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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[January i, 1885. 



The American Evaporators. — We are glad to 

 learn from Messrs. W. H. Davies & Co. that they 

 are erecting a No. 3 evaporator at Messrs. Carey, 

 Strachan & Co. '8 Mills in Colombo, where they purpose 

 testing it. with cacao and cardamoms and any other 

 available product. The machine will be ready by 

 Wednesday next. Mr. R. S. Fraser will shortly have 

 a machine (No. 2) on his estate ; one left yesterday for 

 Blackstone to be tried with tea, and another is going, 

 on orders, to Cyprus estate. We hope, soon, there- 

 fore, to be informed of the adaptability of the maehiue 

 for tea drying. 



Wheat and Wool in South Australia are thus 

 noticed in the S. A. Register :— Harvest prospects 

 continue brilliant, and unless tempestuous weather 

 prevails during the reaping operations a general aver- 

 age of 10 bushels to the acre may be fairly calculated 

 upon. It is now generally acknowledged that last 

 season's yield exceeded the official figures by about 

 one bushel per acre, bringing up the average to some- 

 thing like nine bushels to the acre. The quantity 

 of wool passing through Port Adelaide this season is 

 uuprecedeutedly large. From August last no less than 

 £50,000 bales have passed over the railway, and four 

 firms alone show an increase of 15,000 to 16,000 bales 

 on the number received by ihiB time last year. 



Tea Investments. — Certain calculations have been 

 made, writes a London correspondent of the Indigo 

 and Tea Planters' Gazette, by which it has been 

 shown that the nmuey vested in all the tea pro- 

 perties in India hiving their head-quarters in 

 England ; [i.e. in those Companies known technically 

 as "English Tea Companies") returned 6$ percent, 

 last year, if worked out over the whole of the money 

 so invested. Such a return from produce iu these 

 days is certainly encouraging, and if it be only 

 maintained along-side of the heavy losses sustained 

 in to many of the produce markets, English investors 

 will not have much cause to complain of their 

 speculation in Indian tea property, bad times notwith- 

 standing. 



SuGAE.— From Eastern Java it is reported, that twe've 

 more sugar factories will shortly stop wot king, not being 

 able to keep up with the present price of the article. 

 The Hanks, fully a»are that they have already gone 

 in too deeply with advances, are not willing to assist 

 any any further, and it is feared that some of them 

 will suffer such great losses by the present sugar- 

 crisis, that it becomes doubtful whether they will be 

 able to stand it. In the meantime, many p ople 

 will be without work, and without means to support 

 themselves. What will be the end of this? iu 

 Europe, also, the low prices of sugar have already 

 cnated great miser in Austria, and able judges 

 giveas their opinion that Germany will, shortlj suffer 

 no less, unless some gieat but cinexpecteil change 

 should take place, by the several Governments putting 

 tie ir heads t >gether. — Singapore Free Press, Nov. 22ud. 



DabjeEijng.— It has been proved conclusively up here, 

 oil the small scale of course, that leaf mould, and virgin soil 

 and thoroughly well rotted cattle manure applied freely to 

 the roots of the tea bushes will undoubtedly have the effect 

 of mitigating the attacks of red spider, and it has also been 

 proved that putting tictia put (the wormwood so common in 

 the hills) round the bushes and letting it rot there will cer- 

 tainly give the green fly notice to quit. Mud applied to the 

 leaves of the bushes has certainly the effect of stopping the 

 spider ; but the process appears to be too slow anil too ex- 

 pensive for universal adoption on a large scale. It does 

 appear from this that the soil where bushes are attacked 

 must be deficieut in some important chemical constituent, 

 and it is here that the advice of an agricultural chemist 

 would be simply invaluable. lied spider, whether rightly or 

 wrongly, is supposed to have been introduced into the hills 

 through the medium of seed from Assam, Bud there is no 

 mistake whatever about the spider spreading speedily from 

 i. sh to bush and from garden to garden. — Planters' Gazette 



Tea in China —We alluded in last weekly sum- 

 mary to Mr. H. S. Eraser's importation of silkworm 

 eggs. We may add that Mr. Frastr's impression of 

 the tea he saw in China and Japan was, that it was very 

 badly pruned, the branches being much gnarled. The 

 leaf iu Japan was somewdiat larger than that of the 

 bushes iu China, but nowhere could the tea compare 

 with goodAssam hybrid. 



