February i, 1884.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



591 



of Mincing Lane are unable to sell. In tlie interests of man- 

 kind it is desirable that this anomaly should be done away 

 with. The millions of the lower classes who suffer from 

 fever and other diseases which yield to quinine, demand 

 that the price of the medicine should not be beyond their 

 means. What is now wanted, especially in Madras, which 

 will probably be ooe of the largest cinchona countries in 

 the world, is a central manufactory where the bark ©an be 

 worked up without reference to the European ' ring.' " 



"We would go farther than this. Sulphate of quinine is 

 doubtless a very beautiful preparation of the drug and likely 

 to hold its own among the wealthier classtjssand with the 

 physicians who prescribe for them : but it i probably not 

 by any means the most economical form of using thebark- 

 and it is to a really cheap form that we must look for bene- 

 fit to the millions. In Owen's cinchona manual (18S1) oc- 

 curs the following passage. 



" As to red bark, it has been pointed out to us by Dr. 

 Trimen that the bark ia in itself a valuable drug, largely 

 prescribed, and that Professor Fluckiger has suggested its 

 being fixed on as the official form of cinchona bark in the 

 new German Pharmacopeia. AV"e all know well its value 

 as a source of Quinetum, of a febrifuge which can be cheaply 

 made and sold, and which ought to create an almost un- 

 limited demand." 



Now if " Quinetum " can be cheaply made from red bark 

 there is uo question as to its being sold readily enough, 

 considering that the fever stricken population of the four 

 quarters of the globe are crying for a specific at a price not 

 beyond the reaeli of the million. The Government Febri- 

 fuge manufactured at Calcutta, can be issued, it seems, to 

 Government hospit.als and the like, at a cost of 8/8 per pound, 

 and is magnanimously offered to tile millions at the slightly 

 enhanced price of K20 per pound plus postage, or say a 

 profit of 1.50 per cent with the additional advantage inmost 

 parts of India of the would-be purchaser having to wait so 

 long before he can get it that he will probably be either 

 cured or dead before the remedy can reach him. And in 

 these days when anomalies are called in (pustion does it 

 not seem anomalous that in the very midst of a quinine pro- 

 ducing district, the fever stricken population should have to 

 be supplied with the manufactured article from England 

 or at nearest from Calcutta ? 



Further; twigs and small branch, though they do not 

 pay to send home, are manifestly of some value, inasmuch as 

 they will fetch from Id to 4d per lb. in London. U'hy 

 should not these be worked up on the spot into a febrifuge ? 

 or even into some form which by diminishing the bulk to a 

 tenth — a twentieth — or a fortieth— would allow the product 

 to be sent home tor chemical manipulation, at a moderate 

 cost for freight and home charges— instead of being mere 

 waste on the estate ? Chemists to the front .' Invent a 



proces.s, and help the millions and the planters too. Houth 



of India Ohsereer, Jan. 19th. 



TEA— ITS ACCESSORIES. 

 In our last number we commenced this subject, and we 

 must confess we do not plunge into its labyrinths with- 

 out serious misgivings, whichever w.ay we look, we see 

 shoals ahead. In our daily contemporary we see India- 

 rubber cited as one of the crops which might become a use- 

 ful accessory to tea on old worn-out teelahs, but we noted ' 

 with interest what a "Tea-planter" wrote on the subject, 

 and we can thoroughly endorse what he says, which summed 

 up, amounts to this, that if the Rubber Tree is planted in 

 Assam or Cach.ar between the leaves of Tea on abandoned 

 teelahs, the result would not justify the expense. In Dar- 

 jeehng we believe those accessories, as we may call them, 

 are grown with partial immunity to the plant, but in Cachar 

 and Assam nature seems to revolt against them, and does 

 not see the force of allowing the crops to grow together. 

