422 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[November i, 18^4. 



treatment in preparing the nursery. The soil should 

 be well pulverized about one or one and half foot deep. 

 The top of the nursery about one and half inch 

 should be rilled with a mixture of two parts soil and 

 one part powdered charcoal. Cover the seeds lightly 

 about half-inch shade aud water twice a day morn- 

 ing and evening all other treatments same as for 

 Arabian coffee, if the soil is poor, mix well-decayed 

 cow-dung manure (one-third manure to two-thirds soil). 

 Seeds will germinate in five to seven weeks. Germin- 

 ation completes iu twelve weeks. 



J. P. WILLIAM & BROS. 

 [With the above came sketches showing the com- 

 parative siz»s of the Arabian aud Maragogipe coffees, 

 The latter is twice the size of the former. But our 

 correspondents do not seem to have seen the un- 

 favourable notice of the big coffee which we quoted 

 from the Java papers. — Ed.] 



THE NEED FOR ADVERTISING COCA SEED IN 

 THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 

 Harehatch Estate, via Bodeuackauore, 

 2nd October 1SS4. 

 Dear Sir, — Could you kindly let me know where 

 I could get coea seed from, and at what price? — I am, 

 dear sir, yours faithfully, 



GEO. WM. CLAKIDGE. 



TEA PLUCKING. 



Colombo, 17th October 1831. 



Dear Sirs, — I have seen it frequently stated by 

 correspondents in your columns, that, in taking large 

 yields of leaf from our tea bushes, we are exhausting 

 them, aud iu the course of a few years they will not 

 only cease to yield but finally die from the effects. 



I think you also hold the opinion that we should 

 give our bushes that r< -st which the climate does not 

 afford, but what advantage we can gain by "kicking 

 against the pricks " is a puzzle to me. 



Sceiug how small a percentage of the leaf European 

 planters pluck compared with the Chinese, and that 

 nipping off the young shoots as fast as they grow 

 cannot, to my miud, have a tithe of the effect of pruning 

 and topping, the idea appears to me to be opposed to 

 commonsense and experience. 



Will Dr. Trimen or any of your scientific readers 

 give us their opinion, as to whether there is either 

 rhymo or reason in the assertion'; and whether any 

 benefit will arise from trying to counteract the forcing 

 nature of our climate. 



Can our plucking young shoot*, aud thus cheeking 

 the surface growth, be more injurious than coppicing 

 or pruning '! 



We know very well that in the case of bushes and 

 trees, to which these processes are applicable, the 

 effect is not destructive. Take cinnamon amongst 

 tropic il evergreen plants as an example of the dura'iou 

 of one deprived twice a year, not only of a luge 

 portion of its leaves, but of its limbo also, with put 

 apparently shortening its life. 



Do we kill hedges of various kinds by clipping them 

 or grass by mowing it ! I am told by my barber, who 

 is an experienced French coiffeur, aud should know, 

 that the oftener I get my hair clipped the stronger it 

 will "row. Yet I am asked to believe that if the same 

 process is applied to my t a plants I will kill them. — 

 Yours truly, T. P. 



["That rest which the climate does not afford"; 

 but certainly the climate docs afford a compilative rest 

 at intervals, and, if pruning be properly don,, 

 must there not be an abstention from plucking for 

 an appreciable time afterwards V The oomparisun be-, 

 tween cinuamon or cinchona coppice I twice a year ami 

 a tea plant plucked every month of the year, as " T. P." 

 would have it, seems rather far-fetched.— Ed. J 



MINERALS IN CEYLON. 



Upcountry, 20th Oct. 1884. 



Dear Sir,— Can you oblige me by telling me if the 

 enclosed is a melal of any value ? It looks to me 

 like tin. — Yours &c, J. A. R. 



[The piece of ore sent to ub, mainly ironstone, was 

 surrounded with a bright-looking metal, very like tin 

 in appearance, but, on being tested, it proved, as we 

 suspected, to be iron pyrites with a good deal of 

 sulphur.— Ed.] 



JACKSON'S TEA SIFTER. 

 Upper Abbotsford, Liudula, 24th Oct. 1884. 

 Dear Sir, — I am most happy to be able to gi\e 

 the following testimony in favour of Jackson's Sifter. 

 I altered the wire mesh from 10, 8, G, to 12, 10, 8, 

 and last Monday, on using it for the first time after 

 the alteration, it sorted 4,000 lb. of tea in 5J hours, or 

 at the rate of nearly S00 lb. per hour. It was alto- 

 gether most perfect work. — Yours faithfully, 



A. M. FERGUSON, Jr. 



"TEA-LEAF" AS A PRODUCT FOR NATIVE 

 PILFERERS: "PEPPERCORN'' AND EDITOR 



HAPPILY CAUGHT ! 

 Dear Sir, — Residing as I do in the immediate 

 vicinity of a native village, the remarks of Mr. Pepper- 

 corn (p. 401) and the suggestions in your editorial 

 (p. 405) fill me with alarm. 



The patient plundered planter has at length fallen 

 across a product which, owing to the comparative 

 difficulty of turning the raw material into a market- 

 able article, is fairly secure from depredation. Too 

 many of us know to our cost how frequently the 

 crop on our outlying fields of coffee turns out ter- 

 ribly short of our very reasonable expectations, while 

 our friend Appuhami, who owns a small wattie ad- 

 joining, is agreeably surprised at having under- 

 estimated the produce of his few lanky, semi abandoned 

 trees. Why, in the name of all that is conservative, 

 should wo, now that coffee has failed us, go deliber- 

 ately out of our way to enable our friend to carry 

 on the same old game with our leaves (and at the same 

 time without our leaves) as he did with our berries ? 

 I fail entirely to see the force of Mr. Peppercorn'.-, 

 argument. He starts by asserting that " he will ever 

 find a stretch of tea a barren field for his absorb 

 ing enterprise," and forthwith proceeds to demonstrate 

 how "he" may render it a fruitful one. Ideals have 

 usually a pleasing appearance ; and I grant the various 

 little patches of tea, e eh of which contributes its 

 quota towards swelling the stream that Hows into the 

 central factory (owned, ideally, by Mr. Peppercorns 

 who is not at the same time an es ate proprietor), 

 make up a sufficiently attractive one; but I doubt 

 muchly whether that gentleman were be both factory- 

 baas and proprietor of adjacent tea bushes, Mould 

 perceive the humour of giving ten cents for a pound 

 made up of two thirds of his own and one-third oi 

 Appuhami s tea? Let the native stick to coffee, 

 cinchona, cardamoms or cacao, which afford ample 

 space for the development of his cntcrprize, and of 

 which the last is, according to the Director of the 

 Botanical Gardens, peculiarly suited for village cultiv- 

 ation, a suitability which has presented itself so 

 vividly to the minds of certain parties that they, to 

 quote the same authority, "are even purchasing 

 seed;" but leave, oh ! leave us our tea. As Mr. 

 Peppercorn, with charming u.Vivu'c, remarks (the 

 italics ure mine) : "The villagers would very soon 

 learn what to pluck, and, as the green leaf can be 

 carried a considerable distance without harm, all 

 ,/ about curing would cease, and the ready cash 

 system at the factory would suit the buyer as well 

 as Ike seller." The last statement I venture to doubt. 

 EX NIHILO NIHIL FIT. 



