54 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[jvtv i, 1884. 



THE TEA ENTERPEIZE 

 Below we give many matters exclusively connected 

 with tbe manufacture of tea, the extracts being mainly 

 from a very valuable series of articles on tea ma- 

 chinery which has appeared in successive issues of 

 the Indigo and Tea Planters' Gazette. Our readers 

 cannot help sharing our feeling that the perfection 

 to which tea machinery was brought by the time 

 the enterprise in Ceylon had passed from the ex- 

 perimental stage, has placed our planters in a very 

 advantageous position and under a great obligation 

 to the Indian tea-planters who, during a period of 

 from forty to fifty years, have been working out 

 results, of which we have the benefit, by a series 

 of painful and expensive experiments. The old super- 

 stition in favour of the primitive choolas and the 

 troublesome, expensive and, in close factories, dangerous 

 charcoal-heat has been finally dispelled, and by means 

 of Davidson's siroccos teas can be dried to perfection, 

 not merely by means of ordinary firewood, but by burn- 

 ing grass where firewood is not available. We owe 

 so much to India, in truth, that we almost feel in- 

 clined to apologize to its planters for the lead which 

 our teas have taken in the market. We quote an 

 article from the paper already referred to in which 

 a solution of the problem of our success is desider- 

 ated. Much of that success is due to what Mr. 

 Baker and other early visitors to our island regarded 

 as great drawbacks : our wet climate and the absence 

 of a distinctive winter. Ceylon is an island in the 

 track of both monsoons, and is 20° nearer the equator 

 than most of the India tea districts. The result is a 

 much more genial climate, with a rainfall varying 

 from 70 to 250 inches in the south-western and 

 mountainous portions of the colony. In India, there 

 is also a rainfall of 70 to 250 inches, but the bulk 

 of it falls in from four to six months, while long 

 continued droughts and hail-storms are frequent, and 

 all growth is arrested from November to March by a 

 decided winter. Here in Ceylon, November and the 

 first half of December are periods of heavy rain, and, 

 although our fine season on the hills extends from 

 the middle of December to the middle of April, yet 

 there is rarely or never a month without raiu, and 

 growth is not arrested. In Ceylon, therefore pluck- 

 ing and preparation might practically go on all the 

 year round, but that prudence dictates a rest by 

 means of pruning. But such is the forcing nature 

 of our climate, as regards leaf, that the bushes are 

 scarcely pruned when they commence flushing freely 

 again. The effect of our insular position, contiguity 

 to the equator and genial climate is that an altitude 

 of over 5,000 feet here is only the equivalent of 

 3,000 feet and under in Darjeeling. The consequence is 

 a large yield of leaf, not'only in the hot steamy low- 

 lands, but to the equal surprise and pleasure 

 of proprietors of elevated estates, at altitudes of 

 4,000 to 6,100 feet. We believe we are within 

 the mark when we estimate an average of 700 lb- 

 per acre for the lowcountry estates, 600 lb. for 

 medium elevations and 500 for the high estates, 

 5,000 feet and over. This is, we are bound to con. 

 fess, more a matter of climate than of soil, although 

 the soil in many places, especially at high elev- 

 ations has been declared by visitors from the Indian 

 tea districts to be excellent. It may not be so deep 

 and so rich as that of the valley of the Brahma- 

 putra, the Himmalayau slopes, the Terrai and the 

 Dooars, but it has good staying qualities able to 

 support vegetation and to resist wash and sun-com- 

 bustion. Of course time and repeated cropping will 

 tell everywhere, but probably more rapidly ia the 



lowcountry than in the high; but when the period 

 for manuring comes, Ceylon is favourably situated in 

 the proximity of the estates to the seaport and the 

 existence of good means of communication, railways 

 as well as roads. It is true that in money wages 

 we pay more to our labourers in Ceylon than ia 

 the case in India, but we have no bonuses and no 

 expensive system of recruitinc. The stream of labour 

 from Southern India goes and comes freely^ and as 

 a general rule supply is more in proportion to 

 demand here than is the case in India itself. Our 

 advantages therefore are many, and, judging the future 

 by tbe past, our planters will make the mo t of them, 

 so as to retrieve by means of tea the fortunes of 

 the island enfarprize temporarily wrecked by the 

 effects of the coffee-fungus and of over production in 

 Brazil. But, while naturally pleased to find our 

 circumstances, so good and our prospects so hopeful, 

 we can only wish continued good fortune, — or rather 

 a return of it, to our Indian brethren. The fact 

 that 6,600,000 of India tea were taken for consump- 

 tion last month in Britain is certainly an encourag- 

 ing sign. 



JACKSON'S TRAYLESS TEA DRIER. 



We find the following description in the London 

 letter of the Indigo and Tea Planters' Gazette. The 

 new machine seems to embody some of the principles 

 of the Clerihew. It will, of course, require water or 

 steam power to drive the fans. 



On Wednesday, a party consisting of the following gen- 

 tlemen, well-known to all connected with tea planting, by 

 reputation if not otherwise, viz.-. — Messrs. O. Hudson, E. 

 Wahab, A. B. Inglis, Cooke, R. B. Magor, Sefton (L. M. B. 

 Manager) Peet (of Messrs. Peet Bros., Java Merchants), 

 went down by early train to Gainsborough to inspect Mr. 

 W. Jackson's new Tea Drier. On arriving they were re- 

 ceived by the Patentee and driven to the splendid works 

 of Messrs. Marshal] Sons & Co., where they were warmly 

 welcomed by the very courteous members of tbe firm, and 

 conducted through the huge establishment: passing boilers, 

 engines, and machines, innumerable, many of which were 

 of sufficient interest in themselves to justify the journey 

 from town, notably the brick-making. The Messrs Mar- 

 shall make their own bricks, and here one sees what 

 applied science can do in the way of saving labour and 

 " lifting." The unbaked bricks are placed on trucks, the 

 trucks pass on rails into the kiln, remain in the kiln, the 

 necessary time with the bricks on them and then emerge with 

 their loads of baked bricks, other trucks at once taking their 

 place. Thus there is no lifting of the bricks or building 

 and unbuilding of the kiln. But, though sorely tempted 

 to describe many other of the interesting and most val- 

 uable contrivances passed in the traversing, I had almost 

 said the miles of machine shops iu the establishment, for 

 they appeared interminable, ere reaching the Drier that 

 was the special object of attraction on this occasion — I must 

 refrain, or 1 shall have no space left for the Drier itself. On 

 reaching tbe Drier the party were at once struck with 

 its suitability, its internal airangements were found to be on 

 an entirely different principle from any former one, and it is 

 certainly superior to that of Kinmond's or any other Drier. 

 In Kinmond's the trays are objected to by many, whereas in 

 this new Drier the trays are totally abandoned and endless 

 bands are substituted, as they have been already in Mr. Nel- 

 son's machine (of Dehra Dun). In Mr. Nelson's machine the 

 bands were contained in a long case, in this machine in place 

 of the long case, with only two bands one above the other, 

 there are several bands in a more conveniently shaped case. 

 The hot air supplied by a furnace below and heated pipes 

 is sucked up and expelled from the top by a suction fan, 

 not blown through by a fan as iu Mr. Nelson's, thus re- 

 serving the latter's method. The rolled tea is placed in 

 hopper on the top of the machine not far from the fan. 

 The tea then falls upon the uppermost endless band. This 

 band, like its fellows, consists of metal plates and revolves 

 on drums, carrying the tea forward with it, and dropping 

 it into the band next below it, which being longer than 

 the top one, receives the tea, and takes it back in the op- 