 We are aware that it is being tried on some portions of 

 abandoned gardens, but as yet the experiments is too young 

 to say whether it will devel.ip into a success, although one 

 thing has so far been practically evolved, namely, that as 

 soon as the Rubber Tree comes to any size, farewell must 

 be said to the leaf from the tea bushes, as this is simply 

 devoured by the blight insect as well as being a prey to fungi 

 of different kiuils. We ourselves linve seen plants of the 

 Ficus Elastica growing on the old abandoned teelahs of one 

 or two companies, but from what we could learu on the sub- 



ject, the growth was about one year in arrear of what it 

 should be. Our knowledge on the subject of the treatment 

 of the Ficus Elastica is most primitive, and we think that 

 Government ought to make a move in the matter to assist 

 these experiments. In Assam proper we believe Govern- 

 ment farm one or two Rubber Mehali, but not success- 

 fully, and last cold weather we were informed that Gov- 

 ernment intended to send Dr. Geo. Watts into the Naga 

 and Lushai country to endeavour to find out the best treat- 

 ment for the trees, as well as to ascertain the best mode 

 of tappmg the trees, the best age at which to tap them, 

 &c., but we believej they afterwards abandoned the idea, or 

 at any rate we have never been able to find out if anything 

 came of it. There can be no doubt that something of 

 the kind is worthy of the attention of all concerned in 

 tea. In Darjeeling the Cinchona plant seems to supply 

 the necessary want, but the blight pest makes it an almost 

 impossible task to suggest an accessory in Assam or 

 Cachar. In Java we have seen Vanilla attempted, but we 

 cannot say with success, as even then the blight seems 

 to luxuriate in the shade provided by the trees upon which 

 the Vanilla are trained. We have an idea that arrowroot 

 might be tried with success, as the sh,ade thrown out 

 would not be sufficient to tempt the blight insect, and being 

 an annual crop, as well as a root crop, the cultivation 

 given would 'no doubt' improve the worn teelahs ivithout 

 wasting much. We have heard, with what truth we cannot 

 vouch, that some arrowroot was grown in Cachar and 

 sent to England, and pronounced to be in every way a 

 superior article to that exported from the Straits and 

 other places ; and no doubt with proper apphances it could 

 be improved. So far as we heard the means used to bring 

 the article into a marketable shape were of the most 

 primitive sort. The tops cut off as is done in the Straits 

 and put into the ground form an excellent mauui-e, and 

 portions of the pulp, &c., are used for fattening cattle, 

 pigs, &c., and would uo doubt be in demand amongst the 

 coolies at, although a small, yet a remunerative rate. This 

 is however tar from solving the real difficulty, and what 

 we want is a plant that will be a soiu-ce of revenue to 

 the garden and a terror to the blight. That there must 

 be some plant peculiiirly obnoxious to the mosquito blight, 

 we feel assured, and we wonder that Mr. Wood-Mason 

 did not, when on his scientific tour, find it out. Whether 

 it would be remunerative we cannot of course say. [The 

 above is from the Indiyo and Tea Planters' Gazette, and is 

 not over-encour.aging to Assam planters. Looking at the 

 belief in Ceylon that shaded coffee bushes are free from 

 fuugus, it is curious that shade should aggravate blight 

 in Assam. The value of rubber cultivation has yet to be 

 proved, while a small addition to .arrowroot and vanilla 

 would swamp the market. — Ed.] 



TEA-SIFTING BY MACHINERY. 

 (From the Ihithh Trade Jmirnnl, Jan. 1st.) 



We will DOW briefly describe the sorting, sieving, or 

 classifying of the dry tea for the market. It is very 

 essential that the leaf receive as little handling as poss- 

 ible after it has been dessicated. For a long time a .stron" 

 prejudice existed among the planters against the use ol 

 woven-me.sh wire sieves, it being contended that not only 

 wa.s the tea broken by coming in contact with the small 

 sharp wires, but that the " bloom" was rubbed off and 

 the market value thereby deteriorated. To obviate this, 

 small country-made cane sieves were used, the weaving of 

 the sieves being so arranged that the glossy smooth side 

 of the cane should be on the top side. Thus, when a 

 quantity of tea was placed in the sieve to be treated tho 

 smooth side of the cane di 1 not injure it. EnterpriEing 

 planters had some doubt of this theory, and the result 

 was that mesh wire sieves had a fair trial and gained 

 the day. It .stands to reason that, as there are twice the 

 mmiber of holes or meshes in a wire sieve that there are 

 in a cane one, the tna hid twice the chaiK-e to get 

 through. Thus, much less motion was required, and, con- 

 sequently, much less bloom was rubbed off. 



The ordiuiiry mode of hand-sieving is to place two tea- 

 chests on the floor 5 or (> feet apart ; to 6tr(>tch over 

 these two bamboos, on the ends of which sit coolies with 

 their faces towards each other, and a hand-sieve before 

 them resting on the bamboos. This they pull backwards 



