August i, 1885.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



103 



siderable naraber of exhibits destined eventually to 

 be displayed not in New England, but in Ontario. In 

 passing through Toronto in March ISS-t, we attended 

 a meeting of some of the leading citizens at Mr. 

 Stimson's request, in connection with the purposes 

 of his intended Oriental Exjosition, and also to 

 give and gather information as to the best means 

 of promoting a trade, especially in our planting pro- 

 ducts between Ceylon and Canada. We may ijuote 

 a few sentences from the report which appeared in 

 The Vanadian of March 17th : — 



A meeting of a few gentlemen interested iu the pro- 

 motion of au "Oriental International E.xposition," took place 

 at tlie Kossin house last evening. Aid. Lobb, being moved 

 into the chair. The Eev. K. E. Stimson, who has travelled 

 very extensively in the east and other quarters of the globe, 

 stated the object of the exhibit, which was to promote 

 the intercourse between the eastern and western hemi- 

 spheres. Mr. Stimson has but recently returned from 

 Cej'lon, bringing with him a large collection of specimens 

 of the products of the east in general, and of L'ejlon in 

 particular, such as tea, coffee, precious stones, cinchoria, 

 etc. Such an exhibition as that proposed, will be a very 

 gratifying and instructive one, and will enlighten the 

 people of this country on some subjects connected with 

 the Orient, of which at present they are lamentably 

 ignorant. 



Mr. Ferguson was then asked to speak and gave a brief 

 but very interesting sketch of Ceylon. The coffee estates 

 of that island are, at present, attacked by a disease to the 

 trees which is of so serious a nature that the cultivation 

 of coffee in the island will probably soon be a thing of the 

 past, tea supplanting coffee and being found to thrive ex- 

 cellently and produce a very fine article. Mr. Ferguson 

 dwelt on tlie various Ceylon products more especially tea, 

 which might be sent to the Canadian market and trusted that 

 Mr. Stimson's exhibit would prove to be as great a suc- 

 cess as it deserved to be, concluding his address by 

 paying a very high compliment to Toronto, stating 

 that, from what he s^iw of it at this season of the year, 

 he Was certain it must be a very beautiful city in' the 

 summer. 



The Assistant Editor of The Canadian — an ex- 

 C'eylon planter, well-known in Kelebokka and Deltota 

 for his powers as a cricketer— rather over-coloured 

 our remarks about coffee, the total extinction of 

 which culture we certainly did not lonsider a fore- 

 gone conclusion a year ago. Cut it is with leference 

 to tea we lave now to cill stten'ion to the Canadian 

 market. The Toronto I'xp sition cnnie off in due 

 coarse some time towards the ind of the yar, and, 

 while excit ng a great deal of interest and bringing 

 to many of the Ceylon Kxhib t r-. Diplomas of Meiit 

 ifesued under the sanciion of the (".inadian Dnminicn 

 Government, we reg;et to learn from Mr. Stimeon 

 that, pecuniaiily, he and bis cole guee have batn 

 heavy losers. The exhibits of Ceylon tea and 

 other producti — cocinut oil, Librrian colTi e, Ac. — sent 

 by Messrs. I.eechmau &Co., altract'd niucli altei tion, 

 we are told, at the Exhibition, snl led ti enquiries 

 on the pait of local dea er-", wlio, hiwever, in most 

 cases, consider London far en. u^h to look to for the 

 supply of their n quirt mtnts, One gentleman of ex- 

 tennivB business connections throughout Caia'^a and 

 who is specially interested in t- a has however sent 

 enquiries to US in Ciybui. From this leiter (from Mr. 

 Alderman l.obb of Toronto) we quote as follows 1— 



Keforring to our conversation at the "llosvin House" 

 here, where I Lad the pleasure of meeting 3011, I recently 

 received samples of teas (duplicates of which I forward 

 per this mail; from Mr. Stimson, who wiiuhl have banded 

 them to mc earlier but for some ditbculty which ne got 

 into with the Custom authorities. I have sulimilted them 

 to some of our leading merchants and they have been 

 very highly approved, some of them remaiking: "They 

 were the finest black teas they ever put the water on." 

