THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
June i, 1898.] 
CONCERNING SOME STERLING TEA 
PLANTATION COMPANIES. 
A planting correspondent asks how it is that 
we have refrained from noticing the wonderful 
differences shown in the “ profits per acre ” from 
different estates in the interesting table supplied 
in tlieir Report by the Directors of the Nuwar'^ 
Eliya Tea Estates Company. He adds that 
inasmuch as the properties of this Company 
are situated in the same district and within a 
limited distance of each other, the comparison 
should be all the more instructive. With this 
fact in view, it is certainly difficult to understand 
Iiow one estate can give prolits as high as £11 
los 7d per acre and four otliers shew profits ex- 
ce.ding £10 eacli; while the return from yet another 
adjacent estate is as low as £4 19s, one other 
giving not more than £5 15s od and two between 
£7 to £•< 10s. Our correspondent ventures on no 
explanation himself, and we can only point out that 
the great differences are probably liue to temporary 
causes since the Direetors ‘‘are sanguine that 
those estates which this year have not given a 
due proportion of prolit per acre will, in the 
future, show better results.” 
Of more general interest is it to con.sider the 
position of some of our sterling companies as a 
whole. The Niiwara Eliya Company has un- 
doubtedly a very fine list of tea properties at 
the highest elevation in the island and yet its 
dividend of 6 per cent, looks very modest beside 
the 15 of the premier Ceylon Tea Plantations, 
and also of the Standard, Company. Rut then 
it must be remembered umler wdiat different cir- 
cumstances these several Companies were formed. 
The estates in the “Nuwara Eliya” list were 
purchased three years ago when tea was very 
prosperous and prices high, so that the 2,632 
acres of tea of all ages belonging to this Com- 
pany must average in capital and debentures 
not" much less than £90 per acre. On the other 
hand the “Standard” having been formed at a 
much earlier stage when prices were low has a 
series of fine estates with some 2,482 acres under 
tea of all ages which cannot be said to average 
in capital even £30 per acre ! The comparison is a 
rough one because the latter Company has the 
greater area of young and newly planted tea. If 
we now turn to the Ceylon Tea i’lantations Com- 
pany, which is among the very earliest of Ceylon 
tea concerns, we find it holds 8,626 acres of tea 
of all ages against a capital of £248,600 or less 
than an average of £30 per acre. A net profit 
of £4 J.0s or £5 per acre in the case of both these 
fortunate Companies, should be sufficient to 
give a 15 per c'' d dividend, while each has besides 
a handsome reserve fund, w’hich in the case of 
the C.T.P. Company, is invested in coconut 
plantations. In this connection we direct atten- 
tion to the extremely interesting statement 
issued by the C.T.P. Company showing the re- 
sults of its working for 11 years past. It will be 
found on page 816, anil well deserves to be 
examined. Tiie growth of the Company from 1,251 
acres yielding 504,380 lb. of tea in i887 to the 
8,067 acres and 4 million lb. crop of last year, is 
very striking. But no less so, is the fall in average 
price from 13d to 7'85d; wdiile exchange was 
1/5 14-32nds eleven years ago, touched its lowest at 
1/1 15-32nds in 1895 and was last year 1/3 13-32nds. 
It is remarkable that the average yield per acre 
100 
8is 
lias increased from 403 to 495 lb. having been as 
low in 1889 in 338 lb. Liberal cultivation must' 
largely account for the improvement. 
It may not be amiss to see how two more tea, con- 
cerns the Imperial and Alliance— both sterling 
Companies and both owning bill-country planta- 
tions— compare with the foregoing. TheTmperial 
has 1,692 acres under tea (and 100 under coffee) 
against a capital with debentures of, we believe, 
£100,000, so that the average is uurer £57 an 
acre and it might be expected to do better than 
4 per cent. But it is weighied by one estkte 
(Nonpareil with 300 acres young tea) which is 
in a transition state. The Alliance Company 
has about the same amount in capital anil de- 
bentures or say £101,000 against 2,804 acres in tea 
giving an average of not more than £36 an 
acre, and yet it only paid 6 per cent fiir last 
year. But, after all, not much importance can 
he attached to such rough-and-reatly compari- 
sons without considering more closely the value 
of the individual estates included. One plantation 
may be too dear at £30 an acre and another 
cheap even at £90. We need scarcely say that 
both the Alliance and Imperial, are much yovinger 
than the C.T.P. Co. anil Standard Companies. 
It only remains to notice the oldest and in 
some respects the most important Plantation 
Company connected with Ceylon, first known in 
coffee days as “IheCeylon Company, Limited,” and 
of late years as “Tlie Eastern Produce and Es- 
tates Co , Ld.” The former Company had seen very 
low days, for it had to pass through the transition 
time from coffee via cinchona to the beginnings of 
tea and had then to be wound up. Even isij 
successor, the E. P. & E. Company, had 
a hard struggle at first and its shares 
were so low (while its liabilities for deben- 
tures were so heavy) that if any one had prophe* 
sied six or seven years ago that the day was near 
when these shares would be above par, as they 
are today, he would have been deemed as little 
better than a mad man. Yet the E. P. Ss E. Co. 
has arrived at the proud position now that its 
shares are considered to be valuable property. 
The Comp.any is one of the most judiciously 
and economically managed, and consequently one 
of the most prosperous in the Ceylon list- It 
must not be judged by its dividends, although 
these have now got up to 7 per cent on the 
ordinary shares, but by its annual paying-off of 
debentures and transfers to Reserve Fund. .As 
regards cultivated area under tea, the E. P. & E. 
Co. beats the Ceylon Tea Plantation Co., having 
no fewer than 10,650 acres not counting some 
hundreds under coffee and cacao. Against this 
there is a large capital of £300,000 besides well- 
nigh £102.500 of debentures— so making the aver- 
age not much less, roughly, than £37 an acre- 
This should not be too high ; for the Company 
owns sonie very fine properties and, as we have 
said, it is very economically managed. Its net 
profits last year after payment of interest on deben- 
tures w’ere equal to weli-nigh 11 per cent on the 
capital. But close upon £8,000 was devoted to fe- 
ducing debentures ; £5,000 went to Reserve Fund 
(now £25,000) — and about £11,000 was carried for- 
ward as a balance in order to make sure about 
reducing debentures again this year. We should 
think the shareholders will continue to be quite 
content with their 6 or 7 per cent, so long as 
they see the amount of debentures growing 
smaller and the Reserve Fund rising higher 
year by year. M’'e need only add in conclusion 
that the Company’s rendering of accounts * 
