742 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[April i, 1884. 



noosers to come over, but the terms offered by the Tra- 

 vaaeore Government were not sufficiently good to induce 

 them to come. Referring to tlie .juvenile fight between 

 the two calves, A. mentioned that he had on three or 

 four occasions seen tuskers fight, and in one instance, 

 near the scene of the juvenile fight, had witnessed the 

 death of one. The victorious tusker never left his ant- 

 a-'onist till he had killed him This was done by repeated 

 thrusts of the tusk behind tlie shoulders. The dead tusker 

 was a very large, powerfully built one with 100 lb. of 

 ivory, but he was no match for his foe, who had the ad- 

 vantage in both height and long sharp tusks. The follow- 

 ing day the victorious tusker was found by a large herd, 

 the m.-ister-ship of which was no doubt the cause of the 

 fight, and after visiting the defunct male— who was by 

 them robbed of his tusks— they all marched away.— .J/Jf/rn.* 

 MaV. 



TEA MACHINERY. 



Considerable interest has been taken in tea and tea 

 machinery by your correspondents of late, and I have read 

 with great interest the various articles which have from 

 time to time appeared in your valuable columns reg.arding 

 tea, its manufacture, and the machinery used for its pro- 

 duction I have heard that a complete revolution is about 

 to be accomplished by Mr. Greig, a well-known inventor 

 of tea machinery, who will exhilnta machine of a combined 

 nature at the coming Exhibition. It is on the continuous 

 principle, and from all accounts the leaf will be introduced 

 at one end direct from the coolie's basket and manufactured 

 "pucca" tea will emerge from the other, sorted, as well 

 as clas.sified. and the very dust extracted. Hurely, this will 

 be a great improvement on our present tedious system, 

 and will be quite a boon to the tea house assistant; in 

 fact, I doubt very much whether planters may not be able 

 to dispense with his services altogether, should the new 

 type of machinery about to be introduced by Mr. Greig 

 perform the many duties claimed for it. I am quite surprised 

 your correspondent did not refer to the link and lever 

 rolUng machine in his article on rollers, since he gave a 

 very detailed account of the various types of machines 

 at work in the tea districts. 



Without a doubt the best machinery yet sent us tor 

 rolling is that of Messrs. Jackson, and I ask my fellow 

 planters who have had any experience, whether bag machinery 

 will give the leaf ali fine a twi,st and produce the fine wiry, 

 samples the "Excelsior" roller made by th,at firm does. 

 The three varieties of machines supplied by Messrs. Jackson 

 have proved themselves without exception the most reliable, 

 and durable machines for all round work, and have stood 

 the test of time; many of the first introduced being still 

 in good condition and likely to last many years; and I 

 look to this firm who take more interest m us than any 

 of their rivals, for further improvements in tea machinery, 

 as they are untiring in their efforts, both at home and in 

 the tea districts, to design and construct machines suited 

 to our individual requirements; and mth their long and 

 varied experience of tea machinery seem to know our wants 

 quite as well as we ourselves do. 