 They are undoubtedly a high grade of leas anil could be 

 sold here, if price would not be an obt^tacle. Uaving no 

 idea of vour valuation, I can give uo defiuite opinioD, but, if 



J4 ' 



any of your friends would like to consign an assorted parcel 

 of, say, 100 half-chests, I could test the market here and else- 

 where and should hope to make -satisfactory returns. 

 Then follow business and banking references which 

 will no doubt be deemed satisfactory. The duplicate 

 samples returned are ot the well-known " K. A. \V." 

 and " Cullooeu " marks, and the fact that these are 

 among the finest black teas ever seen in Canada 

 ought to encourage the testing of that market by 

 cousigiinients. Ot course, the market iu Canada as 

 well as the United States, has attracted the attention 

 of Indian tea-planters, and the Calcutta .Syndicate 

 have done a coi siderable business through New York, 

 although the impression we got from leading tea-men 

 there, was that it would take a considerable timo 

 to win the American tea-drinkers from their fond- 

 ress for the artificially-prepared Japanese green teas. 

 Nevertheless, the process is going on and the value 

 of a pure unadulterated article is being surely, if 

 slowly, appreciated. The following letter on the 

 Canadian market appeared iu the Indian 'Tea GazetCe 

 a short lime ago : — 



THE CANADIAN TEA MARKET— A NEW 



MAKKET FOR INDIAN TEA. 

 Sir, — The tea-planters of India are sufficiently alive to 

 tho necessity of opening up fresh markets for the jiro- 

 duce of their gardens, but the persistence with which they 

 adhere to the original method of making up all their tea 

 on the model of China black teas, would almost leave it 

 to be inferred that either they are wanting in enterprize 

 to push their teas beyond the English market, or they 

 know nothing of the state of the tea trade iu the other 

 great markets of the world. 



Surely if it were known in India that of the sixty-three 

 million pounds of tea imported iuto Canada in the first 

 seven months of the cuirent year, only about one-tenth 

 was black tea, and that the otiier nine-tenths eousisteil of 

 Chinese green tea and natural leaf Japan tea, the planters 

 would make some effort to adapt at least a portion of 

 their output to this market, and to enter into com- 

 petition for the supply of the United States,— the greatest 

 tea consuming country in the world, and equally with 

 Canada, a green-tea drinking country.* A certain mea-sure 

 of satisfactory, and presumably permanent, trade in Imliau 

 teas lias been created with England, hut the demand is 

 almost limited to pekoes and the liner class of pekoe 

 souchongs suitable for flavoring up Chinese congous, which 

 have had their pekoe leaf carefully sorted out for Chiiusi; 

 home consumption ; but the grades of Indian teas btlow 

 these qualities give no promi.-e of growing into favor in 

 England, while the very fine quality of the green teas 

 manufactured in Upp' r India for the Central .-Vsian trade, lead 

 me to infer that the Indian leaf is especially adapted to tho 

 prep.aration of green teas, which even iu the lower giad s 

 would command satisfactory prices on this side the Atlantic. 

 I have placed myself in personal cotninunication with 

 several of my acquaintance-! among the plunters of Uiper 

 India on this subject, and having established an Agency iu 

 Montreal, have every facility fur p'acing suitable Indian 

 teas upon the Canadian market, and I hope to pave tho 

 way to a consideiable development of the Indian lea trade 

 in this direction; being perfecly sati-fird that if the Indian 

 planter will give practical effect to my suggestion, then; 

 is an ample market for the whole Indian output on this 

 side the Atlantic. 



In the Canadian customs returns .Tapan and green teas 

 are grouped together, so that it is impossible to determine 

 the exact projioi tion of each ; hut troni n.y knowledge of 

 the trade, I should say that the .Tapan teas constitute con- 

 siderably more than half our total imports. 



These Japan ten-s owe littl.- to ai)pearHiiee : they have 

 apparently been subjected but to little firing, and the U;:it, 

 which is in various shades of dull olive green, is not 

 rolled up compactly, but just foldcil once upon itself 

 as if Hun-dried. The mode of prepauttiou could probably be 

 ascertained through the agency of our consuls, but tho 

 subject is of sutbcieut interest to ludian planters to v\arniut 

 the deputation of a competent man to familiarize himself 

 with the method of preparation. 



* Absurd nooseose and greatly exaggerated statistics.— Ep, 



