July i, 1&84.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



S3 



for similar teaa, 29 to 30 cents. In London also the 

 aise may be estimated at fully 10 to 15 per cent on fine 

 and 20 to 25 per cent on common teas. The year hag 

 been remarkable in the American greon tea market 

 for the courage shown by mauy importers in 1883 m 

 holding on to their stocks through periods of slack 

 demand,— a course which has strengthened confidence, 

 and tended to check the disposition natural in dull 

 times to force off Teas at public auction. In point of 

 fact, the quantity green tea sold in the latter half of 

 1883 in New York in the manner referred to represents 

 but 50 per cent of the quantity thus disposed of in the 

 year before. 



In describing the opening of the Tea market at Han- 

 kow, the Shanghai Courier: — 



The quality of the crop is decidedly superior to that 

 of last year, the weather having proved everything to 

 be desired : heavy snow in February and almost 

 continuous sunshine since : nothing is lacking but care 

 in the manipulation, which the Chinamen have ap- 

 parently made up their minds it is no longer worth 

 their while to expend, the demand being, with few 

 exceptions, for price entirely. 



The collapse of the Brazil and Havre Syndicate 

 and its results are thus noticed in the Bio News, the 

 editor of which paper, it will be observed, estimates 

 the loss of the ring at over a million sterling :— 

 The misguided enterprise of the syndicates and 

 their friends in buying coffee on the Havre market 

 for a rise, has resulted in a heavy loss. This might 

 bave been expected. Without accurate and full know- 

 ledge of the world's production and consumption, and 

 without even a definite knowledge of the crop pros- 

 pects of Brazil, these gentlemen were certainly very 

 poorly equipped to undertake a "bull" speculation 

 on the Havre and New York exchanges. They had 

 the conceit, however ; and now they bave lees con- 

 ceit, less money and more experience. According to 

 an evening contemporary they have lost 20,000 

 contos, while the broker's estimates vary from 

 £1,000,000 to £1,250,000 sterling. This is equivalent 

 to a loss on the latter estimates and in round num- 

 bers, of from 470,000 to 580,000, bags of coffee, or 

 nearly a tenth of the whole crop of the country. 

 Experience, it should be understood, is a very ex- 

 pensive teacher. We need not say that Brazil is in 

 no position to lose such a sum of money just at this 

 time, but if the loss serves to teach her planters 

 and factors to mind their own particular business— 

 the production and marketing of the product— -it 

 may not have been lost in vain. It is pure folly to 

 suppose that local syndicates can either control the 

 markets of the world, or execute a successful "bull" 

 operation on foreign exchanges. They hove neither 

 the capital, knowledge, or experience. The sooner the 

 planters and their factors master the fact that Brazil 

 is only one among many producing countries and that 

 they cannot influence the prices in consuming mar- 

 kets by any local combination, the sooner will they 

 get rid of all this sentimental nonsense about foreign 

 speculators and foreign combinations. The consumer 

 is bound to buy at the lowest price obtainable. If over- 

 production and competition force down prices below 

 the cost of production, then the planter must either 

 cheapen production or turn his attention to some 

 other industry. Of one thing he can rest assured : 

 the old margins of profit on coffee production are 

 over and are likely never to return, except it lie in 

 some year of general short crops. If he intends to 

 continue growing coffee, he lias one course open before 

 bim : cheaper and better systems of cultivation and 

 preparation, and cheaper and better facilities for putt- 

 ing his product on the market. 



Cacao Culture in the Eastern Province of Ceylon. 

 — Laud can be procured in any quantity at the upset price 

 of RIO per acre, and, as regards Mr. B'ielder's successful 

 experiment, we learn that the seed from which his clearing 

 was planted, came all from l'allakellie. Planted under 

 shade, he found the trees to succeed the best ; labour em- 

 ployed coast coolies. The trees from which the pods we 

 noticed recently were picked have had no artificial 

 irrigation whatever. 



Ground Nut Trade. — We hear that the ground nut 

 trade in Pondicherry, is likely to be much larger this 

 year than last. Mauy ships and steamers have been 

 fully freighted with ground nuts from Pondicherryj and 

 mauy others have been chartered to load nuts at that 

 port for France. Supplies from the interior of the 

 South Arcot district continue to arrive in abundance, 

 and while the trade of the settlement is being pushed 

 on, the South Indian Company continue to run special 

 trains with nuts between Punrooty and Pondicherry 

 every day, and are likely to do so for the next three 

 or four months. — Madras Standard. 



Coconut oil is said to be a cure for scorpion stings. 

 A correspondent writes to a Bombay paper: — " I was 

 at one time stung by a scorpion in the palm of the 

 hand, and a native of Singapore, where I was at the 

 time, being present, recommended its application as a 

 certain cure. I followed the advice given, but in the 

 mean time sent for the ordinary remedy ammonia 

 This latter I had no occasiou to use, as in less than 

 two hours the whole of the swelling, which was very 

 gieat, had disappeared. The only other inconvenience 

 was a slight irritation for about six hours. The coconut 

 oil was well rubbed in almost immediately after I 

 was stung." — Madras Mail. 



The Coffee Market. — In the Wynaad and in 

 Coorg, as well as in Travancore and Ceylon, 

 the position and prospects of coffee are regarded 

 with profound apprehension by a class of enter- 

 prising patient men towards whom Nature has been 

 anything but indulgent for several years. Twenty 

 years ago the middle-aged capitalist who went into 

 coffee as the buyer of young estates, or the opener 

 out of new ground, was regarded as a man who was 

 doing au uncommonly good thing. But now capit- 

 alists wont look at coffee. Twenty years ago youths 

 in the Army readily exchanged their Bwords for 

 pruning knives, and fondly calculated on succeeding 

 after ten or twelve years of a " good time, " in 

 doing sufficiently well to enable them to retire with 

 a competency to their native land. But now recruits 

 of this class may be looked for in vain in the cof- 

 fee field of labour. A great change has come over 

 the whole industry, and has filled with foreboding 

 the minds of those who have succeeded in hanging 

 on to coffee in the fond hope of a turn in the tide 

 of misfortune. To these persons especially the sta- 

 tistics relating to coffee are of intense interest. Un- 

 fortunately the figures are not yet encouraging. On 

 the 1st ultimo, the stock of coffee in Europe was 

 217,100 tons, as compared with 160,250 tons, on the 

 corresponding date in 1-83, 161,800 tons in 1S82, 

 143,850 tons in 1881, 114,050 tons in 1S80, and 

 95,400 tons in 1879. So the stock on the 1st ul- 

 timo was more than double the quantity held on 

 1st April 1879. The stock has accumulated so much 

 this year, that, as a natural conaccruence, prices in 

 all markets have fallen very considerably. Hut the 

 outlook for cultivators is not quite so bad as one 

 might bo ltd to suppose by the foregoing figures. — 

 Madras Mail. 



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