[Ceylon Tea Plantation: Cymru Estate, Dimbula [Sri Lanka].] Manuscript containing detailed statistical tables (by British overseer) of every aspect of tea cultivation on the estate.

The Cymru Estate in Dimbula was established in 1870. The invaluable ‘History of Ceylon Tea’ website only has data regarding the estate up to the year 1929. The present item provides a mass of statistical information for the years 1964 to 1972. It is entirely in manuscript, in several hands, and comprises 73pp, 16mo, written with portrait orientation in a 12.5 x 8 cm ruled notebook (with 69pp in blue and red ink at the front, and the other four pages in pencil at the back). In rough black cloth, with brown patterned endpapers, and cloth pencil-holder. Internally in good condition, lightly aged, in heavily-worn covers. The plantation was clearly a substantial concern: at 1 May 1964 the number of ‘Workers on Cymru’ is given as 737 (with breakdown for ‘U. D.’ (meaning unclear) and ‘LD’ (i.e. ‘Labour Day - Fridays’), and with a similar breakdown for ‘Non-Workers’ (total 527), and details of ‘Labour per acre’ and ‘Workers live room’. A further breakdown of men and women workers, UD and LD, is given on 29 February 1968, with a total of 352 men and 322 women. The final page gives a useful list, under the heading ‘OUTPUT’ (‘Optimum Crop 12,000 lbs.’), of the aspects involved in the running of such a concern. These include spreading, tatting, rolling, roll breaking, fermenting, sifting, packing, stencilling (also ‘On overtime’). The notebook is entirely statistical in nature, apart from a four-page list of instructions for the cultivation of ‘Coffee Arabica’, a page of ‘Bees Instructions’, and a page headed ‘Formula for pre-mix for light traffic’, as well as lists of native names of native ‘Field Staff’, both on ‘L[abour]. D[ay].’ and ‘U. D.’ Also several lists of names of employees, with job descriptions (planting, mistblowing, compost, pruning, storekeeper, field officer, ‘Creeper’, ‘Sen. Asst Clk - Rice store’, ‘Driver Cymru’, ‘boys weeding’), with some marked as ‘Ret’ (retired) or ‘Dis.’ (dismissed). Although the information relates to the Cymru Estate mention is made of Kangales and Tangakelle. Details are given of employment, wages (‘Bonuses - Excess Rates’), manuring (including breakdowns for various ‘Manure Mixtures’), pruning, weeding, plucking, nursery planting, sifting, estimates. Numerous tables, including two full double-page ones: ‘Cymru - Manuring / Pruning Programme 64 [1964]’ and ‘Manuring & Pruning Programme 1965’. Also a two-page table of ‘Clonal Clearings’; four pages of statistics on ‘Sifting Gookookoya’; and full-page tables for ‘Rolling Programme’ and (on adjoining pages) ‘Lower Division’ and ‘Upper Division’, with nine columns, headed: Fld, Acs, Weed Contr, Jat., (date of) Prune, Total Nitro, AM Due (in pencil: ‘Urea / April’), Last Yield, Weed. Another table of ‘Plucking Cost Per M. T. / Yield Ra.’ Loosely inserted are two leaves, one on a page torn from a calendar, dated 31 March 1973.