736 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[April i, 1885. 



Tea Mancres. — Mr. Hughes, the agricultural chem- 

 ist, writes to us: — "Ishould think you will eooh be 

 requiring tea manures. T had a sample of one sent to 

 me from Calcutta which upon analysis appeared rich 

 in nitrogenous organic matter, phosphates and potash, 

 the three important constituents. I was assured this 

 manure had given excellent results on tea estates in 

 India where transit admitted of application." 



Planting in Uva, Ceylon. — From Report of Badulla 

 Planters' Association. — Leaf-disease.— After a year of sin- 

 gular freedom from the pest, your Committee regrets to 

 have to announce a severe attack at the commencement of 

 this year. Tea, Cacao, fyc. — The success which has attended 

 the cultivation of cacao and cinchona, and in a small 

 degree cardamoms, is a matter of satisfaction to your 

 Committee, and it trusts that better prices may still further 

 stimulate to cultivation of new products, amongst which 

 tea has already found its place on a somewhat large scale, 

 and bids fair to be as great a success in Uva as in other 

 districts. _ 



Prices of Labour in Sylket. — Mr. Luttman-Johnson, 

 Deputy Commissioner of Sylhet, has been enquiring into 

 the subject of the prices of agricultural labour in his 

 district. His calculation is based upon wages in kind paid 

 to a reaper at harvest time. In twenty days' working at 

 harvest time, a man might earn about six maundsof rice, 

 enough to support him throughout the year. Reduced 

 into money, the wages amount to five annas a day. In 

 the report for 1882, similar results were shown in his 

 account of wages paid in Sylhet for earth-cutting. 

 Mr. Johnson says that natives of Sylhet will not work 

 in tea gardens for two annas, the ordinary rate paid to 

 tea coolies : but they have earned so much as five annas 

 a day during the year under report. This is about as 

 good a return for agricultural labour as may be found in 

 any part of Iudia. — Indian Agriculturist. 



Tiie Tea Market. — In casting a glance back 

 on the year just ended, says the Grocer, the results of 

 those concerned both as importers and dealers have 

 been anything but satisfactory, while the trade and 

 the public have reaped the benefit of low prices. 

 Although supplies and stocks have been similar since 

 June, yet the new season's teas have been held in 

 such weak hands that forced sales have been necessary 

 to meet future engagements, with results most dis- 

 astrous to importers and highly unsatisfactory to 

 dealers, the latter being obliged to buy fresh teas 

 each week at lower rates without being able to get 

 out of old stock. There have been several failures 

 and private compositions amongst the importers on 

 this side ; and the losses in China both in tea and 

 silk have so crippled many of the large buyers that 

 compositions with John Chinaman have been resorted 

 to. Many of the native banks and teamen have also 

 been mined by the low prices ruling during the last 

 year or two, and it is to be hoped that supplies will 

 fall off until we recover from the depression on this 

 side. Again, money is likely to 09 scirce among the 

 native teamen next season, as those that have any 

 left will hide it and get out of the reach of the; 

 mandarins, who must squeeze whoever they can, in 

 order to supply funds to prosecute the war with 

 France. We hear from China that the markets are 

 closed for the season, with a short supply of over 

 8,000,000 lb. This is good news, but we can well do 

 without it, as the consumption of China Congous con- 

 tinues to fall oft', while that of Indian and Ceylon 

 increases. Indian and Ceylon tea contioues to make 

 rapid strides in favour with the trad.-, and although 

 the lower and medium kinds do not compare favour- 

 ably with China kind just at the moment, vet they 

 have gained such a hold on the public palate that 

 the demand and consumption do not fall oft. Ceylou 

 teas have been greatly appreciated by the trade aud 

 prices have held their own when all other kinds of 

 tea were falling, the demand being greater than the 

 supply, — Indian Planters' Gazette. 



Greig's Tea Drying, Withering and Winnowing 

 Machine. — In sending an advertisement of their 

 machine for the Tropical Agriculturist, Messrs. 

 John Greig & Co. wrote to our London agents 

 on Feb. 2nd :— " We hear now another unfort- 

 unate cause of delay in getting our machines set 

 agoing at Dikoya, Ceylon : just as Mr. Browu got 

 everything rtady, he broke his leg and is laid up. 

