112 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 



[August i, 1885. 



3. Citric acid for pharmaceutical purposes, and for 

 .-erated waters, (tartaric and sulphuric acids are often used 

 now for lemonades, because citric acid is dearer). 



4. Essential oil of lemons (of the rinds) used in pharmacy, 

 confectionery, and flavoring lemonades. The lemonades 

 are now very important that most of of the army, railway 

 employes, &c., &c., are becoming. teetotalers. 



5. Lemon drops and other confectionery where this 

 essential oil and citric acid are used. 



6. Candied lemon and orange peel. 



Oil of neroli (essential oil of flowers of Citrus Bigaradia 

 and others. The O. Bigaradia, or Seville orange, grows 

 here just as well) for confectionery, perfumery, pharm- 

 acy, &c. 



8. Petit grain for scenting soaps and perfumery. This 

 is the essental oil of the ' leaves ' of C. Bigaradia. 



9. Marmalade. — Of this, there ought to be great con- 

 sumption iu India iu tins. 



I have been experimenting with this 'citrus lemonum 

 vulgaris' of Risso for nearly 25 years, and the more I 

 see of it, the more highly I think of it as an industrial 

 plant for India," — Madras Mail. 



COCONUT OIL, TEA, AND COIR YARN. 



I was talking yesterday with a merchant who had been 

 for 25 years iu the Australian trade, and who happened 

 to mention that he was open to buy a parcel of Coco- 

 nut Oil of July shipment, but that iu response to the re- 

 quest for a quotation which he had "wired to a Colombo 

 house he was told the price would be £30 in pipes, cost, 

 freight and insurance ; whereas the present nominal value 

 in London is £28, at which there are sellers but no 

 buyers. There is therefore a difference of fully £2 per 

 ton, and my informant said that this was commonly the 

 case also with Australian tallow, prices on the other side 

 being almost invariably £lto£2 higher relatively than the 

 current quotations in London. Another notable instance 

 of this kind of thing is to be foimd in pepper, which can 

 always be bought cheaper here than in Singapore, Penaiig, 

 or Cochin. The mention of these facts and others having 

 th« same drift naturally led me to ask my friend how 

 he accounted for what seemed such an anomalous state 

 of things, and also for the glut of produce in the con. 

 suming markets of the world, and his answer as that of a 

 man of long experience is at all events worth discussins;. 

 He attributed the relatively high value of produce on the 

 other side to the excessive competition for it there aris- 

 ing out of two causes. 1st, that, by the opening of the 

 Suez Canal and other improvements in the means of inter- 

 communication, the consuming markets had been multi- 

 plied and many of the smaller ones now found it advant- 

 ageous to send orders direct instead of buying 

 in London. Everyone in Ceylon knows of course that the 

 has been true as regards coff'ee, and orders for Trieste, 

 V euice and Marseilles were filled at figures considerably 

 above the parity of London quotations, so that it was 

 always more advantageous to sell on the spot than to ship 

 to London, as those under block loans were .i;euerally 

 obliged to do. But my friend went on to say that there 

 was another source of excessive competition whicli had of 

 late years played an important part, not only in tlie Aus- 

 tralian but also in the Indian ar.d China trade, and in- 

 deed to a greater extent iu the two latter than in the first 

 named. It arose out of the necessity imposed upou merch- 

 ants of employing their clean credits. Mercantile bankers 

 like Barings, Matheson, Huth, etc, grant clean credits 

 on condition that the bills drawn on them shall be covered 

 by documents before maturity, and of course it these were 

 flot used they would speedily be cauoelled. Hence 

 merchants iu India and the Colonies are induced to spec- 

 ulate in produce even against their better judgment as to 

 the probable results. In certain trades as we know the 

 result of such ventures has been cousistently disasti'ous for 

 years past, but still the shipments go oa simply because 

 the shippers cannot afford to stop, as this would be to 

 commit the " happy dispatch." Iu too many cases fresh 

 bills have to be drawn on London houses, not so much 

 to purchase produce, which is likely to realize a profit on 

 realization in Loudon, as to meet reclamations from London 

 upou previous coneigumeuts, nnd hence the wheel is kept 

 rolliug as long as credit cau anyhow be niaintaiued. I 



have here given the bare outline of my friend's argu- 

 ment, but it must be for you and your readers to say 

 whether it is at all applicable to the Colombo markets, and 

 Colombo firms. It is easy to see, however, that such a 

 system would give an unhealthy stimulus to prices in the 

 places of production and tend to that accumulation of 

 stocks in the consuming markets which has been so dis- 

 astrous during the last few years. 



