Strt. s, ib36>] 



THE TROPICAL AQmcVLTVmSfe 



^7 



determined stand must and will be made to break 

 this monopoly, not only for their own benefit, but 

 for the general good of the planting and commercial 

 interests of Ceylon. 



Toward the Tea Syndicate, when I am in a posi- 

 tion to do so, I shall certainly give my strongest 

 support. I heartily believe in its proposed schemes, 

 but of its success I am sceptical, simply that so 

 few, not will not, but cannot support it. I have 

 read several of the papers going the round for 

 signature, and these at once show up in vivid clear- 

 ness the sad jjosition seven-eighths of the Ceylon tea 

 estates are in. It is what was to be expected. The 

 tea industry has commenced where the coffee 

 ended, viz., in the one ^oyA — involved. How many 

 good and worthy men must have seen these i^apers 

 and inwardly thought " I wish I could sign it," 

 — not only planters, but our Colombo merchants. 

 Therein I fear will be the failure of the Tea 

 Syndicate. "Willing to support to the utmost but 

 cannot," must be the reply of quite seven-eighths 

 of our tea estates. No one knows this better than 

 he who advances the necessary and in return 

 demands his necessity. Commissions must be got, 

 the middleman has always lived, and must live, 

 and the public must not be supplied with a pure 

 and unadulterated article to the detriment of an 

 adulterated one. The London merchant will 

 not support a Syndicate to take business out of 

 his own hands ; he cannot allow his Colombo agent 

 to support such, and therefore the Colombo agent 

 through no fault of his, cannot allow his constit- 

 uents to sign away his produce. 



What therefore can the one-eighth left do to- 

 wards supporting a Syndicate which must, if success 

 be looked for, be on a large scale? A -sample 

 Syndicate will not do, it must be a stock Syndicate : 

 can these few, therefore, " Freemen" as I may call 

 them, support solely and alone this new enter 

 prize ? Will their entire produce be alone sufficient 

 to stock the proposed experimental new markets ? 

 And will they be willing for the good of them- 

 selves, and the Ceylon community at large, to 

 risk their all in a new venture ? I doubt it. I 

 sincerely trust I may be very much in error as 

 regards the signing of the Tea Syndicate paper 

 by many Colombo friends, and that many in the 

 Fort may be in a position to support so worthy 

 an undertaking. Many of us wait anxiously for 

 the result. 



Of the various products shipped from Ceylon, 

 tea is the only one which can pass direct from 

 the producer's chest, packed on the estate to the 

 consumer's bag, across the counter. Could the 

 J few Freemen in Ceylon arrange to carry out so 

 worthy and honest a business, I fancy we should 

 hear no more of deterioration in quality of tea. 

 To . carry out business of this kind, the few must 

 be prepared for a desperate struggle against des- 

 perate odds, but the end must be victory. Various 

 institutions of the kind have been formed, and I 

 suppose their results have been as small and 

 various as their capital and the mixtures they sell. 



The sales of pure Ceylon tea at the Exhibition must 

 flow come to an end and the more's the pity. If 

 no effort is made to keep up such a laudable trade, 

 results must be disastrous in the extreme. Vile mix- 

 tures again throughout Great Britain be sold to the 

 public, and if such were not marked "Ceylon 

 Tea " it would be allright. But they will be 

 labelled as such, and purchasers of Exhibition 

 Tea will come to the conclusion that after all 

 there is something in deterioration of Ceylon Tea. 

 What can be done ? I only see one way, the 

 result of a conversation I had with one of our 

 largest and I doubt not free-est Tea producers in the 

 island /— 



' Endeavour to form a Company. Capital £20,000 

 to £30,000. Establish shops throughout the 

 United Kingdom (thank God it is still likely to 

 be united !) From these shops, dispose of only 

 one grade of Tea. Supply such Tea marts direct 

 from the Ceylon Agent or Manager, and supply 

 thefconsumer direct from the chestbulked in Ceylon.' 



All Ceylon planters who can, will support with 

 their entire crops paying a concern. Their 

 Teas must be sent to Colombo, to be valued, 

 accepted or rejected, and bulked ihere. They can 

 draw on the Company's capital against their 

 invoices, and receive payment in proportion to 

 value put upon their Teas by the disinterested 

 manager and taster, in Colombo. The profits on 

 sales need only be half the profits made by the home 

 grocer, and with no sucking middleman. I fancy 

 to Is »jd would be a fair price to reckon for their 

 whole season's crop, and if they were also share- 

 holders, 15 per cent to 20 per cent would be a 

 safe estimate for their invested capital. Could such 

 a Company be floated under able management in 

 London to begin with, and then in the chief towns 

 of Great Britain and Ireland, and in Colombo, I doubt 

 not every share would be taken up by outsiders within 

 a couple of days of the Prospectus appearing before 

 the pubHc. The result would be, I doubt not, 

 similar to the various Co-operative Associations of 

 which so much was written against, when they 

 were first established. Purchases could also be made 

 on highly remunerative terms in the local market 

 if supporters' teas were insufficient to meet the 

 demand. 



If you consider these ideas worthy of publication 

 I should be glad of their appearing also in your 

 Overland issue*, as through our worthy Planters' 

 Commissioner something might come of them. — 

 Yours truly, H. L. FOBBES. 



Calcutta Bot.u^ic Gaki>e.ns, are among the finest 

 of the kind in the world, considerable success has 

 attended the growth of mahogany plants, of which 

 there are 20,uO0 seedlings. In the Madras Gardens 

 also these seedlings are pushing forward with im- 

 mence strides. The paper mulberry tree finds a 

 congenial soil in Bengal. It supplies the material 

 from which the ^'w^jpa cloth of Polynesia and the 

 bulk of the paper in China and Japan are manu- 

 factured ; and its bark is considered to be among 

 the best of paper fibres. The expenditure on the 



Calcutta Gardens last year amounted to E69,870. 



Madias Mail. 



Coii KE.— The statistics of cotfee cultivation on the 

 Nilgiris usually furnished are stultified by tbe inclusion 

 in the figures of Waste land, not cultivated, but form- 

 ing part of every holding. Ou the NiJgiris, the Govern- 

 ment Assessment is charged on the entire area of the 

 estate, iucludmg forest and land retained exclusively for 

 purposes of grazing and this introduces the factor of 

 error in all the returns. We have been at some little 

 pains to eliminate the waste from the figures and to 

 give only the actual area covered with full grown coffee. 

 Immature coffee is not deserviug of consideration as 

 for some years, owing to adverse iufiueuces and low 

 prices, no exteiisious have taken place. The following 

 will be found as nearly correct as possible ; — 



Acres. 

 Todanaad ... ... 1,720 



rarunganad ... ... 5,'ii5 



Mekanaad ... ... 2,965 



Kundahs ... ... SQy 



Total... 10,300 

 Ihis makes ample allowance for recent abandonnicntH 

 which may be reckoned at 2,000 acres if not rnore.— 

 Nilyirl Kcpyess. 



'' Also iu Tiopkid Agriculturki —Ed. 



