[June i, 1898. 
800 THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
It may interest some to read an estimate made in 
October, 1839, for opening 100 acres Coffee, when 
prices stood at 70s. to 80s. net. It is based, it will 
be seen, on a yield of 5 cwts. per acre and a ‘‘safe” 
net price of tiOs. It was sent to Mr. Alexander 
Hadden, then a member of the lirm of William 
Nicol & Co,, Merchants, Bomb'ay, probably by the 
Hon. George '1 iirnour, possibly by Mr. Hew Steuart. 
It apparently induct d him to make a venture as a 
Coffee planfer, and more or less opened up a Ceylon 
connection with his firm which lasted long after he 
had retired from it, bringing to Ceylon Andrew 
Nicol and many others : — 
Copy of lieport sent via Bombay under date, October, 
1839. 
“ In the district of Colombo agricultural labour 
is generally paid at the rate of 4^d. and in Kandy 
at 6d. per day. In general the Kandyans are un- 
willing to engage as labourers ; but the increasing 
demand is supplied by coolies from the Ma,labar 
Coast, who are continually coming over and locating. 
“ In the following Estimate of the Expense and 
Eeceipts of a Coffee Plantation, the land is supposed 
to stand in at £5 an acre when cleared. Forest 
land may be bought at 5s. an acre and cleared by 
contract at £2 10s. ; but when to this the expense 
of making roads, fences, and superintendence is 
added, the cost cannot be calculated at less than £5. 
“In Brazil it is usual to estimate the produce of 
a Coffee bush at the average of one pound per bush, 
but in the estimate below, half pound per bush only is 
taken. A Coffee Plantation cannot be considered as 
in full bearing until the fifth year, but the produce 
of the third and fourth years are calculated to equal 
a full year’s crop. The value of the Coffee is esti- 
mated at 60.S-. per cwt. (present value is from 70s. 
to 80s in Ceylon). 
“ Expenses for 100 Acres. 
100 acres cleared at £5 per acre . . . . £500 0 0 
25 coolies at £7 10s. per annum or 6d. per 
day for 4 years 780 0 0 
Superintendence and incidental expenses 780 0 0 
100,000 Coffee plants at 6d. per 100 the 
regular price, 1,000 Coffee plants to 
an acre ^ 9 
Bungalow (house) and tools . . . . 150 0 0 
To which add expense of plucking, drying 
and cleaning from the husk, the esti- 
mated crop 491 cwt 122 15 0 
£2,357 15 0 
Receipts. 
loo acres each containing 1,000 plants. 
each producing i lb. =; 491 cwt. at 
£3 per cwt 1,473 0 0 
Leas Cooly Lines and Superintendence 
for the fifth and following years 390 0 0 
£1,083 0 0” 
Mr. Alexander Hadden, influenced by Colonel 
Lindsay’s prosperity with Rajawella and this Esti- 
mate, opened in 1810 Dodangtalaw'a, an estate 
of 120 to 160 acres betw'een Matale and Kurunegala, 
his partners Wright and Smith (in later years Smith, 
Eleniing & Co. of London,) joining in the venture ; 
but Coffee was not a success there. In 1840 it 
produced some 050 to 700 cwts. coffee of inferior 
quality, beans very small, and eventually the yilace 
had to be abandoned. His brother, Mr. Charles 
S Hadden, the prei ent owner of Kotiyagalla, Boga- 
wantalawa, and his cousin the late Mr. Fred. J. 
Hadden, were more fortunate than their Bombay 
relative at this time, though they also went some- 
what wrong in the choice of land at first, settling 
down in Ambagamuwa. However, they were shrewd 
men, had no other business to occupy their chief 
thoughts, weie practical planters very soon, dis- 
covered their mistake in good time, and having 
command of capital, promptly moved into Hunas- 
geriya, where they did well with that glorious old 
estate Weygalla. The Rajawella estates paid Mr. 
Tumour and the Colonel very well for some years. 