CUBIC acid is much in favour iu France as an 

 antiseptic. Specimens of meat placed in only a five per 

 cent solution of it for 15 days are said to have been 

 taken out perfectly preserved. Even a weak solution 

 is stated to cause death to bacteria. Could it not be 

 advantageously employed as a dentifrice, for a German 

 dentist his recently shown that caries is due to certain 

 fungi ? — Australasian. 



Darjilinu Tea— Nov. 23rd.— The tea season of 1884 

 may also be said to be closed, and I doubt if the remit 

 will be altogether satisfactory to shareholders. Brokers 

 say that the tea manufactured was not all round up 

 to the average of previous years, and prices have been 

 low. However it may be, there will be no dividends 

 on any but the best and oldest gardens, and even these 

 will n it be much to boast of. — Englishman. 



Tea Machinery in Cey/lon.— Further improvements 

 in tea-preparing machinery form still the order of the 

 day : the lat st exhibited is a " Tea sifter and separator " 

 invented by Mr. Gore, which, as may be seen from the 

 report given elsewhere, is regarded as doing very satisfac- 

 tory work. It is further stated, that Mr. David Fair- 

 weather of Semhawatte has invented what he terms "a 

 green-leaf spreader " whereby much time is saved in 

 spreading and taking oft' the leaf from the withering 

 tats. It, is described by a coulemporaiy as follows :— 

 The leaf is spread ou an endless tat 6 feet long, spread 

 on rollers. From this it drops on to the withering tats, 

 which are also eudless, and may be erected about 60 ieet 

 in length, supported hy light wires across them. When 

 cue tat has carried its leaf to the end, the "spreading " 

 tat is raised at one end about 7 inches, and the same 

 operation gone through until all the tats aro filled. The 

 spreading cooly never moves from the spot, and by this 

 machine one man will spread from 400 to 500 lb. of 

 green leaf per hour. In taking off the leaf the tats are 

 made to travel round the rollers, and the withered leaf 

 falls off at the end, thus saving a great amount of time. 

 We congratulate Mr. Fairweather on his simple but 

 effective invention, and are glad to learn that his method 

 of spreading leaf is to take practical effect iu the exten- 

 sion uf the Membawatte and the New Mariawatte factories. 



CeilON Cocoa. — I have recently been instituting enquiries 

 as to the present extremely low price of Ceylon cocoa as com- 

 pared with the rates ruling during last year, which you will 

 remember topped all, or nearly all, other quotations. I 

 remember about that time that yon stated in your local 

 issue that a famous foreign manufacturer of fancy cho- 

 colate had been so much struck with the fine flavor and rich- 

 ness of your cocoa that he he had instructed his Colombo 

 agents to secure all they could obtain of like quality at the 

 same figuro as the first lot was bought. I am not cer- 

 tain as to that amount, but I rather think it was E4S or 

 E50. Now 1 1 hink the Colombo rate is down to E32, and 

 here the article commands about the same figure as the 

 ordinary Trinidad. As I cannot ascertain the opinions of 

 the continental manufactures, I am obliged to be content 

 with that of the Mincing Lane brokers, and they assure 

 me that the English makers of flake and ordinary cocoas 

 complain of your article that it is much dry and not con- 

 taining nearly so much of the natural fatty matter of the 

 bean as some of the West India sorts, and it does not 

 absorb the same quantity of arrowroot or sago-flour which 

 it is desirable to " blend " with it, as do other kinds, hence 

 it is rather out of favor. That is probably true enough, but 

 it is a curious fact that it was precisely this small propor- 

 tion of fatty matter which commended the Ceylon beau from 

 Pallikelle and Ambecotta to the continental makers of fine 

 fancy chocolate. What are those buyers doing that they 

 are now indifferent to your parcels of fine cocoa, or can 

 it be that they continue to buy quietly in your market 

 all the fine suitable parcels '{ — London Cor., Local '< Times." 



