote, then we need offer no word to pres.s upon 
cacao-growers, to support the call now made upon 
them. (Self-interest alone will be reason enough 
to open their purse-strings, not to speak of any- 
Hung more public-spirited. Now that the needed 
Cryptogamist is in the Colony, and that the 
field for his investigations is cle.arly defined and 
wide enough in all conscience, Mr. Carruthers’ 
valuable services should certainly be retained 
until our Cacao planters feel that the Scientist 
has his hand on the throat of their enemy, and 
that its destruction and e.xpulsion are in a fair 
way to be compassea. 
MCE FROM SOUTHERN INDIA. 
THE RECENT VISIT OF ENQUIRY BY 
CEYLON PLANTERS. 
Report of a deputation, which visited the prin- 
cipal centres of S. Indian rice trade— viz 
Negapatam, Tanjore, Shiyali, and Cuddalore— all 
of which are included in the special reduced 
through-booking scheme of the S. I. R.ailway. 
Negapatam.— This place was visited on the 
23rd of January 1898. It is the centre of the 
sea-borne rice trade of S. India, although com- 
paratively little rice is grown in the immediate 
neighbourhood. The evidence taken at this place 
was, therefore, exclusively that of .shippings 
chetties and their brokers and not of cultiva- 
tors. The distance from Negapatam to Tuti- 
corin by rail is 265^ miles ; to Colombo about 
415^ miles via Tuticorin ; from Negapatam by 
.sea direct (via Panmben) to Colombo is 260 
miles more or less. It is, therefore, eminently 
satisfactory to have elicited from these people 
the opinion that in the North-East monsoon 
(at least) transit by rail to Tuticorin, and 
thence by sea to Colombo is preferable to direct 
shipment from Negapatam to Colombo. 
1 he Nagapatam dealers expressed their wil- 
lingness to send periodical samples and quota- 
tions with .a view to direct dealing on the lines 
laid down by the deputation, which will be re- 
ferred to later. 
TAN.JORE. — Visited Januarv 2' !i, 1898 Dist- 
ance from Tuticorin 217^ miles by rail. Tanjore 
IS the principal rice-growing distiict. It has a 
permanent irrigation system from the river Cau- 
yery, and quotations from this district should be 
mss ^ liable^ ^ to fluctuations than less favoured 
districts. 1 he persons interviewed here were not 
owners of land or cultivators, but were buyers of 
paddy, whoemploy labourers to convert the paddy 
into nee, which they afterwards vend. 
SiRlMANE AND S'embala. — They producedsani- 
pies of two grades of rice, which are locally 
known as Sirimaneand Sembala, which are known 
to us as Mootoo-Samba and Kalunda. 
For these they quoted free on rail in double 
gunnies. 
Mootoo-yamba R7-06 per bag of 190 lb. o-roas 
Kaluuda R6-51 “ .. 
