July i, 1891.] 
THE TROPICAL AQRIOULTURI8T. 
61 
at A certain period of the year, for crop ohiefly, 
and when pruning was finished, only a few ooolioa 
wore required to keep the estatea in order during 
the rest of the year. 
Now it is necessary to have a good force of 
labour all the year, as the system of tea cultiva- 
tion, now generally adopted, is to divide the work 
as much as potsible over the whole year. Instead 
of pruning the whole of the lea on an estate in 
one or two months, a pruning force is kept em- 
ployed quarterly, thus the larger portion of the 
estate is always in bearing, and the coo iea fully 
employed at all seasons. 
With a Labour Fund Committee and its 
Secretary in Kandy, an estate manager in want 
of labour would forward his cheque to the 
Secretary to cover the advances required to 
procure and forward to him a oertian num- 
ber of coolies by a given date, ray within 
a month. The Secretary acknowledges the 
cheque and wires to the Agent of the CuinmittEe 
in Inlia by code the requirement, and follows up 
the message by letter. The agent draws on the 
Secretary for the amount required to procure the 
coolies and through his sub-agencies arranges to 
despatch the coolies on a certain date, which he 
communicates by wire to the Secretary, who advises 
the applicant for the labor, to send a trustworthy 
person to meet the coolies. Now, in 1891, we have far 
more facilities for successfully carrying on such an 
agency than had our prodeoeBSors. The diOioulties 
of the past need not deter the planters of the 
present from making an Agency a great success. I 
crave permission to further remark, that experience 
has told most of us, that advances actually sent to 
the coast arc frequently misapplied, the labor we 
expected and should have got could not I e brought 
for want of the further sum the kanganios wrote for 
and master did not send. 
Coolies may be plentiful and willing to come, but 
for some reason or other they don't come, and year 
after year the cry is for labor, and whole fields of 
fine loa have frequently bron allowed to run to wood 
for want of the necessary labor to pluck them. It 
is our duty to reriously consider, whether an active 
Agency or an Intelligence Committee is most 
required to meet the urge:, cy of the increasing labor 
requirements. 
I believe that ut der a Labor Supply Fund Com- 
mittee it will bo possible to ke''p an adequate force 
lor all requirements at less expeese to proprietors, 
and without friction which to frequently arises 
amongst managers about their labor supply. — Yours 
faithfully. JAMES WKSiLAND. 
[Mr. Westland will bo disappoinicd wi h our 
remarks of yesterday; but they oontiiin our honest 
opinion. Mr. Westland scums to think that coolies 
would fl.jck to a Coast Agency and its sub- 
nranolies m such numbers that there would never 
be any difikully in meeting any jilantor's order. 
Hut suppose there were six (indeed, according to the 
picture of planters’ needs, there might be sixty) 
telograras in, ordering 300 ooolies and only 100 
available, or willing to move, how is the agent to 
act/ Mr. Westland is nearer the mark incur 
opinion when he speaks of an ■' Iiitelligenoe Sub- 
"P®" op correspondence with Indian 
oilioials, or to send one of their number over to 
interview Collectors and Sub-Oollootors of the oooly 
I istriots and to see how the labour needs of 
Leylon can beat bo made known and supplied. — 
ut if it be true that from want of labour, many 
elds of tea in Ceylon are not now plucked pro- 
perly or fully, where is overproduction and export 
01 tea to end? In place of 60 million lb. this 
year, perhaps Mr. Westland would say we might 
Ship 66 or even 70 million lb. with more labour ? 
—El). T. 4.] 
THE SILICA DISCUSSION. 
Sib, — When I penned a note (wbiobby the 
way, has not yet appeared in print) for an agrioul- 
turol publication a day or two ago, on the reply 
which Professor Qeikie sent to a scientific enquirer 
after truth in Ceylon, I was not aware, as is evi- 
denced by the letter of a correspondent to last 
Saturday’s (NfBy23rd) issue of your paper, that tha 
Profess' r Johnstone referred to by Professor Oeikio 
was Alexander Johnstone, late of the Edinburgh 
University I presume that the Professor Oeikie to 
whom reference was made on tha Silioa question 
is James Qoikio, Professor of Geology and Minera- 
logy at the Edinburgh University, and not Archibald 
Geikie, the prodeoessor of his brother, and for that 
reason still sometimes spoken of as Professor, 
though he vacated the University chair for a high 
appointment in connaction with Her Majesty’s 
Geological Survey. If this be so, then both Pro- 
fessor Geikie and Professor Johnstone are both 
“ old friends ” of mine. I sat at the feet of the 
former only some three years ago, and in tha course 
of many a pleasant geological excursion found in 
him a kind teacher as well as a most entertaining 
companion At this time Alexander Johnstone was 
class assistant to Professor Geikie, a “ night eoaoh ” 
in b ilBiiy, and a fallow-stulent of mine in agri- 
oulture. I knew him well both in and out of the 
University; and as 1 bad the highest regard for 
him then, I have the kindest reoolleotions 
of him now. I am under an impression, 
which I sincerely hope is incorreet, that it was in 
the columns of your own paper— or one of your 
supplements — that I read of his death a short while 
ago. Alexander Johnstone was well up in his 
geologyand a splendid eoaoh in botany ; but while 
would accept any opinion of his on these subjeots, 
1 am hardly prepared to stand by his original 
ideas on agriculture. Johnstone’s intention was 
to go up for the agricultural degree at the 
University. Whether he did so, and whether he 
has started as a teacher or professor of agricul- 
ture and the allied Boienoes in Edinburgh or 
elsewhere ; or whether he has got a chair of botany 
or geology in some University or College, I never 
heard. My observations on the statement attributed 
to him have, as I have before mentioned, been 
noted elsewhere, and I will not therefore repeat 
myenlf in your oo umns. 
It seems quite natural that Professor Geikie, who 
docs not venture on an opinion as to the agricul- 
tural value of silica, should think of quoting bis 
quondam class assistant’s opinion before that of 
any other. 
Without intending the slightest disrespect for my 
“ old friends " (including “ Old Planter "), I cannot 
help thinking that neither the choioe of a professor 
of geol' gy as a referee on the question at issue, 
nor that of the opinion of bis late olaes assistant 
— in preferenoe to those of the shining lights in 
the agricultural world — by the Profesaot himself, 
has been a happy one. 
It is very ’important that those who take sides 
in a Boieniifio disoussion, though they be only 
“lajraen,” should oonfioe themselves strictly to 
Ecieiitifio reasoning. Now when a aorrespondenl, 
writing on the subject of the value of silica in 
agriculture, attempts to adduce ‘arguments as to 
the importance of this oomiuon constituent of 
soils by making such statomonts as the following, 
he (however oonscientious he may be) becomes 
both uneoientiflo and illogical.^ Your oorreepon- 
dent ’•B." injSaturday’s (May 23td) issue says 
“Isupposeit will bo conceded without demur that the 
earth was mainly created for the growth and support 
of vegetation. •. Can we reconcile with our belief of 
an all-wise Creator the oomposition of the earth 