Fresh evidence has been afforded of the importance 

 attached to Ceylon TEA in Mincing Lane by the public 

 ation of a valuable paper on the subject under today's date 

 by Messrs. Gow, 'Wilson & Stanton, the Indian tea brokers 

 of Kood Lane. Mr. Gow was himself for many years a 

 tea planter in Assam and Cachar, and still owns garden5 

 there, so that he can speak with considerable authority on 

 questions connected with the cultivation and manufacture. 

 They have gone very thoroughly into the statistics of 

 Ceylon tea, and include diagrams showing comparatively 

 the quarterly and yearly increases in production together 

 with a line tracing the course of prices averaged in the 

 London public sales during the last five years. They 

 point out that "it generally happens with articles of 

 consumption that increased production leads to reduced 

 values, but in this instance the reverse has taken place." 

 Now, me would ask, to what cause this enhanced 

 value is to be attributed? Is it that the price of tea 

 generally has improved during the last five years? This 

 is decidedly not the case, and we can see no other cause 

 than that the efforts of planters, favored by a climate suited 

 to the production of tea, have been successful, and that 

 this success has so far been appreciated by the consumer." 

 After mentioning the rapid expansion of the tea industry 

 in Ceylon and glancing at its probable development in the 

 near future, Messrs. Gow, Wilson k, Stanton proceed to 

 discuss the very important question whether in view of what 

 is going on in Ceylon and also in India the production 

 of these teas will not very speedily outrun consumption. 

 This same question must often have occurred to the minds 

 of the more cautious Ceylon planters, and it is satisfactory 

 to find that there are soUd reasons given in the paper 

 before me for the conclusion that for many a year such 

 teas as Ceylon produces ■\vill find a ready sale at remuner- 

 ative prices, provided always that the quality is maintained. 

 I am however sending you a copy of the paper itself, 

 and I do not doubt that you will quote largely from it. 

 There is one recommendation which will, I am sure, com- 

 mend itself heartily to Ceylon planters who have so long 

 been distinguished as the most progressive of their class ; 

 I mean that the aid of the chemist as well as of the 

 engineer should be invoked in order to insure the nearest 

 approach to perfection both in cultivation and manufacture. 

 Mr. Gow is himself the inventor of a new witherer and drier, 

 which he claims to be superior to anything previously in use, 

 and the experimental trials with these appUances were 

 most successful ; but whether they stood the test of actual 

 work on a tea-garden I am not in a position to say. 



I have j ust had an interview with the biggest broker in 

 the COIR YARN trade, and he describes the market as com- 

 pletely demoralized owing to excessive supplies chiefly from 

 Cochin. There are at present no less than 6,400 tons of 

 I yarn in stock, including Ceylon, and 2,000 tons on the way, 

 j making a total visible supply of over 8,000 tons, or a 

 j quantity altogether unprecedented and far beyond the re- 

 I quirements of the market. Under these circumstances it is 

 j not surprizing to learn that the value of medium yarns 

 ' has declined fully £■') per tou since the beginning of tho 

 present year, and that today, for instance, my intormant 

 was utterly unable to sell a large parcel of Ceylon yarn 

 though the importers had instructea him to let it go" for 

 what it would fetch. Six mouths ago it was well worth 

 ISs, and a month or ao ago full Us pei cwt., and so ha 

 put it up at 99, but failed to get a bid of oven :Jd beyond 

 that, nor in fact would anyone take iteVen at 9s. Tho 

 finer sorts of Ceylon, yarn from 22s upwards, are somewhat 

 steadier as being of course in smaller supply, but even 

 these must leave a terrible lo-s to the exporters. The worst 

 of it is that my informant could see no prospect of any 

 improvement unless the Ceylon and Cochin merchints 

 would cease to ship for some time and let the slock go 

 down a bit. There were 22 catalogues advertized for to- 

 day, some of them postponed from a month ago, but not 

 half of them were got through, and it is needless to say 

 that the tendency is bU in favor of buyers. — London Cur, 



