October i, 1882,] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



3^3 



came on his table, with the finest of tastes for all the 

 growths — Mocha, Java, Brazil, Martuiique, Sumatra, &c. — 

 sampling it always, and buying a bag when he found a 

 good article, and to me coffee is the one indispensable 

 luxury. I never, except under necessity, lunch or dine 

 at a London restaurant, for the simple reason that I never 

 found one where I could get a good cup of coffee when 

 I had finished. I have drunk it in the ^^\'st and the 

 East — Paris and Constantinople, Turkish fashion and Egyp- 

 tian, French, Viennese, Manhattanese — have followed the 

 decay of its use and its gradual disappearance, iintil I 

 can no longer find a cup of genuine coffee, and properly 

 made, out of my ovm house, anywhere Ijetween Constan- 

 tinople or Alexandria and New York. As to tea, as the 

 Pall Mall Gazette has observed, there is little chance of 

 being deceived ; any respectable merchant can give you a 

 good tea if you do not want it too cheap; but people 

 who in London will use tea at 3s. per lb. or less must 

 never hope to understand the question. In England most 

 housewives imderstand the mystery of making tea, but 

 few know the advantage of the Russian samovar over all 

 other methods of making it. The samovar is a tea-kettle 

 wliich has its fire in a tube running through it, and which, 

 with a few pieces of lighted charcoal dropped into the 

 tupe, maintains the water at boiling point with a minimum 

 of evaporation, and gives it at that point on the table; 

 and as a beverage the Itussian vloes certainly surpass all 

 other nations in tea-making. We drink it as a stimidant, 

 and take it strong in the morning, and too strong at night, 

 with milk and sugar as a general thing; we finish and 

 send the tea-things away, but to the Russian it is an 

 all-the-eveniug enjoyment. The samovar stands on the 

 table, and the tea (the delicious yellow variety generally) 

 is put into the teapot, the boiling water run on, allowed 

 to stand a moment, and then tea is served — mild rather 

 than weak, and more water poured on at once — a little 

 tea added from time to time if needed. I have often 

 seen Russian friends drink a dozen or more cups in the 

 evening. The quick making of the infusion is in accordance 

 with Chinese custom, but there the parallel ends. The 

 addition of sugar — to the Celestial a barbarism — is now 

 opposed by some English tea-drinkers, but the overwhelming 

 majority of opinion is in favour of its use. It seems to 

 me as indispensable to the development of the best 

 appreciation of the tea as salt is to that of a beefsteak. 

 The sugar is so neutral as an emollient that it absolutely 

 disguises no quality of the tea, and I hold it to be a 

 cardinal principle in gustatics that where two flavours can 

 be so combined as to sacrifice neither an advance in art 

 is achieved. And the same is true of coffee — the addition 

 of sugar is a developmeut of the beverage. But milk does 

 not come under the same category. When people tlrink 

 tea as strong as most of us do at breakfast, the intense 

 bitter is mollified by milk, but weak tea is made insipid 

 by it. 



The Russian adds a slice of lemon — the only addition 

 after sugar which does not deteriorate the quality of a 

 delicate tea; but he also takes a little rum — a distinct 

 departure from the purest standard, due probably to his 

 generally imbibing propensity. Both rum and cognac 

 having distinct flavours which disguise the quality of the 

 tea, are abuses unless the tea is bad. A delicate yellow 

 tea, with sugar and lemon, is, vie judice, the perfection 

 of tea-ih-inkiug if made with the samovar. A hint to 

 economists on the long steeping of tea (for boiling is a 

 horrible barbarism never to be dreamed of): the samovar 

 is arranged so as to allow the teapot to stiind in the 

 chimney, keeping the tea at a point just below the boil- 

 ing indefinitely; and when the tea is of an old crop the 

 flavour will be greatly and judiciously developed by fifteen 

 or twenty minutes standing on the samovar top. A new- 

 crop tea does not require this treatment. 



The making of coffee is a much more complicated 

 peration. Whether made in the Eastern or Western method, 

 the precautious aud most of the difficulties are the same. 

 The choice of the growth allows of latitude, as does the 

 choice of a vintage. The Turks prefer the Mocha and 

 Martinique or Java mingled. It is indispensable to roast 

 your own coffee, of whichever growth, and wise to get 

 the best quality of its kind. The coffee-growers follow 

 an antiquated and barljarous method of preparation, steep- 

 ing file berries in water until the pulp is decomposed 



and rubs off in a shmy mass, leaving the berry naked. 

