u6 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[Aug. 2. 1886* 



attracted by lower prices than arc usually asked 

 by jewellers. Why a company has never been 

 formed for the purchase and working of gemming 

 land in Ceylon and India strikes me as strange. 

 If a few ounces of gold were to be found in any 

 new region the noise of it would be blown abroad, 

 and the wildest hopes entertained — especially by 

 some well-knov>-n company promoters — of fortunes 

 to be speedily unearthed. And yet the value of 

 the gems other than diamonds sold yearly in this 

 country alone must be considerable. From whom 

 do the jewellers procure these gems ? We presume 

 they have agents in the different countries who 

 barter direct with the native dealers, or else are 

 supplied by " middle-men " in the form of gem 

 mercliants. The native dealers again — we can 

 answer for those in Colombo and (ialle — never 

 own any pit or plot themselves, but again deal through 

 agents, whose time is sjient purchasing stones from 

 villagers up in the gem-producing districts. Every 

 intermediate profit made is immense. In the districts 

 of Salfragam and Katnai^ura the wretched Sinlia- 

 lese, who own .small pieces of land beside the 

 streams, where they work like slaves, often up to 

 their waists in water, derive but a precarious in- 

 come from their really valuable labours. The 

 travelling raoormen who command a little ready 

 money frequently purchase sapphires, rubies, and 

 cat's-eyes upon which a profit of a thousand per 

 cent, is deemed to be erring on the side of mod- 

 eration. Heady money could purchase tracts of 

 gemming land in the most favourable localities, 

 and a systematic plan of jewel-digging be entered 

 on under European supervision. Many of the best 

 rubies never reach this country, but are bartered 

 to native chiefs in a clumsily cut state, often to 

 be buried, lost, or hoarded away by some dying 

 miser. Many a fine stone, worth some hundreds 

 in London as a brilliant, has been cut into thin 

 plates resembling glass, changing its value to al- 

 most nil. 



No European mineralogist has devoted himself 

 to finding out from where these stones spring 

 which are washed down the streams and deposited 

 in layers of gravol under the river bed. We cannot 

 help indulging in fascinating dreams of some huge 

 matrix of jewels liigh up among the mountains whose 

 splendour one charge of dynamite might expose. 

 All the gem pits arc in low ground. The gems be- 

 come more and more triturated during their descent 

 down stream, until they arc termed " tusi," or 

 dust. This ruby dust can only be used for cutting 

 and polishing. The fact that the supply of these 

 gems is not yearly decreasing points most plainly 

 to the conclusion that somewhere a matrix exists. 

 Leaving, however, these Utopian ideas alone, the 

 ordinary process of gemming in tlie low ground is 

 one which should commend itself from its prospect 

 of really handsome prolits. If all these dealers, 

 agents, and merchants, both native and European, 

 can manage to make a living from the enterprise 

 in addition to the heavy prolits made by London 

 jewellers on coloured stones, then it would seem 

 rational to suppose that shareholders of a well- 

 managed company miglit find they had not cm- 

 barked in an unremunerative venture. 



I expect at no distant date to find the chief 

 gem enterprises worked by English companies in 

 the East Indies, just as has been effected with the 

 gold mines, but with perhaps more profitable re- 

 sults. A geologist who can discover the real 

 matrix of the ruby and the sapphire will no longer 

 ncal to write pamphlets or read lectures in order 

 to gain an income, but will soon be heard of 

 in linancial circles as the " Jewel King". — Pall 

 Mall Biuhfpt. 



CEYLON TEA AT BOUTH KENSINGTON. , 



To the Kdllor ofjht ''Home and Colonial Mail." ' 

 Sir, — Your contributor " Assam" intends to convey 

 the impression that Mr. Shand's able paper ou 

 British grown tea was meant as an advcrtise]nent of 

 Ceylon teas generally. This is nonsense, if he will 

 pardon my saymg so. The paper deals exhaust- 

 ively with tlie subject, and reference was made to 

 Fiji, the Straits Settlement, Natal and other tea 

 growing countries. "Assam" seems to forget that 

 as Mr. Shand pointed out, tea was introduced 

 into Ceylon from China about 1812. so that "As- 

 sam's" sneers about tlie speaker's reference to 

 "that island as it it were the home of the mdustry " 

 falls rather flat. If Ceylon planters have managed 

 to advocate their tea successfully at home so much 

 the better for them. Indian planters have had the 

 same chance. There need be no jealousy or un- 

 pleasant rivalry between Ceylon and Indian tea 

 planters. Let the l)cst and cheapest tea, I mean that 

 which ifs laid dov\n upon the best terms, command 

 the best market. There is plenty of room for all of 

 us. Wo planters have yet nnich'to learn and com- 

 petition will keep us awake. Our planters are awake 

 I can assure yon, and the shipments of tea from 

 Ceylon are merely a titlie of what may be expected 

 when confidence is quite restored, and capital more 

 easily obtainable. — Yours, &c., 



A Ceyi.on Planteh. 



♦ 



INDIAN AND CEYLON TEA. 



To the Editor of the " Home ami Colonial Mail." 

 Sin, — Your correspondent 'Assam' touches lightlj' 

 on a subject which some of us shareholders iu Indian 

 tea companies would like to see harped upon with a 

 heavier hand. Since the coffee and cinchona planters 

 of Ceylon turned their attention to tea tliey liave 

 had a wonderful run of luck, not only with their 

 crops and prices, but in the manner in which their 

 tea has been advertised at home, For many years 

 China was the only tea producing country recog- 

 nised by the British matron aud her daughters. 

 India was only known to her as the land of rupees 

 and indigo, from whence shrivelled relatives, who 

 had disappeared as cadets, returned as wealthy but 

 delicate old men to finish their days at Ohellon- 

 ham or Bath. The Indian tea industry, which lias 

 been steadily developing for years was scarcely known 

 until recently outside the immediate circle of the few 

 interested in large concerns like the Assam Company. 

 It is only in recent times that ludii-.u tea has been heard 

 of by the tea consumer, for until lately it lost its identity 

 iu a judicious bit nd, aud its value was too important as 

 the com]ionent part of a mixture to be worth selling 

 alone. Perliaps those who produced it were too con- 

 tent with the high ijrices then received to troul:le 

 themselves about this, and supineness was the result. 

 Anyhow, tht dealer and grocer ruled the roast and 

 nothing was said by anyone. With the fall iu prices 

 came a change, then the planter became anxious 

 to be brought into closer contact with the con- 

 sumer. A 'J'ea Districts' Assoc-iatioii was formed 

 iu London, and there was som'thing like a stir. 

 But after all it did not amount to much. There w.is 

 much cry aud little wool. That which the Indian 

 tea producer has taken j'cars to attempt is ac- 

 complishod by the Ceylon plintor in a very short 

 time. Ceylon tea, 1 venture to affirm, is better 

 known to the public at liome than ludian, nnd this is 

 mainly because the interests of Ceylon have been 

 well pushed, no opportunity having, on her behalf, 

 been neglected, and her represent;! fives and friends 

 hav(! been far more lively than their neighbours in 

 Intlia. I'o.'isibly J am utterly wrong hvit I have less 

 faith in the ultimate success of tea cultivation in (Jcylon 

 tluiu ni:niy. The estates iu the i-iland are heavily 

 mortgaged as a rule, the hmd is consequently forct-di, 

 and crops are gathered to the full extent of the jield. 

 This will cause a day of reckoning, but apart from the 

 question of how long it will last, I cannot help ad- 

 miring the pluck of the planters iu the islam), and I 

 am positively envious of their good fortune in having 

 aorae clever heads amongst them who liave pulled the 