Referring again to Mr. Greig's new type of machinery 

 as described in the Home and Colonial .Va,l, it would appear 

 as if he inteniled to take us by strom and completely 

 revolutionise our existing system of manufacture. The 

 description given was not of the clearest kind, or I might 

 have been able to say more ; meantime a few passing remarks 

 will not be out of place regarding its principle, since so 

 manv advantages have been claimed forits novelty, and they 

 may' be interesting to your readers. First of all the wither- 

 ing' ma<-hine is used, and. strange to say, it receives its 

 hot air from the drying machine, so the dryer must^ of 

 necessity be set to work to "pucca batty," or something 

 of the sort, before the green leaf witherer will receive its 

 hot air Withering, as all tea-makers know, is one of the most 

 important ))oints in the manufacture; and how the rapid, 

 ■or by the description, instantaneous, withering system will 

 •answer remains doubtful, seeing that, if at all possible, 

 natural, cool withering is preferred bv all who know how 

 to make good tea. After the withering process the leaf 

 is then pii' into the cutting machine, which has been tried 

 and pronounced a failure liy those who experimented with 

 it aad abaudoued as sarviag no good purpose,, having india- 



rubber buffers inserted in square cutters on the cylinder 

 so as to clear itself of the particles of cut and damaged 

 tea leaf, these are apt to give the leaf an odour of rubber, 

 which gives the tea anything but a good '• nose " and 

 removes all traces of malty flavour on its being tried in 

 the cup. These might be made of a special rubber, per- 

 fumed, so as to impart a flavour somewhat resembling that 

 of Ceylon or Darjeeling teas, to our rasping, pungent liquors 

 from leaf plucked on " bheel " lands. , 



AYhen cut into squares, or lacerated, rolling is, of course, 

 iinpos.sihie, no matter whether the leaf is soft or hard, 

 unless the Link and Lever Roller possesses advantages 

 peculiar to itself, which I hardly think is possible, seeing 

 that it is a bag machine and behind this age of improve-,^ 

 ment; when we want something of more modren design, 

 easily filled and emptied, and capable of doing some work, 

 instead of taking a mauiid of withered leaf .at a fill, apart 

 frombags, with their enormous wear and tear, and necessitat- 

 ing the keeping up of an entire establishment of tailors 

 to rejiair the bags, also a " soft goods store." 



The drying part of the machine is puzzling, with its 

 zinc-bottomed trays, and the application of the hot air after 

 it has dried the tea to wither the leaf in cylinder for that 

 purpose, as described, with say from 10%, 21% moisture 

 in it, reverses nature ; how can saturated green leaf be 

 withered, or dried by hot air already impregnated with 

 moisture? After drying the tea it may have a stewing 

 tendency. But another and equally important question 

 arises ; would the supply of hot air, after it has dried the 

 tea, leaving the question of moisture aside, be sufiicient to 

 wither the green leaf to keep pace with the other machines, 

 without adding to its volume by some means ? I think not, 

 as the temperature that would be required to wither the 

 leaf must vary with the moisture in the green leaf, which 

 if plucked in very wet weather is much more than stated 

 above, but the first question raised is quite sufficient to 

 altogether remove existing doubts as to the soundness of 

 the principle. 



Last of all, there is nothing novel in the Greig Sorting 

 Machine, as this .sifter has been used over half a century 

 ago for assorting seeds and flour, al.so many other materials, 

 such as sand and coal, and we have machines quite as 

 effective and simple, such as Jackson's '• Eureka" sorter, 

 and others of a similar nature, all of the self-delivery class, 

 and possessing all the merits of the Greig Sifter. — Indnio 

 and Tea rlantrrs' Gazette. 



THE ORGANIC AND INORGANIC CONSTITUENTS 



OF PLANTS. 



[the keason why.] 



The organic constituents of plants are those which are 

 commonly known as vegetable substances, or vegetable 

 productiiins— starch, gum, sugar, gluten, albumen, &c. 

 They are the product of plants endowed with life, 

 and cannot be produced without the operation of life. 

 This mysterious power influences the elements, and re- 

 combiues them in various forms. They are the products 

 of living organs, and therefore termed organic, ^\■hile 

 they are being formed, the chemical laws affecting them 

 are' modified by the living principle; when that principle 

 (.(■ases— though" in some cases it may be retained for a long 

 time, as in the case of a seed— when the jilant or seed dies— 

 the substances are operated upon by chemical laws, and 

 undergo various changes. Organic substances are for the 

 most part compountled of four simple elements ; never less 

 than three. The elements which enter so invariably into 

 these organic compounds are called organic elements, as 

 carbon, oxygen, hy<lrogen and nitrogen, and the various 

 bodies compounded' of these arc called organic substances. 



The ol.l notion— that which prevailed at the close of the 

 sixteenth century— was, that there existed in animals, plants 

 and 8 Ills one universal, vitalising and fertilising principle — 

 namely, salt; and this miserable and viigue theory was 

 upheld by the most learned men of that age. It was thus 

 cxpresserl by the early writers upon agriculture:-" .Salt 

 whiteneth all thinges, it pri;serveth all thinges. it hardem-th 

 all thinges, it givetli sa\'our to all thinges. it is a mast.eke 

 that gleweth all thinges together, it gathiTeth and knitteth 

 all mineral matters, and of raaiiie thousauil peeces it maketh 

 one masse. This salt giveth sound to all thinges, and 



