THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [September i, 1884. 



Brazil, also with enormous freight charges, which have no 

 eolfee to carry, whose agriculture is in an embryonic state 

 and into whose districts emigrants are not steadily flow- 

 ing ? The above lacts also prove that even the Sao Paulo 

 lines cannot be considered in a satisfactory state, having 

 as they hive but one source of revenue — a state of things 

 that the companies ought to attempt to remedy by making 

 considerable reduction in their freight charges, even though 

 it brought about a reduction of two or more per cent in 

 their dividends for a lew years, as after this time the 

 lines would be much more valuable in having more than 

 " one string to their bows." 



Taking a general view of the Government guarantees to 

 railways and sugar factories, it will be found that when 

 the lines and factories now being made under guarantee or 

 by, the Government itself are completed, Brazil will be 

 responsible for the annual payment of a sum of pro- 

 bably more than .£2,000,000 in the form of interest on 

 these two things aloue. The prospect of some of the lines 

 paying part of their guaranteed interest is poor indeed, 

 when we find that but two or three, are earning anything 

 towards the guarantee, and more especially when the 

 lam ius Sao Paulo Railway itself is dependent on coffee 

 tor more than half its revenue; hence subject any year 

 toa tremendous downfall should either a good hard frost, the 

 leaf disease, or the coffee bug (Lecanium cojfece) appear 

 in the plantations. 



There cannot be a doubt that if the present order of 

 things continues, with the annual deficits, the continued 

 construction of lines into sparsely populated districts which 

 at the present time have no agriculture, the granting of guar- 

 anteed interest to central sugar factories and other similar 

 undertakings, the Brazilian Government, when the crisis 

 comes for the transformation of slave labour into free, will 

 most surely have to enter into terms with the guaranteed 

 companies for a lower rate of interest, when instead of 

 6 to 7 per cent, it is possible that only 3 to 4 per 

 cent will be received by the shareholders, 

 with which thay will have to be content, it may be for 

 a long period of years. 



It must not be supposed that because Brazil is rich iu 

 minerals, and has soil suitable for some very valuable 

 tropical product, she will be able to weather the troubles 

 ever attendant on such social diseases as: — 



1. A pending emancipation of a million slaves. 



2. An ir-redeemable paper currency. 



'.',. Continued annual deficits made up by new loans. 



Let those who have their money invested in Brazil look 

 to it; let them set their faces against the raising of 

 money for unnecessary railways and sugar factories, and 

 it they have any spare cash let them offer it as a loan 

 to promote the emancipation of the black man and red- 

 emption of the paper currency; then, after these things 

 are resolved, will the country be able to offer employment 

 to capital and give sure and certain guarantee for the 

 payment of large interest, but not till then. — I am. Sir, 

 your obedient servant, Walter J. Hammond. — London 

 limes. 



An enterprizing American inventor has patented a 

 process hy which he intends to disguise corn, bailey, 

 wheat, beans and other amylaceous substances by 

 means of extract of willow bark, till a connoisseur 

 cannot te'l the product from real coffee. This would 

 be very haid upon Brazil and Central America, were 

 it likely to succeed. But we have not forgotten the 

 date-coffee euterprize, and the utter failure which 

 attended it — British Trade Journal, 



Tea Averages. — We are eous'antly pointing out 

 how untrustworthy the averages m ide up by the 

 brokers are, and we have now a very notable proof 

 of this to record. The average for the Gleualla 

 Kstate (in circle) was given by Messrs. G. White & 

 Co. as Is OJd, whereas the pioprietor has received 

 account sales showing that the real average was Is 4d. 

 As the sales of Ceylon teas are very closely watched 

 now, and as this was the first shipment from this 

 estate, we think it right to give the matter due 

 prominence. 



TEA PICKINGS. 



We give a few pickings chiefly from the Indigo Gaz, '/,', 

 which is rapidly becoming a very valuable report. 1 y of 

 information on all matters connected with tea. A Darjil. 

 ing correspondent of this paper writes : — "I am sorry to 

 say ' green fly ' blight is very prevalent just now on 

 some Terai gardens. This" blight is infiuitely more 

 destructive than ' red spider.' Strange to say the 

 ' green fly ' is said not to have existed in the Terai 

 until very recently— more probably it had not been 

 recognised previously. The heavy rain does not seem 

 to agree with ' red spider ' as once the rains set in, 

 he does not appear to spread. Anyhow the flush 

 seems to grow in spite of him." In this connection 

 we may quote from the same pnper a paragraph in an 

 essay on "Laying out a Plantation. " The writer saj s :— 

 " A good deal is often said about manuring, red 

 spider, and other blights ; but common sense and 

 elbow grease will go a long way towards relieving 

 the planter of his difficulties in both cases. The green 

 jungle growth (i. e. the weeds), cut down before it 

 hus seeded, and dug well into the land, replenishes 

 it very considerably, and plants raised originally from 

 good healthy seed, and afterwards properly cultivated 

 and kept open to the influences of the atmo- 

 sphere, carefully pruned and judiciously plucked, 

 are not likely to suffer much from blights and 

 similar troubles. There is much weight in Mr. 

 Schrottky's remarks that 'Sickly parents, as a rule, 

 bave Biekly offsprings,' and that 'in many cases the 

 diseased state of the tea plant can be traced back 

 to diseased parents.' " The above we believe is the 

 right view of the case. In his introductory remarks 

 this writer observes: — "The tea-plant will grow iu 

 almost any soil of ordinary fertility, but it thrives 

 best in a rich, brown loam, mixed with decayed 

 vegetable matter, and a little sand to keep it porous. 

 It is not, however, so easily suited as to climate, 

 demanding a very liberal supply of both heat and 

 moisture during the growing season, and being an 

 evergreen its annual necessny period of absolute rest 

 is not a long one. In Ceylon, I believe, hopes are 

 entertained of being able to keep it in a yielding 

 condition almost during the entire year, though iviih 

 us it seldom puts forth any leaves worth gathei ing 

 earlier than March or late than November. ' Both the 

 climate and the soil of the Darjeeling Hills up to an 

 elevation of, say, 5,000 feet, appear to suit it well, 

 except where the land is very steep and exposed 

 to the mid-day sun. Some slopes of this soit 

 even are to be seen fairly well covered with good 

 yielding bushes, but they have not been brought 

 to paying point without a greater expenditure of 

 tune and money thin suffices for gentler and cooler 

 slopes. When thoroughly established, plants on 

 steep slopes, if the soil is not washed away 

 or otherwise removed from their root?, do best 

 during the wettest seasons, being at such an ad. 

 vantage as to drainage: but the same circumstance, 

 of course, operates terribly against them duriug the 

 dry weather, and now-a-days P/arjeeling gardens are 

 sometimes five or eveu six months without rain, 

 though twenty years ago, before the forest had been 

 cut away, even two months continuous dry weather 

 could scarcely be depended upon." As to the cutting 

 down of tha forest influencing the rainfall in the 

 slightest, especially iu the hilly country of Darjiling, 

 we defy the writer to give a single ligure to prove 

 his case. The forest may and does help to retain 



