November j, 1883.3 THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 



3«7 



Liquor has both flavour and streugth. Is altogether a 

 desirable tta and shows perfect fermentation. Value Is 7d. 



7. Mabiawatte. — Broken pekoe : Though the leaJ is 

 a little irregular, the liquor comes out with such strength 

 that it is a tea that will be eagerly competed for in 

 any market, and it such manufacture can be continued 

 for any quantity, no further attempt to improve should 

 be risked. Nominal value 2s 8d. 



8. S. — Pekoe this tea is perfectly rolled and judging from 

 appearance of leaf it will probably be worth about 2s Gd. 



9. Orange Pekoe. — This is a fancy tea which it would 

 never pay to manufacture, a small quantity might pos- 

 sibly sell at 8s, but the ordinary market value for any 

 quantity will likely be about 4s 6d. 



10. K.A.W. — Pekoe souchong, a useful tea containing 

 a good amount of pekoe which with advantage might be 

 passed tlirough a No. 6 sieve and put into pekoe proper. 

 Liqu^jr desjaife. Value Is Id to Is 2d. 



11. PelfflBP^Leaf well-rolled, liquor both flavory and 

 fairly strong, ^'alue Is 5d to Is 6d. 



12. ]5roki-n Pekoe. — Tea desirable in all respects, strong 

 usefiU liquor 2s Cd to 2s 8d. 



These teas No. 10, 11 and 12 show remarkably good fer- 

 mentation, but have another recommendation inasmuch 

 as the assortment gives such a useful style of tea and such 

 a profitable average. Thia result is not obtained by close 

 plucking as the yield per acre is fully up to the average of 

 other gardens in Ceylo!i. 



Blackwater — Pekoe Souchong. — Leaf well-rolled and 

 contains a large amount of pekoe leaf, which with ad- 

 vantage should have been included in the pekoe. Desirable 

 liquor, pungent and flavory. Nominal value Is 7d. 



Pekoe. — Leaf very slesirable in appearance. In fact a 

 really handsome tea, full of orange tip. Fine pungent liquor. 

 Value 3s to 3s 3d. 



Broken Pekoe. — Extra handsome orange pekoe leaf, full 

 of tip. Fine strong liquor 5s to 5s 6d nominal. The last 

 two mentioned are of a fancy description, but whether it 

 wou-Id be policy to manufacture for such a fine assortment 

 is doubtful, as there is only a limited demand for such 

 sorts. But the manager must of course be the best judge 

 of this. 



General Rejiaeks. — In only one instance in all the sam- 

 ples has there been an appearance of over-firing, and in no 

 case any sympt jms of sourness. But the samples from one 

 or two gardens would have been valued higher if the leaf 

 had been rather less fermented. The flavor is not equal to 

 what it will be later on in the season. This is likely in 

 conse(iuence of the leaf having taken a long time to wither 

 during the continuance of wet weather. In manufacture, 

 the teas show a very great improvement as compared with 

 those sani])led by me a year ago. (Sd.) Jajues JIaclaken, 

 Messrs. \\'ill!am Mokan & Co., Tea Brokers, Calcutta. 



Tea planters all over Ceylon will feel indebted to Mr, 

 Mac Laren for the above valuable report : the valuations 

 are very much in accordance with the prices obtained 

 by account sales yesterday from London.- 



In this connection Mr. Glasse, the experienced ex-Assam 

 tea planter, wlio is on his way from England, will no 

 doubt be surprized to find how tar we have ad- 

 vanced, but we trust that he and other visitors, if 

 tliey have nothing to teach our planters, will at 

 least bo the means of inducing English merchants 

 and caiiitalists to tuni to Ceylon as the rising tea- 

 producing country. The business in seed this year 

 lietween Ceylon and India is likely to be extensive ; but 

 already the local supply is being largely utilized. We 

 arc disappointed with the new edition of Colonel Money's 

 Book on Tea, for the miserably meagre — in fact, in- 

 correct and absurd — chapters he devotes to new coun- 

 tries cultivatuig tea, outside of India and Cliina. 

 Colonel Money has but the faintest idea of what is 

 doing in Ceylon although it sends li million lb. tea 

 into the homo market this year and will double this 

 (luantity in 1883-4 : moreover, he does not appear to 

 uc aware that Java has taken an important position 

 as a tea-producing country for many year-s back ; while 

 Japan is also, by him, very meagi-ely referred to. 