 However a man of ours has just gone out to him ; 

 whenjarrived, all will be put in his charge, and we hope 

 there will be no further delay in obtaining the de- 

 sired report. But we are obtaiuing orders from the 

 action of our machine ' XL. ALL ' on dry tea and on 

 more delicate material, such as wet feathers, hops, 

 &c, making tea from cauliflower, privet-hedge, and 

 sometimes fresh tea leaf itself grown in open-air botanic 

 gardens here." 



Mr. D. Morris, Director of Public Gardens aud Plant- 

 ations in Jamaica, is indefatigable in his efforts to encourage 

 the growth of " new crops" in the West Indies, and it is to be 

 hoped that his efforts will be seconded, not only by planters 

 and others in the Colonies, but also by capitalists iu this 

 country. In Jamaica alone there is a wide field for the profit- 

 able utilization of capital in the cultivation of new products. 

 A lecture delivered by Mr. Morris before the Institute of 

 Jamaica — His Excellency Sir H. "W. Norman, K. C. B., in the 

 chair — has just been republished, in pamphlet form, by Mr. 

 De Souza, of Kingston, Jamaica, and should be read, not only 

 in the West Indies, but in this country and in all our tropical 

 and sub-tropical Colonies. In it Mr. Morris deals elaborately 

 with the various kinds of fibre-yielding plants, native and 

 other, which are or are likely to be of any value for com- 

 mercial purposes, detailing their modes of culture, and treat- 

 ing of the various methods of extracting the fibre. Iu this 

 latter direction alone there is room for many mechanical im- 

 provements, aud a fortune awaits the inventor of a machine 

 which will successfully extract the fibre from, among other 

 plants, the Ramie or Rheea. Mr. Morris suggests, among 

 other points worthy of consideration, the utilization of 

 banana stems for the manufacture of wood or paper-pulp. 

 Each banana stem has to be cut dowu when once it has borne 

 fruit, and an economic method of utilizing this waste product 

 would add enormously to the value of plantations iu the 

 West Indies and elsewhere. — Colonies and India. [We have 

 received a copy of Mr. Morris's lecture, which will be re- 

 printed in the Tropical Agriculturist. — Ed.] 



British Buemah and Rice. — The last Administration 

 Report of British Burmah tells us that nearly ninety per cent 

 (88) of the cultivated area in the province, is under paddy, 

 the cultivation increasing steadily by more than 100,000 

 acres a year. Out of the 4,000,000 acres under tillage, 

 232,428 acres are fruit and vegetable gardens. " This kind 

 of agriculture pays well, and that a ready market exists 

 for all orchard anil garden produce goes to support the view 

 that the people of British Burmah are well olf, and live 

 comfortably." We have frequently pointed out that the 

 calculations of our settlement officers are constantly vitiated, 

 by their uniform failure to take any account of the garden, 

 fruit, and diary produce of the ryot's holding. Whenever 

 these holdings are in the neighbourhood of the cities which 

 are growing up all over India, these items form a most 

 valuable part of the produce, as we here read they do in 

 Burmah. The report tells us that in most parts of the pro- 

 vince, the land revenue amounts " to from one-twelfth to 

 one-tenth of the value of the gross produce, and good 

 markets are available directly the rice crop is harvested'" 

 The exports from the province are about £9,000,000 ster- 

 ling a year, the chief items being : — • £ 



Rice (paddy)... ... ...5,500,000 



Cutch and Gambier ... ... 370,000 



Hides ... ... ... 160,000 



Timber ... ... ... 1,600,000 



Cotton ... ... ... 200,000 



The gross land revenue is about £670,000 a year, hut 

 the addition thereto of a capitation tax of £300,000 a year, 

 brings the assessments up to nearly £1,000,000 sterling. 

 The general result is that the land hears an assessment of 

 about two rupees and-a-half per acre, the State thus exact- 

 ing a larger payment from the cultivator, than the so- 

 called rack-rent levied by the zemindar in these provinces 

 under the Permanent Settlement.— Indian Agriculturist. 



