JVL\ 1, 1886.] 



THE TROPfCAL AGRICULTURIST. 



I hear rather good accounts of Kerr's Rollers. The 

 hitch in the manufacture has been got over and 

 the difficulties which until lately existed in getting 

 a machine have been altogether removed. The 

 price too is moderate (E350) and in the hands of 

 the new manufacturers there should bo no delay in 

 placing them on the market. A rival engineer who 

 saw one lately had only one fault to find with 

 the m — they were too cheap. That, as I take it, is 

 not likely to prove a fault in the eyes of in- 

 tending purchasers, and if that really be the only 

 objection, I should say that Mr. Kerr has a chance 

 before him of making up in some measure for the 

 worry he had in connection with his first 

 roller. I understand that a charge of 100 lb. of 

 withered leaf can be rolled off by coolies in 40 to 

 50 minutes or by water-wheel in hulf-an-honr. 



PRPPERCORN. 



NEW MARKETS FOR CEYLON TEA. 



What Mr. Rutherford mentions in his letter 

 (page 18) about " Rings " in New York buying up 

 Indian teas and reshipping them to sell in London 

 at aprolit, was experienced also in the more dis- 

 tant Melbourne market to the natural disgust of 

 the Calcutta Syndicate. We quite agree that the 

 best means of checkmating such operations on the 

 part of " Rings " or merchants opposed to a 

 change in the present course of trade, would 

 be to get at the country retailers or the 

 consumers and to show them how they can 

 obtain equally cheap teas of far better quality 

 than the " posts and rail " stuff now seen in 

 " the bush " in Australia, or the adulterated green 

 teas of Japan chiefly used in America. Mr. C. M. 

 Henry who knows a good deal about the tea 

 business in Victoria, shewed very clearly in the 

 letter we published in our issue of the 25th inst. 

 how this can best be done in the Southern Col- 

 onies. If a Tea Syndicate can be formed under 

 the auspices of the Ceylon Planters' Association, 

 and a reliable as well as smart man of business 

 acquainted with the Australian tea trade em- 

 ployed to travel through the Colonies — the 

 country towns especially — no doubt a considerable 

 impression would be made, and a new demand 

 created for wholesome good tea. Perhsips this work 

 could best be done in conjunction with the Calcutta 

 Syndicate and their Melbourne Agents, and as to 

 this the Phinters' Association will do well to 

 inquire. We call attention to what our Tasmanian 

 correspondent has to say today about small boxes. 



In reference to the United States and Canada, 

 we feel sure that no better means of checking 

 and overcoming the opposition can be found than 

 through the employment of Mr. J. L. Shand as 

 lecturer and reporter. America is the country of 

 " Rings " pur excellence. The latest develop- 

 ment is that which renders cattle -raising in 

 the far West uuprofitable, because all the 

 Chicago " beef buyers " have established a 

 " Ring" not to compete with each other for 

 the cattle sent for sale there. New York is 

 esi^ecially the head and centre of the trade in 

 Japan and China teas. All are distributed 

 from that trading capital, save what San Francisco 

 gets by sea to distribute through California and along 

 the North Pacific Coast. Now to defeat the New 

 York " Ring," we must get at the tea-retailers in 

 the surrounding States and their distributing 

 towns, and not only at the retailers, but at the 

 heads of families and we know of no better 

 means of reaching the American intelligence than 

 by Ip^tiir,--; such as Mr. Shand could so well 



arrange for and deliver. Mr. Ruthei'ford in, 

 right in referring the organisation of this matter 

 as a duty incumbent on the Planters' As- 

 sociation aud we hope that an early oppor- 

 tunity will be taken of considering it. We 

 found the greatest possible interest taken ia 

 Toronto in our Ceylon tea industry and 

 Alderman Lobb of that city — a leading resident — 

 was prepared to become agent for Ceylon teas 

 and to do his best to j)romote their acceptance 

 and consumption throughout the Dommion. At 

 that time (April 1-*81:) the tea market in London was 

 too good — and the Ceylon supply too limited — to 

 make " new markets " an object of much practical 

 interest. The case now is rather different and 

 just as we lectured in Toronto with the result of 

 interesting a circle of well-known citizens there, 

 so sliould we like to see Mr. J. L. Shand dis- 

 coursing on the merits of Ceylon teas (with, if 

 possible, practical illustrations for matter-of-fact 

 householders and housewives) in the towns of New 

 England and at any rate the Northern division of 

 the Central and Western States. It is perhaps 

 too much to expect that the jieople of the Southern 

 States from New Orleans to St. Louis and from 

 Richmond to Kansas should give up their favorite 

 coffee. But among the numerous town and agric- 

 ultural population. West and North of Wasliing- 

 ton, New York and Boston, we feel confident that 

 there is the grandest opening for the introduction of 

 ihe wholesome, superior teas of India and Ceylon that 

 can be found anywhere on the world's surface. The 

 entire population of Australasia is not equal 

 to that of one of the rising American States, and 

 moreover, the surplus population of Europe keeps 

 pouring into the region we refer to, going to 

 swell the host of coffee drinkers although many of 

 them have been accustomed in the (still) United 

 Kingdom to drink nothing but tea. We travelled 

 across from Yokohama to San Francisco, with 

 a gentleman who was pointed out to be the largest 

 buyer (and best judge of) Japan teas for the 

 American market, and he freely confessed to the 

 artificial facing and adulteration o£ their green 

 teas, saying tea-drinkers would have them so pre- 

 pared to their taste. But there is a vast pro- 

 portion of the people who have no such 

 taste and who therefore do not drink tea at 

 all in America, because they cannot get that 

 quality to which they have been accustomed in 

 Ireland, England and Scotland. With such Mr. 

 Shand should find ' little difficulty in persuading 

 them to become not only drinkers but upholders 

 of the good qualities of our teas, so soon as they 

 learned where they were to be obtained ; and so 

 by degrees we should have also the bad taste for the 

 adulterated green teas of Japan superseded even 

 among native-born Americans. 



THE TESTING OF KEROSENE OIL. 



A correspondent writes: — "Having heard of kero- 

 sene lamps exploding in tea houses and also that 

 there is a tremendous amount of bad oil being 

 sold, I write to enquire if Government tests all 

 the oils that arrive, and if so whether by the 

 open or close test. I send you a little information 

 on the subject as unhappily very little is known 

 about it. In Ceylon, it ?eenjs, kaiosene or refined 

 pelroleunr is the principal product of the distill- 

 ation of petroleum, crude American yielding 50 to 

 70 per cei;t of Its weight. A similar product is 

 obtained from bituminous shale in the south of 

 Scotland. Good lamp oil should have a tolerably 

 high boiling point, behig neither too viscous nor too 

 volatile. In addition to the density, the temper-, 

 ature at which kerosene commences to give off 