 Evidently, a good I'ka-Plam'EKs'Manual is a de)<ider- 

 Ilium, aud we believe a new Edition of an Essay pre- 



pared for us by a Nilgiri planter, revised by Mr. 

 T\ C. Owen, will be found as good as any, at least 

 by Ceylon planters. 



The feeling which is rapidly springing up among 

 Ceylon planters and merchants may be illustrated by 

 what was said to us today by a cautious e.xperienced 

 man v,-hfi was as much depressed about prospects a year 

 ago as the most pessimistic of us. He said: " I begin to 

 feel that not an acre of old estates need to be aban- 

 doned ; no matter what the soil and climate, something 

 can be got to grow profitably from among the 

 variety of products whose cultivation aud prepar- 

 ation we are now rapidly mastering." This has also 

 been the feeling with which Mr. J. B. Maclutyre, 

 after twenty years' absence, returned from a brief 

 visit to the Hunasgiriya and Kandy districts He 

 expressed himself greatly surprized aud gratified with 

 what he saw of tea and cocoa, and already believes 

 in them as articles of profitable cultivation in Cey- 

 lon over considerable areas of existing plantations. 



Ciuchona is regarded in a more uncertain light ; but 

 if not a product to place full dependence on, it has 

 certainly proved itself a most useful and profitable 

 adjunct in a very large number of cases, aud no one 

 in our hill-country should refr.ain from giving 

 it a trial. On an old estute near Kandy, from a patch 

 of five acres, the shavings of the cinchona trees — 

 and very light shavings too — netted fllO last year, 

 and as we have often said many of our coffee pUnte/s 

 have only been enabled to tide over the period of 

 greatest gloom by the aid of their patches of cin- 

 chona. Old coffee itself is by no means to be put 

 on one side, while there are "two-box" gatherings 

 of cherry still noted in the land aud wdide good 

 paying crops — even if few and far apart on this side 

 of Nuwara Eliya — are still to be found in almost 

 every district. Nevertheless, attention will now more 

 than ever be given to the cultivation of coffee only in 

 such fields as have been proved suitable ; in the rest 

 some other product — whether tea, cocoa, rubber or 

 aloes for fibre— wdl gradually bo substituted. With 

 the approach of increasing difficulties for the planters 

 of Brazil and Central America as lately intimated in 

 the London Times, it will not do for their brethren 

 in Ceylon and Southern India to look on their cofl'ee- 

 fields as altogether worthless, especially where the 

 trees are still vigorous .and bear perhaps 2 or more cwt. 

 of crop per acre in spite of unfavouriible seasons. Let 

 us hope that the season now closing indicates the 

 lowest I'bb for coffee in Ceylon, and that a gradual 

 revival in our exports of the old staple may now take 

 place evi'n though the maximum for the country bo 

 placed at only half (or .'JUO.OUO cwt. ) of what it used 

 to be. With 300,000 to 400,000 cwt. of coli'ce (and 

 prices for " middling plantation" not under 803 per 

 cwt.) ill .addition to increasing exports of the now pro- 

 ducts, this colony ought to do very well and speedily 

 secure the larger proportion of the prosperity of ten 

 yeais ago. During season 1883-4, however, we cannot 

 expect that the higher of these quantities will be 

 made up ; the shipments being generally expvcted to be 

 about375,000 cwt.although it is not easy to say yet what 

 the Uv.i spring croji may do. 



In respect of the future of cinchona planting ill 

 Ciylon, it is scarcely necessary to remark that the 

 discussion raised by Mr. Howard over Dr. Trimeu's 

 " Ledgeri.anae " once again referred to in our columns 

 is attracting a good deal of attention to the import- 

 ance of, Bs far as possible, cultivating the best kinds 

 of cinchona ; and in this connection we must mention 

 a letter we have had from Mr. Ledf;cr himself. Thia 

 genthmau, whose name is properly identified with the 

 most valuable of barks, the seed of wliichhewas the 

 first (at considerable personal risk) to get away from 

 Houlli America, W.is aboui to leave London for New South 

 Wales when he wrote ou Ist September inataut. We 



