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Aug. d, 1886.] THE TROPICAL AGJ^ICULTURiSt 



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Tea at Foociloow. — The following was issued in the 

 form of an express at Fochow on the SlstMay; — 

 " la consequence of the unnecessary quantity of dust 

 having been packed in the 600 half chests of Oongou 

 purchased a few days ago by a certain foreign firm 

 the purchaser has the right to refuse to take delivery 

 of such, and on being informed of the fact, the 

 Chinese seller indignantly resorted to the tea guild 

 where a meeting took place yesterday at 7 o'clock p.m., 

 and it is reported that a resolution has passed to stop 

 transactions with this very firm, and in consequence 

 of which every foreign merchant, who is a member, 

 has a right to ask the Chamber of Commerce to put 

 a stop to such unjust proceedings of the native sellers, 

 and that the foreign merchants must be unanimous in 

 body and mind to boycot one or two Chineese tea hongs 

 for every act of unworthy transaction so that their 

 haughtiness may be repressed." The signature " Disin- 

 terested " was appended. — Dally Press. 



The Hankow Tk.\ Trade. — From a letter in the 

 Hongliong Free Press we quote as follows : — 



The hurly burly's done. 

 The battle's lost and won, 



and the damage has been done so far as the tea 

 season of 188() is concerned ; for the present passi- 

 vity, standing as it does in the strongest contrast 

 with the excitement and action of the last week 

 in May, is the sure and certain sign that " the 

 war is o'er." Buying has proceeded since the 

 opening of the season as if the crop were neither 

 large nor early. Now, as regards the size of the 

 crop. There is already a visible excess of between 

 five and six million pounds in the first crop, made 

 up by an increase of 80,000 half-chests Hankow, 

 and 30,000 half-chests Kiukiang teas. Is this over- 

 production or not ? Is this the disease which a 

 sagacious merchant at a recent meeting of the 

 Chamber of Commerce complained that the trade 

 was suffering from ? If tea should pay after all, 

 the retrogressive cry of over-production should be 

 stifled for ever. In respect of the quality of the 

 crop, it is universally admitted here that it is 

 superior in "cup" to that of the last few sea- 

 sons. In "make" it may be relegated to the " Can 

 pass" class. The Chinese have made the success- 

 ful attempt this season to place practically the 

 uholc of the first erop in front of buyers before the 

 end of the month, but this has been done at the 

 expense of the 2nd and 3rd " packs" whose " un- 

 couth " appearance, despite a redeeming set-otf in 

 cup, affords sure evidence of a too hasty toilet. 

 A judge of great experience says : — " The leaf (of 

 2nd and 3rd packs, of course) has come to market 

 much in the same state as when it fell, or was 

 picked off the trees. The result of all this is that 

 there is a large supply of good and fine tea at a 

 much lower cost than usual, whilst the medium and 

 lower grades are mostly so unsightly tliat any cup 

 quality they may possess, must be very heavily 

 handicapped." The tendency of prices all along has 

 been downward ; partly from the intense anxiety 

 of teamen to clear out ; partly from the grue some 

 nature of the telegrams from London. It may be 

 desirable here to attempt to remove the impression 

 which has obtained amongst the uninitiated that 

 the early purchases of fine and finest leas were 

 made at excessive rates, some 10 to 15 per cent 

 higher than usual. This impression is altogether 

 a wrong one ; for the unexceptional practice has 

 been so to shorten prices that the laying down 

 cost has really been moderate in the extreme. The 

 " original contract" and the " final ship off " prices 

 have borne no relation whatever to one another. 

 And when it is remembered that cuts have been in- 

 liictfd varying from Tls. 3 to Tls. 15 a picul, it 

 is not difficult to understand that the high cost 

 Was more imagiuary than real. Never, peibapo, liaa 



there been a season when such cruel cutting has been 

 in vogue, and the sooner this unsatisfactory statb 

 of things comes to an end, the better for everyone 

 all round. A continuation will lead to unutterable 

 grief somewhere. [From the above it will be seen 

 that the making of tea horn fallen leavef iS deemed 

 possible ! Such tea must be vile rubbish.— Ed.] 



Wire Fence should not be stretched too tightly. The 

 contraction of the iron in cold weather breaks many 

 wires.— ^VfV.^M'i Ea-press. 



Tea Prosi'ects. — A jilanter writes : — " Who is the 

 man who sounds the note of alarm from Uda- 

 pusselawa by asking the question, ' Will 200 lb. 

 an acre pay ? ' Surely a much better return than 

 this can be confidently looked-for from so fine a 

 district. Surely too the cultivation is not yet in 

 a sufficiently advanced stage for any one to limit 

 its yield to such mean figures. Methinks he serves 

 his district but scurvily, and I hope someone will 

 come forward with a brighter prospect for the dis- 

 trict which has done such wonders in coffee pro- 

 duction.— Cor. [The Udapusselawa man is mild 

 compared with other critics : one of the latter, an 

 experienced planter, the other day ventured to 

 say that " half the area planted with tea in Ceylon 

 would give 200 lb. per acre, and half would not " ! 

 —Ed.] 



Bulking Teas on Estates. — A Ceylon proprietor 



writes : — " Mr. (a well-known London broker) 



advises me most strongly not to bulk my teas. 

 He says, as a director of large Indian Tea Com- 

 pany he has found it a mistake. I myself bulked 

 all my invoices for seven months; the eighth month 

 I sent a break unbulked, and to my surprise the 

 dock charges were the same as before in account 

 ■iales. I wrote for full particulars of dock charges 

 for that and previous seven breaks and found in 

 every case my bulked tea had been rebulked in 

 London though I liad never had a complaint and 

 was under the impression that I was saving money 

 by bulking teas. I venture to say that many 

 planters who are under the impression that they 

 are saving by bulking on estate would find their 

 mistake , as I did, if they insisted on getting the 

 items of the heading ' dock charges ' appearing 

 in their account sale." 



Petroleum as Fuel in Russia. — Crude petro- 

 leum and residuum as is wellknown are largely 

 used for fuel on the steamboats running on the 

 Caspian and the Black seas, and on the Volga 

 river, and also in many Russian oil refineries. Re- 

 cently Mr. Koribut-Dashkevitch patented in Russia 

 an api^aratus for heating stationery engine and 

 locomotive boilers with petroleum. This consists 

 of an iron cylinder, divided into two horizontal 

 chambers, the upper for petroleum and the other 

 for steam. At the ends of both chambers fine 

 tubes arc arranged in semi-circles, the tubes for 

 steam extending at an angle of 15' to those of 

 petroleum. The boiler is first heated by means of 

 wood or coal in order to obtain steam enough to 

 atomize the petroleum, which drips from the tubes* 

 Then the petroleum is ignited, thus Jicating the 

 boiler with liquid fuel. The chambers are con- 

 nected respectively with an oil reservoir and the 

 steam tubes of the boiler. Through the holes made 

 in the sides of an oven conies a free current of 

 air in quantity sulHcient to make combustion com- 

 plete. It is claimed in Russia that Dashkevitch's 

 apparatus makes petroleum an easy, efficient and 

 economic fuel. — Bradstreet's. [The above is interest- 

 ing with reference to the possibility of crude 

 petroleum or some preparation of the substance 

 being u;^ed as fuel for tea curing. I}i such an 

 event it seems obvious that special fnrnacn arrange- 

 ments will have to be made, or the hydro-carboii 

 patent i^rucebo inixvAwed.^Bv, 



