20(3 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. LSr *, 1884. 



close of the exhibition, but failed utterly to discover any 

 wood which seemed to possess the last chemical action 

 upon lead. 



That the wood is not the cause of the action seems 

 still further indicated by the fact that in China, as in 

 India, a large number of woods are used, and that there 

 does not seem the slightest evidence, neither in India 

 nor in China, that any of these woods has as yet. been 

 shown by experience to corrode the lead. If the ques- 

 tion was merely one of flavour imparted to the tea, 

 one would expect the pine wood used in China to stand 

 first in this respect ; but what is complained of is tho 

 chemical decomposition of the lead lining, and the 

 cause of this might easily enough be determined by 

 chemical aualyzis of the tea so destroyed, compared 

 with a chemical examination of the fresh wood used for 

 the boxes, and chemical experiments with the various 

 actions upon lead of the compounds formed from the 

 fermentation of tea. The presence of any active prin- 

 ciple .amongst the tea which belonged to the wood 

 would prove my explanation to be incorrect; while the 

 establishment definitely of the peculiar compounds from 

 tea which possess the corroding power would lay the 

 foundation for a complete solution of the difficulty. The 

 preparation of tea upon a scientific principle seems a not 

 very distant future. 



TEA PICKINGS. 

 'The Home and Colonial Mail of July 11th contains 

 a pretty full report of the fourth ordinary general 

 meeting of the Jokai (Assam) Tea Company, Limited; 

 and we have marked for comment those portions of 

 it which, we believe, will be of the greatest interest 

 to our readers. The chairman, enlarging upon and 

 explaining as' far as possible the various paragraphs 

 of the report, ' ' drew attention, in the first place, 

 to the outturn for the past year, which he thought 

 the proprietors would all regard as very satisfactory, 

 being 40,028 lb. over the managers' estimates ; or, in 

 other words, nearly 30 per cent over last season's 

 crop. This confirmed the statement he had made on 

 previous occasions that their gardens were progressive. 

 They were still very young, the greater portion 

 had not yet arrived at maturity, and for many years 

 to come they might expect increments, if not so 

 largo as that of last year, yet very nearly so. Those 

 increases would, however, in future be due to keeping 

 a proper and adequate supply of labour on the 

 gardens, so as to maintain a high state of cultivation." 

 We are glad to see that the Chairman of this 

 Company, Mr. J. Berry White, talks more common- 

 sensedly than did the Chairman of the Assam 

 Company the other day when he said that it was 

 no use manuring the tea because it sent its tap-root 

 so far down. A high state of cultivation implies 

 manuring, and on this subject a Darjiling planter 

 writes thus sensibly to the Indigo and Tea Planters' 

 Oazette : — 



There must be a considerable difference between the tea 

 bushes on the Assam Company's gardens and those any- 

 where else. At the last half-yearly meeting of the Com- 

 pany held in London, a shareholder interrogated the Chair- 

 man on the subject of manuring the plants. Tho great 

 man shut that inquisitive shareholder up as effectually as 

 the G. O. PL does as inquisitive member of the House 

 of Commons. The gentleman who " wauted to know you 

 know " was told in so many words that manure was of 

 no use to tea bushes, as they were like chesnuts and 

 sycamores, the tap roots went down to the virgin .soil. 

 The Chairman evidently forgot, or perhaps did not know, 

 that tea bushes have such things as lateral roots spread- 

 ing out in every direction close under the surface, and 

 that these laterals play a very important part in the nutri- 

 ment of the plant— probably more important than the 

 tap root. However, shareholders, no more than 

 members of Parliament, have any right to be inquisitive and 

 ask trivial questions, and if tl ■ " insist on doing so, 

 they must make up their minds to a snubbing. It seems 

 to be generally argued amongst piactical wcl. that the 



various artificial manures are too expensive for use on a 

 large scale in this district; but a certain amount of niauur- 

 ing is done every cold weather on most gardens in the 

 way of applying cattle manure and vegetable mould, as 

 well as in digging in the jungle thrice'or oftener during 

 the rains. 



Of course the junffle above referred to is 

 what we in Ceylon should call shedi, and is 

 simply the undergrowth of grass, weeds, and 

 seedlings of all sorts. We believe it will prove the 

 wisest economy lor those who can afford it to keep 

 up a strong force of labour, so that a constant dig- 

 ging may be given to the whole estate, say three or 

 four times in the year. The increase in yield will 

 more than repay the increased expenditure, while it 

 stands to reason that the more luxuriant flush will 

 turn out finer tea. The labour question, by-the-bye, 

 is liable to become a rather serious one in Ceylon as 

 more estates come into - bearing, if it is true, as we 

 hear, that even at R12 per head coolies cannot be 

 procured. 



But to return to the Jokai Company. Of the total 

 out-turn of 295,52S lb. there were sold in London 

 292,301 lb„ the remainder (3,207 lb.) having been lost in 

 taring. This loss "was just about one per cent, of the 

 out-turn, which was below the average of most other 

 concerns, a fact which testified to the pain3 taken 

 by their managers and agents. Small as it was he 

 trusted it would be yet further greatly reduced before 

 long, owing to the regulations sanctioned |,by Her 

 Majesty's Customs, under which all taring in this 

 country (i.e. England) would be dispensed with; in 

 other words, the weights as given at the factory 

 would be accepted. By this arraugement, the Com- 

 pany would not only avoid th's direct absolute loss 

 but the teas themselves would escape the loss of 

 aroma, freshness, and condition generally, which in- 

 evitably followed upon being turned out and left 

 open in the warehouses for several days." In a note 

 to tho letter of a correspondent who complains of 

 the large loss he had suffered through taring, although 

 he himself had most carefully bulked all his teas 

 and had sent a certificate to that effect, the editor 

 of the Home Mail says, " The word ' bulked " haa 

 been so abused by being marked on chests and garden 

 invoices when the bulking has not been all it should 

 have been, that it is no longer relied upon in the 

 Lane, save in cases where gardens or companies have 

 established a reputation." We trust our planters will 

 from the first endeavour to establish such a reputation 

 that "Ceylon Tea" will be the synonym of all that 

 is " honest, true, and of good report." 



After touching upon the cost of production, which 

 last year had amounted to 9fd per lb. in Calcutta, 

 and ll^d in London, Mr. J. Berry White remarked : — 

 "Referring to the future, he felt bound to say that the 

 whole question of the industry hinged upon that oue 

 point — cost of production, Ho would not venture to 

 say whether prices would or would not improve, but 

 this he felt eure of that iu the future their profits 

 would chiefly lie in the direction of reducing the 

 cost of production." He hoped such a reduction 

 would be made not merely by that company, but by 

 the whole tea industry, to the extent of 3d per lb. ; 

 and the chief factor he relied upon for this result 

 was machinery. "It was only a few years ago that 

 it cost Is 7d to Is 9d a pound to produce, tea. That 

 cost had now been brought down to 11 Jd in this 

 country (England), and the reduction was to be attrib- 

 uted mainly to machinery. Machinery, however, 

 was still in its infancy, and a great deal of that now 

 being used was far from fully developed. Especially was 

 this the case, not with the rolling, but with the 

 drying machinery. The first really perfect drier had 

 ouly been introduced during the past twelve t! 

 while within the same puiod a revolution, praoticallj 



