g8 



.THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[Aug. 2, 1886. 



paper, cVc, forgetting that they remain in the in- 

 fancy of the art just where they were before, 

 while we advanced from suu-dryiug to "choolas," 

 and thence to siroccos and Victoria driers. Besides, 

 there is no analogy between drying a single leaf and 

 treating 8 or 9 thousand ft) daily rolled and 

 smashed to a pulp. The one needing a drying to 

 preserve the specimen ; the other to produce a distinct 

 aroma, the result of brisk tiring. The man had no 

 authority to speak as he did on a subject foreign to 

 him. He next thought that some tea that had been 

 found damaged suffered in conseixuence of faulty 

 fermentation and warned tea planters and again 

 thought that science (chemistry) would soon help 

 us out. He was wrong again, for green teas that 

 ere not fermented at all from Japan and China are 

 found to keep well, as the most fermented teas of the 

 early season from Ceylon. Fermentation cannot affect 

 the question in the least ; moreover, chemistry is 

 not of the leasl practical use. If merchants and 

 brokers in London thought so, they would not 

 go to the expense of keei^ing tea-tasters at high 

 salaries.* A few bottles of chemicals would be 

 sufficient to solve all difficulties. Now I may men- 

 tion to you that I read several books down to 

 Pasteur on fermentation and had a miscroscope in 

 use for days at Blackstone in the hope of applying 

 chemical aid to ascertain the right fermentation, 

 but to no purpose. It is not of practical utility. 

 As the tea-taster's palate fixes the value, the tea- 

 maker's eye and sense of smell should fix feiment- 

 ation — and we should rise superior to the delicate 

 tests of chemistry and the troubles of a laboratory, 

 as we really have. Well, now, having given you 

 an idea of the ground on which I stood you will 

 understand that 1 could not allow these statements 

 to go unchallenged. I therefore made a statement 

 to disabuse the minds of the audience. I saw 

 Young and the pilgrim T. Gray among the number 

 who approved heartily of all I said and cheered 

 lustily. I cannot produce now all that was said but 

 I daresay Mr. D. W. Ferguson will tell you all — or 

 the substance. However I give you. the circum- 

 stances that will show how false an impression 

 the audience would have carried away home had 

 there not been some contradiction. Hughes, the 

 chemist and another were present. The former 

 came to me and had a talk with me and said he 

 disagreed with me. I said he was not expected to 

 agree. I had already said, however, that I was 

 prepared to correspond with any chemist on the 

 subject, or to discuss the matter, and I was not 

 prej)ared to grant that fermentation was answer- 

 able for damaged condition on arrival. I daresay, 

 you will have the substance of the speech. Several 

 cresent obtained my address and you may be sure 

 I shall sijare no pains to let them know what 

 Ceylon tea is. Shand is very busy. His room or 

 office by the Ceylon Court is always full, and he 

 is doing great service. The Ceylon Court is the 

 best fre'juented, and Ceylon tea is the most in 

 demand. There are appus serving. It was a good 

 idea altogether. I liave not the time to write more 

 this mail. The first batch of rollers are being 

 shipped and shipping will go on once a week now. 

 They came from a splendid factory, where I saw 

 about 1,-100 British workmen at work. 



Tka PROsrECTsi. — The weather reports from the tea 

 districts are generally favourable. At Chittagong, 

 however, the late very heavy rain has done some 

 damage, and in Kangra and Kuniaon several gardens 

 have suffered severely from hailstorms. — rioncer. 



* But tea-tasters and tea-makers are really chem- 

 ists,— Ep. 



CEYLON UPCOUNTIIY PLANTING REPORT. 



THE PANIC FOll COOLIES — PUBLIC TEA S.U,ES — THE 

 ECONOMICAL MAN ONCE MOKE — FOWLS CLEARING TEA 

 LAND OE OIUSSHOPPEKS— CJCiVLITY OF TEAS. 



5th July, 1886. 



T!ie panic there was some time ago regarding 

 coolies has pretty much subsided, not, however, 

 without having left some evil results in the af- 

 fec'.,cd localities, in the shape of heavy advances 

 nnd an unstable working force drenched in debt. 

 The men who were wrought on by the idea that 

 there would be a scramble for labour, did their 

 very best to bring this undesirable state about, 

 by recklessly bidding higher than their neighbours, 

 and giving a cooly such a value in his own eyes, 

 that it must have tickled Ramasami when in a 

 thoughtful mood he cast up his honest deserv- 

 ings, and totalled his " modest work." Looking 

 as he always does to his master for leading, 

 it is but natural that he should appreciate 

 himself at the extravagant though factitious value 

 which his timid employers are too apt to set on 

 him while in a state of panic ; and when the 

 planter goes in for a large labour force at any cost, 

 recruited from he knows not where, Ramasami is 

 not the one to neglect such an opportunity of 

 dijiping deep into the planter's purse, and getting 

 himself into that state of indebtedness, which to 

 the Tamil mind means honourable respectability, 

 but to ours has a decided flavour of the very reverse. 

 The amounts which have lately been given for 

 some gangs of coolies, if my information be 

 correct, are startling enough. But coolies from 

 the Coast are not hard to get, neither are they 

 unwilling to come. Besides this if the thing is 

 gone about in the right way — on such sensible 

 lines as Mr. William Smith indicated — ten rupees 

 expended on the raw article, recruited on " the village 

 green," will give a much more satisfactory result 

 than twice or three times that money when it 

 goes to buy up those wandering reprobates, who, 

 ever dissatisfied are always on the move, and 

 whose acquaintance with Chetties, Afghans, and 

 other money-lending harpies, are about as co-ex- 

 tensive as their knowledge of the present race of 

 durais, and the geography of the planting districts. 

 Even good coolies get unsettled when there are 

 kanganies going about offering RIO and more a 

 head, with a background of indefinite promises, 

 but it is the wanderers who first respond. 

 That we svill want a large increase of our Tamil 

 labourers goes without saying, but if that were 

 the only difficulty we had ahead of us in regard 

 to our new enterprise, we might account ourselves 

 happy and dismiss it from our minds. 



The collapse the other day of the public Tea Sales, 

 does not give one a very exalted opinion of the 

 enterprise of our present race of buyers. I suppose 

 that there were reasons for the extreme caution 

 displayed; yet being in telegraphic communication 

 with the London market one would have thought 

 that a less timorous jjolicy might have been the 

 result. The public sales don't always do the best 



r the seller, as witness a lot I heard of the other 

 day which was thrown back on the broker's hands, 

 the buyer maintaining that he had bid one cent 

 less than that entered in the broker's contract. 

 This same lot was shortly afterwards sold privately 

 at an advance of 1 cents a pound on the auction 

 price ! 



I have been told that there is one, evidently the 

 economical man once more, who is trying to cover his 

 bungalow supply of rice out of the samples he gets 

 from Colombo. He complains sadly, however, that the 

 samples are very small, not enough even for one dish; 