 But the fermentation always damages the flavour of fhe 

 coffee, and if allowed to go too far destroys it, so that 

 many samples of coffee apjjarently bright are already 

 damaged. I do not mention ground coffees, as these are 

 anyfhiug but coffee — cliicory, barley, bread crusts, any 

 bm-ned gramenia, acorns, juniper corns, &c., enter in; and 

 I was told last year at Kalamata that the whole fig crop 

 of the Morea goes to Trieste to be burned into coffee. 

 Coffee must be roasted slowly and evenly, kept in constant 

 motion, till the berry will crack crisply when pressed 

 between thumb and finger. The Egyptian stops as soon as it 

 will break any way; but this will have a slight taste of 

 the raw berry, which seems to me a drawback. It should 

 crack freely, but by no means crumble. Ninety-nine per 

 cent of the people who roast their own coffee burn it, 

 anil destroy all its best qualities. From this point Eastern 

 and Western methods differ. The Turk has slaves in plenty, 

 and is no sparer of their labour. He has his coffee pounded 

 in a mortar to an impalpable powder (his imitators at 

 Athens and elsewhere fail here), and then a spoonful for 

 each cup is put into the ibric, the water poured on hot; 

 it is set for a few seconds on the coals, not boiled, and 

 is poured into fhe cup — if for himself without sugar, if 

 for a Frank sweetened: but I have always suspected that 

 practices connected with Eastern politics had much to do 

 with the exclusion of sugar, as enabling the driiiker to 

 detect certain deleterious agents sometimes introduced. 



The Western coffee-maker grinds the berry, and not 

 too fine; but the primitive ibric gives place to numerous 

 contrivances, of which I have collected and tried many. 

 For stupid housekeepers the best is the common French 

 filter placed above the coffee-pot; for anyone who has 

 mechanical ingenuity enough to use it the balance cafetiSre 

 is the perfection of utensils, and should always be placed, 

 like the samovar, on the table. But in the hands of a 

 fool it is imsafe. Coffee with milk — cafe au lait — comes not 

 under gastronomy, but dietetics. It is a bilious article of 

 food, and better made of chicory than coffee, as the lattre 

 is wasted when thus used. — Planters^ Gazette. 



FEETILIZEES. 



BY AKTHCB G. HADDOCK, A. I. C. 



By fertilizers I mean those .substances which contribute 

 to the building of the structure and the maintenance of 

 the life of plants. In fact, I use the term in the sense 

 of the food of the vegetable kingdom. For vegetable life 

 requires food to support it, just as does animal life, and 

 food also which it is capable of digesting and assimil.iting. 



Different species of plants requu-e different elements of 

 nutrition ; as in the animal kingdom, beasts, birds, fishes, 

 etc., require different kinds of food. 



A plant derives its support from juices and gases, ab- 

 sorbed tlu'ough its roots and leaves. A portion of its 

 food is conta-ined in the air, and a portion in the soil 

 in which it grows. 



Plants are partly of an organic and partly of an inorganic 

 structure. The organic elements, carbon, oxygen, hydrogen 

 and nitrogen, are combined together in various manners, 

 and with the exception of the nitrogen are chiefly derived 

 from the atmo.sphere. 



The inorgnic elements, together with the greater part 

 of the nitrogen, are derived from the soil. The following 

 substances form the chief portion of the inorganic con- 

 stituents of the plant: — Phosphoric acid, lime, magnesia, 

 iron, soda, potash, sulphuric, silicic and hydrochloric acids. 



The inorganic salts form a very small proportion of 

 the weight of the plant, as compared with the organic. 

 The ash, for instance, of an oak tree only constitutes 

 about 3J per cent of its weight, but although this may 

 seem a very small quantity it is absolutely essential that 

 every one of those elements which go to make up this 

 3| per cent of incombustible material should be supplied 

 to the tree, or we shoTild get a stunted growth and rapid 

 decay. 



This is the case in every instance, that the soil in 

 which a plant grows must contain every inorganic ingre- 

 dient which it requires for its sustenance or the full 

 vigour of healthy growth will not be obtained. 



