August i, 1884.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



87 



If it is tea leaf, why it i9 the grass which flourishes 

 today and is cast into the oven tomorrow. Tea manu- 

 facture is therefore as distinct from planting as cotton- 

 growing and sheep-farming are from the linen and 

 woollen trade of the great cities in England. When 

 a garden yields 500 lb. a day, it is time it had machinery. 



Aoricola. 



A Daifs Work on a Young Tea Estate. 

 To manufacture 500 lb. or say 430 lb. of green leaf, as 

 a daily average : — 

 Plucking at 2c. per lb. or 12J lb. per head . . . . R9-60 

 Soiling at 40 lb. per cooly, 12 coolies at 37c. ... 4"44 



Firing at SO lb. per head, 6 coolies at 37c 2-22 



Charcoali cwt. 1 qr 4'25 



Items common to both modes of operation have been 

 omitted to simplify the figures. It professes also to be 

 only a rough calculation. The cost of charcoal will be 

 found to be a formidable item. It is about twice the cost 

 of labour in firing fully the value of the cost of rolling 

 and about half the value of plucking. While rolliug, 

 filing and charcoal together represent figures exceeding 

 the cost of plucking, the figures being plucking B9-60, 

 representing the field-work, and manufacture or store-work 

 E10-91— total B20-51 for about from 100 lb. to 110 1b. of 

 good tea, making allowance for coarse leaf, wet leaf, &c. 

 With machinery : — 



Plucking KO'60 



Sirocco firing 1 cooly 37c. 



Sirocco wood cutters 2 at 37c. . . 74c. 



Boiler 1 at 37c. .. 37c, Bl'48 



If with hand -roller the cost will still be the same, as 

 four men rolling oue-and-half hour will be equal only to 

 one man's work of 6is hours. The cooly works ten hours 

 a day for 37 cents. Total cost of rolling and firing Bl '48 

 per diem or a saving of B9'43, a saving equal to nearly 

 the full cost of pluckiug. Thus an estate without machin- 

 ery spends about twice as much (roughly speaking) in pro- 

 ducing the same quantity of tea with, if anything, a quality 

 inferior to the machine-rolled and machine-fired tea. 



A saving of B9'43, say B10 a day, in a field of .50 acres 

 or thereabouts yielding about 500 lb. of leaf daily will 

 yield a profit to the owners of about from B2o0 to B300 

 per month. If the yield doubles, the profits would increase 

 too iu mathematical proportion. For Bo, 000 to B6,000 a 

 year will be about the profit on a tea estate of 100 acres 

 yielding from 6,000 lb. to S,0l'0 lb. of tea per month. This 

 from machinery alone. Interest of value of machine must 

 be added to this as a separate item. 



THE WEATHER AND THE CROPS. 

