Fbb. t, mr.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 



527 



EFFECTS OF TOBACCO ON LAND. 



There may be great profits ia growing Tobacco 

 (for a while), but I do not think wo can keep it up 

 long uuless we are willing to speud a good share of 

 the proceeds of sales in the purchase of manure and 

 fertilisers to keep the yield up. So far as my ob- 

 servation and experience goes, I find Tobacco very 

 exhausting to the soil. A heavy coat of manure is 

 needed for every crop, and that is something- that 

 can hardly be said of any other farm product. We 

 often read and hear it said that any soil that will 

 grow a good fair crop of corn is all right for Tobacco. 

 I do not find this to be the case. A very good crop 

 of corn can be grown where Tobacco would be a com- 

 parative failure. Not only does the crop require an 

 immense amount of fertilising material, but it seems 

 to have a bad eflfect on the land for succeeding crops. 

 As " Uncle .Totham Sparrow-grass '' used to say through 

 " Tim Banker's" papers, " it seems to pizeu the 

 land." One of my neighbours raised last year an acre 

 of Tobacco, putting on the laud after it was ploughed 

 a very heavy coat of fine manure, hauled at consider- 

 able expense from a neighbouring village. This was 

 cultivated and dragged in thoroughly, so that there 

 could have been no loss to speak of from evaporation 

 or washing. That acre is the corner of a field which 

 he has planted this year to corn — last year's Tobacco 

 land and all. He told me several times that he ex- 

 pected a big crop of corn on that acre. I have seen 

 the field almost daily during the season, and if any- 

 thing, the Ecre corner is under the average of the field, 

 notwithstanding it received so heavy a coat of manure 

 while the balance of the field received noup. It hardly 

 seems possible that the one crop of Tobacco could 

 have absorbed the manure applied. Until I find a more 

 scientific and satisfactory explanation, I must fall in 

 with "Uncle Jotham" when he says "it pizens the 

 land." Unless the farmer makes a speciality of it, 

 and buy8 manures constantly to keep his land up, I 

 think the less he has to do with Tobacco the better 

 off will his land be. It is no fit factor in ordinary 

 farm operations with regard to rotation or aught else. 

 While it is no doubt of a more permanent nature 

 it is something like the Hop craze that went through 

 the country a few years ago — every one is rushing 

 into Tobacco growing. Even away up north of the 

 44th degree, where a crop is never safe from frost, 

 people are expending thousands of dollars for outfits! 

 The business will not wear long under these unfavour- 

 able conditions.— W, D. Boyntov, iu ^^Farmer/i' 

 Review," Oct. 23, 



^ 



BEICK TEA. 



(By "Peripatetic Planter.") 

 I hear that enquiries are afloat in London among 

 the makers of tea-compressing machinery for a press 

 for a firm in India. Now this is a matter requiring 

 special information, or a well conceived idea may be 

 shipwrecked by being directed along the wrong course. 

 Compressed-tea, it is as well to make clear at once, 

 ia quite a different thing from brick-tea. Oompressed- 

 tea will do for the Russian market, and for certain 

 colonies, and for the mercantile marine, but it will 

 not do for Thibet. I am personally acquainted with 

 the different kinds of tea-compre.ssing machinery, and 

 I know the traps that exist, in the path of the un- 

 wary, or indeed of the wary but uninitiated, here. 

 If the enquiry, mentioned above from India, is with 

 a view to making brick-tea for Thibet, none of the 

 existing machinery for making " compres.sed " tea will 

 be of thf. least use, and for reasou.-i which it would 

 take too much space to give in detail here. There are 

 two or three tjrpe.s of hydraulic machinery for com- 

 pressing/ tea and one mechanical press, all capable of 

 exerting 60 tons pressure on the cake of tea, one 

 of these I know to be admirable, another useless as 

 deficient in speed, and in cost of the dies— these cost- 

 ing £70 the set alone — as to the mechanical pre.ss 

 only one I believe has ever been constructed ex- 

 pressly for tea, and that was sent out to China, and 

 no report has been received here as to its work. An- 

 other press, not included iu the above remarks, was 



forwarded to India through the India office here, 

 ostensibly for the Russian trade, but in reality I un- 

 derstand for commissariat purposes. I have only re- 

 cently got upon its track, but shall soon have all the 

 facts concerning it too; at present I know nothing 

 except the makers' name. Compressing tea improves 

 its quality at the cost of setting free additional tannin. 

