i i-4 



TUB TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[Aue. s, i88e. 



British peop'e was that they were produced by our 

 fellow-suhjects, and that the industry furnished an out- 

 let for the congested population of these isands. lu 

 conclus'oii, Rlr. Shand expressed his readiuss to give 

 further information about Ceylon tea to anybody who 

 might ask for it, (Applause.) 



Dr. Watt, in charge of the Indian exhibits, said it 

 was not generally known that tea was really a 

 forest tree, and not a bush. In their natural state 

 in the Indian forests, some of the tea trees were 

 fity feet high. He had been unable to find in the 

 fild plant nny trace of the disease from which the 

 wultivated plant suffered. With regard to the con- 

 croversy as to whether tea was damaged by tbe lead 

 fn the boxes, his own opinion was that the fault was 

 ito be found in an imperfect knowledge of the fer- 

 mentation of tea befor packing. He had seen tea 

 which was tainted though the lead was not perfor- 

 ated ; and he had analysed tea in one instance in 

 which the lead was perforated, and had not found 

 any trace of leail iu the tea. He was not aware of 

 any chemist having discovered tea actually poisoned by 

 lead, and he thought that the tea-planting industry 

 ought to bring science to its aid in the matter of 

 fermentation. He thought, too, that the tea industry 

 suffered from too much selection, and he could not 

 see why the planters should not mix their own teas, 

 instead of leaving the retailers to doit, and get brands 

 which should be kuown as theirs. If a garden sent 

 one quality of tea, and one only, he was sure the 

 Industry would benefit. (Hear, hear.) 



Dr. Kobert Pringle, of H. M. Bengal Army, said 

 he looked upon the tea trade ot India as one of the 

 greatest undeveloped industries that that country 

 possessed. Tea was a very good saddle-horse to 

 put indigestion on, when one liked to shift the 

 ft;si)onsibility from irregularities in diet; but he would 

 like to treat those people who talked about tea being 

 indigestible, not with his medicine chest, but with a 

 muzzle. (Laughter.) After speaking of the import- 

 ance of doing all we could for the natives of India, 

 Dr. Pringle condemned the tax of Gd. per lb. re- 

 maining on tea, and with regard to fermentation, said 

 that the Government ought to consider it their 

 duty to settle that point. It was far more import- 

 ant morally to do that than it was to have a first- 

 class analyst to see that the opium went out in 

 good condition. (Hear, hear.) In reference to the 

 disease, it was his opinion that it was brought 

 about by over-cultivation, just as the disease of 

 coffee was. Where there was not over-cultivation 

 there was no disease. 



Mr. T. J. White, who lived for many years in Cey- 

 lon, confirmed Mr. Shaud's figures relating to that 

 colony, and said he knew of no part of the world 

 in which the climate was more healthy or more 

 favourable to long life than the hilly country there. 

 Some years ago a police magistrate in Calcutta told 

 hnn that tea from the North-Western Provinces 

 of India injured his nervous system and that he 

 had since druuk Assam tea without feeling any ill 

 effects. 



Mr. F. R. Saunder.s, wlio had long- beeu a resideni 

 \>A Ceylon, said the cousuraption of B.iti.'^h-growu tea> 

 ougiit to be encouraged becsuae tlic industry provided 

 employment for people of those countrie.s of which w« 

 had taken possession, and of whose intere.-its, therefore 

 tie ought to take peculiar care. 



Mr. Moreton Ureen spoke of the growth of tea in 

 ^[atal, and said there was in the Exhibition more than 

 a ton of Natal tea, which v>'ould be on sale in the 

 course of a week. 



Mr. Capper remarked that British tea-growing pro- 

 mised to be very useful to our home industries, for 

 every tea estate in Ceylon was being provided with 

 British-made machinery, and he had no doubt it was 

 the same in India. Not less than half-a-million of 

 money would lie spent by Ceylon in the next few 

 years on machinery. 