 In our issue of the 23rd instant, we mentioned 

 that the same mild weather which we are experienc- 

 ing in Colombo was also prevailing in the mountain 

 regions. We now learn from a passenger who 

 travelled down from Lindula via Hatton, that after 

 a few showers during Monday night, the morning 

 cleared up and the sun blazed with fierce heat from 

 an almost cloudless sky through the whole of Tues- 

 day : so intolerable, indeed, were its rays that up to 

 5-30 p.m. they had to be carefully excluded from 

 the railway-carriage. Of course up in the hills the 

 clouds gather as dusk comes on and do not dissip- 

 ate till the day is some hours old, having during 

 the night -hours distilled some of their precious 

 moisture, so that this monsoon is considered by 

 planters to be " a first-rate planting season." We 

 suspect this opinion is founded a good deal upou 

 the fact that most people are putting in the 

 sturdy tea plant which defies almost any ex- 

 treme of weather and bad treatment, while the 

 delicate cinchona and coffee have scarcely a thought 

 given to them. Iu Lindula and the Kotigaloya 

 Valley gangs were busy interlining the coffee, while 

 on the Dikoya side jungle and abandoned coffee, were 

 being opened out, and cultivated coffee was being lined 

 and holed, for tea. Near Mariawatte also a new 



clearing is to be seen — presumably for tea. There is 

 no doubt that within the next five years the pro- 

 ducing acreage of tea will have been enormously ex- 

 tended. It would be almost presumption now to 

 doubt the success of this new product in any part 

 of Ceylon with the results in yield and price before 

 us of such estates as L'ulloden at sea-level, Galboda 

 at 2,500 ft., Loolcondura at 4,500 ft., and Rookwood 

 and Abbot-ford at 4,600 to 6,000 ft. above the sea. We 

 hope to be able to publish statistics at the end of 1884 

 showing that this last estate will have given a yield 

 exceeding 6001b. per acre against 425 lb. last year ; 

 at the same time giving an average value of is 3d 

 per lb. for the whole produce, dust inclusive, show- 

 ing that a fair plucking is performed, neither too 

 coarse for quantity, nor too fine for quality. The 

 manager of this estate inloims us that a small patch 

 which a fortnight ago was badly affected with red 

 spider and Helopeltis has now completely shaken 

 them off and is flushing vigorously. The growth of 

 all vegetable life at present is marvellous. The un- 

 usual drought has told most favorably upon coffee, 

 and everywhere the bushes (except the most aban- 

 doned ones) are loaded with crop or young branches, 

 the future producers of crop. Everyone will rejoice 

 to hear that Logie is to give the biggest crop it ever 

 had, and we know several cases where the yield will 

 be three or four times that of last year. So that 

 it is an ill-wind that blows nobody any good. 

 If this drought has been prejudicial to tea 

 in some districts, and we have received complaints to 

 that effect, it has been good generally for coffee and 

 cinchona, and in other districts so favourable has it 

 bieu for the growth of leaf that the flush cannot be 

 overtaken. We believe Imbulpitiya is suffering from 

 this happy plethora. Three weeks ago Mr. Scovell 

 of Strathellie informed us that he had just made 

 5,000 lb. of prepared tea in one week, having manu- 

 factured over 1,000 lb. in one day. In view of such 

 figures as these, the Ceylon and home Governments 

 ought not to hesitate one day longer as to the ex- 

 pediency and urgency of railway extension. For every 

 100 acres of tea in bearing the railway ought yearly 

 to receive consignments amounting to 35 to 50 tons 

 (including chests and lead) down, besides all the rice, 

 manure, charcoal, shooks, lead, nails, hoop-iron and 

 machinery up. Already the Hatton extension is doing 

 good service. A few days after it was opened it con- 

 veyed safely and expeditiously a 1 Sirocco dryer up, and 

 we heard that thegoode-shed was crammed; the day after 

 the opening, Gaibodda sent down 5 tons of tea, 

 and on Tuesday the Galboda gnods-shed was piled 

 up with tea chests bearing the well-known mark K A 

 W. One inconvenience which we hope will soon be 

 remedied is the non-supply of horse and carriage trucks, 

 so that traps have still to be sent via Nawalapitiya. 

 Another great inconvenience surely to strangers and 

 to those not fortunate enough (or with too much 

 delicacy) to have friends, near Hatton is the utter 

 absence of anything like a resthouse where to obtain 

 refreshment or a night's lodging. But a great con- 

 venience which almost makes up for the latter want is 

 the running of the Dikoya and Dimbula-Nuwara Eliya 

 coaches, which, we are glad to learn, are being freely 

 patronized. 



♦ 



THE PREPARATION OF TEA. 



Our readers will be interested iu the following details 

 the most noteworthy of which is that by means of pans 

 even an expert person in China can fire only 3 or 4 lb. daily. 



General Mesny writes to us from Soochow, under date of 

 May 26th. as follows : — 



I have just met a Mr. Hu, who is a native of Hui-chou Fu, 

 in An-hui, and whose family has for three generation* 

 employed in the preparation of tea for the English marki t. 

 That kind of tea, called Mo-yime, eo highly prized in 



