378 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[Dec. I, 1886. 



OUE TEA INDUSTEY : 



PROPOSED CEYLON-AUSTRALIAN TEA AND TROPICAL 

 PRODUCE COMPANY. 



Our shrewd and esteemed friend " Old Colonist'' 

 has not been idle during his present visit to the 

 Colony in which the best part of his life was 

 spent and in which he, in over a score of years' 

 residence and hard work, gathered up an experience 

 of the practice and conditions of tropical planting 

 which has since placed him in the forefront 

 of our planting critics and authorities. 



Mr. Arthur Sinclair, — to whom we refer and 

 who sails thisjevening (Nov. -Ith) for Australia — is we 

 understand, hopeful of forming still another Ceylon 

 Tea and Tropical Produce Company, more directly 

 linking us with the Australian Colonies. Our 

 Australian cousins are the greatest tea drinkers 

 in the world and though hitherto they have been 

 content to use almost exclusively the China leaf 

 there, as elsewhere, it is already apparent that 

 Ceylon teas only require a fair trial and that few who 

 give it, care afterwards to revert again to Chinese Con- 

 gous. Tlie object will be to get as many as possible 

 of those directly interested in the wholesale tea 

 markets to take shares in the purchase of suitable 

 land for tea cultivation, and few amongst all our 

 planters, old and young had better opportunities, 

 in olden times, of knowing where to select such 

 and, than fell to the lot of " Old Colonist." The 

 only fault we ever heard attributed to him (Mr. 

 yinclair) as a planter and caijitalist was that he 

 was " too cautious." This ought to be a recom- 

 mendation certainly to his supporters in the present 

 case, but with caution, we have no ordinary 

 shrewdness and experience of Ceylon combined — 

 so that success ought to be assured. 



After a careful inspection ot the up-country tea 

 districts, Mr. Sinclair we are glad to hear, is per- 

 fectly satisfied with the thorough soundness of the 

 rising enterprise and we can only wish him every 

 success in his efforts, to add another to the thriv- 

 ing Ceylon Tea and Produce Companies already in 

 existence. 



NUWAEA ELIYA VEGETABLES. 



Our chief towns are now likely to be well supplied 

 with English vegetables, first Mr. Young advertised 

 his good sui)ply ready for the market and now Mr. 

 A. Whyte comes before us, with a fuller list of 

 what he can offer. The one dilliculty witli growers 

 is to find ready .tule when the vegetables are ready ; 

 and a number of standing weekly orders are what 

 are needed to make this a paying experiment. The 

 railway charges for packages of vegetables are now 

 much lower than formerly ; they run as follows : — 



Cost of parcels of vegetables from Nanuoj'ato Colombo 

 by passenger train : — From 1 to 5 lb., 50c. ; 5 to 10 lb., 

 63c. ; 10 to 20 lb.. !)3c. ; 20 to 40 lb., Rl- 15 ; 1 cwt. veget- 

 able E2-60. 



The vegetables just sent to us by Mr. Whyte 

 are certainly all that could be wished — fresh and 

 crisp, succulent and tender and fully, but not 

 over grown. We could not wish for finer speci- 

 mens of English vegetables. In sending them 

 Mr. Whyte writes : — " I send you a box 

 of vegetables which you may look on as 

 a sample lot of what we can do. The collection 

 consists of :i3 varieties — not such a poor list, 

 considering I have not yet been a year at the 

 work up here and have Iw^d to break up and clean 



rough grass land to operate on. The list includes : — 

 1, sweet little E. York cabbage ; 2, red pickling cab- 

 bage; 3, carrots ; 4, turnips; 5, lettuces (cos and 

 cabbage) ; (>, cauliflowers ; Ci, spring onions ; 7, 

 Scotch kale; 8, beetroot; 9. salsafy or vegetable 

 oyster; 10, artichoke; 11, vegetable marrow; 12, 

 celery; 13, green peas; li, long runner beans ; 1.5, 

 knol-khol ; Id, endive ; 17, leeks ; 18, parsnip ; li>, 

 radish; 20, rhubarb; 21, brussel sprouts ; 22, chou- 

 chow; 23, tree tomato; 21, horse radish; 25, pars- 

 ley ; 2() to 33, thyme, sage, marjorum, sorrel and 

 other herbs.— No. 9. salsafy, you may not be ac- 

 quainted with. It is a regular ' bon-bouche,' is 

 cooked first plain boiled, then pounded up and 

 fried as oyster patties or spread on toast. No. 22, is 

 the new perennial vegetable marrow and is cooked and 

 served with white sauce just as vegetable marrow 

 is. No. 23, the tree tomato, makes a delicious tart 

 or jam. I was to send a dish of mushrooms 

 and one of strawberries, but our beds of the 

 former have been too closely picked and some 

 of my friends, the insectivorous kinds are 

 unfortunately also frugivorous and have pretty 

 well picked the strawberries for me. However, you 

 shall have them another time. When all our new 

 things come into season, I shall have no less than 

 40 varieties of vegetables available and ought to 

 be able to suit the most fastidious tastes. As these 

 vegetable gardens (over three acres now in veget- 

 ables) are the first that have been opened and worked 

 systematically to test the question of ' will it pay ? ' 

 I think, we deserve encouragement and support, and 

 rail-fare is now cheap for vegetables. By the way 

 while on the subject of gardening, I may men- 

 tion I have of late been very pleased to learn 

 from several quarters that the cultivation of the 

 splendid yams of the West Indies, which I in- 

 troduced years ago, has at last been taken up 

 by many of the intelligent Sinhalese of the low- 

 country and others. The delightful little purple 

 ' cusJi-ctish^ yam is evidently the favorite, and 

 is being planted up by some in quantity, so that, 

 I suppose, ere long these really delicious and deli- 

 cate roots, will soon be offered for sale in our 

 Kandy and Colombo markets and form a most 

 agreeable change, from the everlasting and in too 

 many cases inferior bazaar potatoes. 



A WAENING TO TEA PLANTEES. 



(From I. A. Riicker d- BencrafCs Weeldij Tea 



Circular, Oct. 14th.) 



Ceylon Tk.as.—" Bulked Unassorted."— We are glad 

 to see how those who have followed our persi.stent 

 recommenilations to adopt ttiis plan have profited by 

 the same. A very striking instance of the advantage 

 to the planter occars in this week's sale. The pro- 

 duce of an estate has been apparently dealt with 

 experimentally with a view to testing the correctness 

 of our information. A portion of it has beea sub- 

 divided in the usual manner into Broken Pekoe, 2 

 Pekoes, Pekoe fauuiugs, Dust, and Pekoe Souchong, 

 giving the already over-worked dealer six more 

 samples to value than was necessary. A very high 

 price was obtained for the few packages of Broken 

 Pekoe, the remainder of the laboriously assorted parcel 

 pulling down the average to one skillinj and one penny 

 Jarthing per lb. 



The "tlHassorted " portion, one .sample onlyrepre- 

 lienting the bulk, fetched without trouble one %hilliiig 

 and five pence farthing. Loss by dividing into six breaks 

 the remainder of the packet, 4d per lb., in this case 

 nearly ±'300 sterling say Rupees 4235. 



A reference to our Circulars of November 5th and 

 November 26th, 1835 January 14th, March 4th, June 

 17th and 24th of this year, might have saved much 

 money. [ Whose tea was this ? — Ed,] 