Mr. I5arber, as a tea planter of Oeyion, denied 

 th.-it tea-drying was a process whicli was hurried ovc 

 (Hear, heart— since the tea was kept for a month 

 p/navi tb« i)iv€t6(»e0 of drj'iug and psokiug, (H 



liear.) Tea manufacture had been rai.sed to the dig- 

 nity of a fine art, and he did not believe it could be 

 helped by chemistry. Any deterioration in the tea was 

 due not to bad fermentation, but to bad wood or bad 

 packing. 



A gentleman in the room mentioned that several 

 Indian planters had told him that they hoped for as- 

 sistance from chemistry. (Hear, hear.) 



Dr. Pringle, replying to a statement made by Mr. 

 White, said that our soldiers in the Afghan war used 

 tea from the North- West Provinces, and he believed 

 they did not prove themselves to be particularly nerv- 

 ous. (Applause and laughter.) 



The proceedings closed with votes of thanks to the 

 Chairman and Mr. Shand 



THE OUTLOOK FOR TEA. 



Apart from the consensus of opinion in Mincing 

 Lane, that, from circumstances of weather, pruning 

 and plucking, and also perhaps, as is charged, 

 some want of care in preparation, the Ceylon teas 

 recently sent to market have not been up to the 

 previously high standard of quality, there can be 

 little doubt that the low prices and semi-panic in 

 the London market which reacted so adversely on 

 local sales and planters' interests, were due mainly to 

 the overloading of the market not only with good tea 

 but with absolute rubbish from China. In the in- 

 teresting report by Mr. Consul Sinclair of Foochow, 

 which we tliis day quote in our planting columns, 

 it will be seen that he actually mentions tea being 

 made of leaves which had been five years on the 

 trees! It seems doubtful if leaves can cling to 

 even an ever-green shrub (we mean, of course, 

 the same leaves) for five years, and perhaps what 

 is meant is that old and neglected and inferior 

 buslics, which had not been touched for five years, 

 had latterly been plucked for tea-making purposes, 

 under the influence of speculative demand, follow- 

 ing the cessation of war and the opening of 

 markets wholly or partially closed during the war. 

 The remedy suggested by the worthy Consul of 

 uprooting the old trees and planting afresh is 

 certainly heroic, but it is questionable if he real- 

 ized what the costliness of such a process would 

 be, even where labour is so exceptionally cheap as 

 it is in the tea districts of China. Besides which 

 there would be an interval of non-productive 

 ness in the comparatively cold climate of 

 the tea regions of China, of from four to Ave 

 years. We suj^pose those familiar with tea 

 culture would rather advise that the old bushes 

 should be so pruned as to compel them to yield 

 good flushes, while young plants to replace those 

 of them which showed signs of decay were grow- 

 ing. What seems evident is that China, if money 

 is offered, can produce large quantities of tea, the 

 bulk of it inferio!. -\lr. Giles is very sanguine 

 about Formosa as a producer of fine ((uality teas, 

 but, until " the savages" are .exterminated or 

 civilized and that beautiful island is fully peopled 

 with Chinese, it is not likely to prove a very 

 formidable factor in the question of tea pro- 

 duction. We are taken by surprise by M'liat is 

 said about brick-tea made from good tea-dust for 

 the llussian market, because all iJrevious accounts 

 led to the impression that brick-tea was composed 

 of old, coarse leaf and stems. If a good market 

 offered for bricks made of tea-dust, we see no 

 reason why India and Ceylon should not successfully 

 compete with China in that direction. But we 

 suspect the Indian and Ceylon dust and broken 

 teas arc superior to the China brick-tea, notwith- 

 standing the Consular opinion as to supplying the 

 army. It is quite evident that a crisis produced 

 not only by over-supplies from China, but, as Mr. 

 J. h, isiidud pointo out, from dibtuibauctJU ^iu the 