In 1844, £70,000 was offered for these estates by a Mr. 
Antrobus of Paris, but the offer was not accepted; 
for in the previous year they had yielded some 
£14.000 to the proprietors; there was nothing in their 
re>pective positions to make either of them anxious 
to bell; and who without soma degree of urgency could 
part on a ‘‘ 5 years' purchase” with property so rapidly 
increasing in value ? As things tnrued out unless 
Mr. Tumour and Colonel Lindsay were level-headed 
far heyond the average of men, it was probably as 
fortunate for them that they did not sell even for 
£70,000 what had cost them but £8,000, for those were 
days of inflation, and likely enough much of the pro- 
ceeds would have been lost in the panic times that 
so closely followed — lost through one of the many 
Bank failures if uninvested, or through the general 
shrinkage of values if invested. 
Late in 1844 the Hon. George Tumour died at 
Naples, and his Executor, Capt. H. A. Atchison, 
had to close the partnership ; so the Rajawellas were 
put up for sale in five lots in February, 1846. They 
realised £25,170. Colonel Martin Lindsay bought 
lots which were numbered 1. 3 and 5 at £14,260, and 
Robert Boyd Tytler with Thos. Charles Morton 
lots 2 and 4 for £10,910. 
In January, 1847, the Colonel also died, and left 
his portion as a provision for his widow and family. 
He had married a Miss Hadden in 1817 at Aberdeen, 
then and for many years afterwards a bright little 
Northern Capital, with all that implies, in con- 
nection with gaiety and good society. He died on 
a visit to Ceylon at Kandy, 28th January ; and, 
though he had become a civilian, was buried in the 
Churchyard there with military honours rendered 
by Colonel Drought and the X'V th regiment, as may 
be read by those who are fortunate enough to pos- 
sess the Ceylon Observer of 29th January. 1847, 
where an account of the military funeral is fully 
set forth and much said of this “tine old gentleman.” 
He had not been dead many months when very 
dark days came. The year 1847 was memorable of 
financial troubles all over the world, and at the 
close of it and beginning of 1848 raged a Commercial 
Panic such as has not been known since. Consols 
fell from 94 to 78|. Not in the political compli- 
cations that followed did Consols fall below 83, even 
when Revolution in France drove Louis Philipe from 
his throne. Hungary nearly separated from Austria, 
and the whole Continent seethed in discontent, troubles, 
and war, and ( hartist riots kept people in a ferment 
at home. Ceylon Plantation Coffee, good quality on 
4th January, 1848, was down at 40s. to 42s. in Mincing 
Lane. Native Coffee at one time was sold there at 
19s. a cwt. 3,000 bags were sold at that figure by a 
much respected Broker who now no longer connected 
with Produce is still alive and very much to the 
fore in other lines. 
The Commercial failures at the end of 1847 and in 
January, 1848, were appalling. They were announced 
daily, and in all trades— among Continental Houses, 
in American, in African and in West Indian Trades, 
and not least in the Bast Indian Trade. Calcutta 
Houses went down before the storm as fields of oats 
in an autumn gale. Cockerill & Co.; Colville, Gil- 
more & Co.; Lyall, Matheson i& Co.; Hughesdon Bro- 
thers & Co.; Shearman, Mullins & Co.; and many 
others too numerous to enumerate. Glyn & Co.; 
London, refused in one day the drafts of the Union 
Bank of Calcutta and of the North-Western Bank 
of India Those who had remittances to make were 
sorely put to. Private firms seemed to be all going 
down together, and Banks seemed to promise very 
little more stability than the private firms. In the 
general distrust recourse was had to specie to an 
extent this generation can scarcely realise ; and bul- 
lion was travelling Eastwards and Westwards at the 
same time, as almost the only trustworthy means 
of making a remittance. The climax seemed to be 
reached when the great firms of Gower Brothers & Co.; 
and Reid, Irving & Co., of London failed. Abel L. Gowe - 