 The tea is compressed simply by the tremendous pres- 

 sure to which it is exposed for a second, nothing what- 

 ever is mixed with it. It is as pure as when it leaves 

 the tea-house, and is as hard as leather. It takes a 

 green appearance as all the calcined black surface is 

 pressed into the bulk of the leaf. Tea thus pressed 

 is in an excellent condition for withstanding a damp 

 climate or for campaigning or for use at sea, as the 

 damp has only a small surface to act upon, which can 

 be scraped off. But this, as I have .said, is not brick- 

 tea, uor is it what the Russians have been accustomed 

 to, though prejudice with them would not be the bar- 

 rier that it would be in the case of the Thibetans, 

 the size of whose bricks of tea has become established 

 with all the force which protects an article that is 

 used as currency in place of money. In the case of 

 Russia, too, it would doubtless pay to study custom 

 and to offer a brick of the usual size. To make sucli 

 bricks as well for Thibet as for Russia requires a 

 special press. No such press exists, though specific- 

 ations for such a press exist, and bricks of tea, 

 one being in my possession, have been made on the 

 principle involved in that specification merely as sam- 

 ples by an adapted press just to prove the process, 

 but not as a commercial venture, as of course in an 

 adapted press arranged merely for sampling purposes 

 speed of outturn was no object. To make such bricks 

 at a remunerative speed requires the application of 

 heat, for which no existing presses are conNtructed. 

 I have gone into this matter very thoroughly, and I 

 have been induced by that inquiry from India, and 

 from other signs of a movement being on foot in this 

 direction to dwell on this subject here, and I may 

 return to it again hereafter, as it is an important one. 

 There is doubtless a great future for brick-tea before 

 Indian planters, and it would be a pity to find that 

 money was being wasted by a start being made in a 

 wrong direction, especially as the machinery being 

 somewhat costly, failure might frighten others and 

 nip the new enterprise in the bud. Should any firm 

 be thinking seriously of going into this matter, I 

 should be very pleased to show their n presentatives 

 here the brick i hold, which cannot be beaten for 

 Russia— other shapes would be required for Thibet, 

 which is merely a detail in the construction of the 

 moulds. This brick will surprise anybody who sees it 

 for the first time. I should also be very glad to give 

 the necessary piirticulars, if the applicant really 

 means business. The firm to whom I should have 

 to send such applicant to see trials, &«., being a 

 busy one, I cannot presume upon their time by send- 

 ing people whose only object is the gratification of 

 a pardonablei curiosity. The time may come when 

 Indian planters will find a market for their prunings. 

 — Indian Planters' Gazette. 



[Note. — We shall be glad to forward any couimunic- 

 tions addressed to "Peripatetic Planter'' on this 

 subject.— Ed. L P. G.] 



Prixting by Electricity. — The American Inven- 

 tor, of Cincinnati, a large monthly journal, says : 

 — "We print this month's issue for the first time 

 by means of electricity. The Sprague motor ie 

 used and is an immense advance on any other 

 kind of power. We are running four presses with 

 a single motor, and it is quite a novelty in action. 

 The motor is built in a very substantial manner, 

 and there are no parts that wear rapidly even 

 with ordinary care. The expense for repairs can- 

 not amount to 10 per cent, of that required for 

 either steam, gas, or hot-air engines, and we now 

 see no reason why it will not give, for many years 

 to come, as good lesulta as Ht present." 



