i3^J 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 



[AucusT I, i88j. 



to give you the necessary questions, and I doubt not 

 you would receive useful and plentiful answers. — 

 Yours, X. 1 . Z. 



[Tea-making is a chemical process, and every tea- 

 maker is more or less a chemist, but the jirofeisional, 

 analytical chemist might aid plauters greatly by test- 

 ing for streugth and aroma and suggesting the sub- 

 stauces to be applied to the soil, and probably changes 

 and impiovementa in manufacture. To be fully able to 

 do this, the chemist should first make himself familiar 

 with all the processes of culture aud manufacture, 

 aaalyziug soils and leaves in various stages.— Ed.] 



HARVESTING CINCHONA. 



10th July 1885. 

 De.\b Sir,— The figures given by " B. E." on 

 page 134 are in accordance with my experi- 

 ence. But where I obtained 100 lb. per eooly in 

 shaving 5-year old cinchona trees when shaved all 

 round the stem, I found difficulty in exceeding SO 

 lb, when taking off half the quantity per tree in two 

 strips. There is of course loss of time when ;the 

 cooly has to narrowly watch where he is shaving so 

 as not to encroach upon the two strips to be left. 

 Will " B. E." kindly give his experience on this 

 point ? Including lopping I cannot get more than 

 45 lb. branch and twig per cooly ; nor thatch my 

 trees for less than A cent per tree, including cutting 

 grass, which is close, B. 



THE ANOMALOUS LEAVES FROM BLACK- 

 WATER. 

 Blackwater, Galbodde, July 10th, 1S85. 



Dear Sir,— It is evident from "W. F." 's letter that 

 the leaves I sent you were never examined by any- 

 one competent to say what they really were. 



I was perfectly aware that they were tea leaves, 

 though 1 expressed my doubt from their color 

 being of a kind that I have never before seen, 

 though I have been wandering up and down line3_ of 

 pluckers for many many years. What I would like 

 to know is, if the true tree will not hybridize with 

 the jungle kind, how ia it that the true tree^ on 

 this occasion has attained the exact appearance? is it 

 diseased ? 



I quite agree with "W. F."that a practical planter 

 should be able to distinguish the difference between 

 the two kinds, but, when Assam hybrids take to copying 

 their jungle friends in color of leaf, it is time to enquire 

 into the matter. I will send you some more leaves, merely 

 marking A, B, &c., and if you will kindly get " W. F." 

 to look at thera I shall be obliged.— Youis faithfully, 



C. A. HAY. 



P.S.—li "W.F." hasonly seeu the jungle tree growing 

 in the forest, ho would be astonished at the change 

 that takes places when the plant is pruned and kept 

 as a bush : it loses a great deal of the jungle appear- 

 aiice and its pink color tones down ; in fact it is only 

 in the young plants that the differeiice ia seen, as the 

 stem bark is quite a different color though it becomes 

 very much like tea proper when it grows older. 



C A. rl« 

 [The loaves will be submitted to " W. F." and Dr, 

 Trinien. As for ourselves, we may be as incnnip-tent 

 to pronounce ou them as Mr. Hay imagines, but we 

 retain our opinion that they were leavts of a peculiar 

 China jdt.— Ed. j 



TEA CULTURE IN JAPAN. 

 I)EAR Sir,— In reply to " R." "a letter iu which he 

 wonders at the large yield of Japan tea bushts, I 

 may here mention that I was informed by a gentle- 

 man of great experience in the Japan tea trade, that the 

 pluoking with the exception of the firat spring months 



is of the coarsest description, and also that before the 

 winter came on the bushes were absolutely stripped 

 of leaves, all of which being rendered pliable by the 

 steaming proce-s are converted into tea and mixed 

 with better grades, and then sent as fourth crop to 

 the European tirms, who mix them again and break them 

 up and color them. The loss on weight between the 

 green leaf and the made tea as fired by the Japanese 

 in the first place is only from 10 to 15 per cent ; of 

 course after the refiring pi'ocefs in the European hongs 

 there is another considerable loss in weight, but this 

 latter is to a certain extent made up for by the weight of 

 the ct.loring matter. The bushes or clumps of shrubs 

 resulting from the 20 to ;iO seeds sown in a circle 

 are very similar in size and appearance to our own 

 bushes, and are in no ways remarkable for their c rc- 

 umference, and they are kept cut at a height of 

 about 2 feet 6 inches to 3 feet ; in no case did I see 

 any higher, and only thai height where the tea was 

 evidently pretty old. As to the wages in the factories 

 I was shown over, I noticed only ahout 10 per 

 cent of men, the balance of those employed being 

 women and girls. 50 sen is the equivalent of 1 rupee 

 and 12J cents, and, though it ia tlie ordinary wage 

 of skilled workmen in the hongs, I doubt very much 

 if anything like that is paid for work in the gardens, 

 few of which exceed five or six acres, and the majority 

 of which are small patches of land surrounded with 

 wheat, rape, raddish or paddy and probably worked by 

 the peasant proprietor and his family. The cultivation 

 of land, whether it be of crops or of tea, is most 

 liberal, manure being used generally, and whether 

 in towns or villages every pound of refuse of any kind 

 is bought by contract by the surrounding peasant 

 farme.'s and applied to the soil. — Yours faithfully, 

 H. D. DEANE. 



TEA FROM AGAR'S LAND, BALAN60DA, 

 TOPPING THE LOCAL MARKET. 



Kandy, 13th July 1885. 

 Dear Sir,— Your issue of the 11th instant contains 

 a "Local and General" statement to the effect that 

 " Kelani Valley " tea has topped the local market 

 at 84 cents. "Agar's Land " has recently (wice averaged 

 87 cents. My attention has been called recently by a 

 "tea-man" to the poor prices "Agir's Land" tea 

 has been selling at ; hence my bringing the matter 

 before the public. — Y'ours faithfully, 



SHELTON AGAR. 



Tea IN" Japan. — A report published by the Kiyoto 

 Tea Guild shows that the tea plants in the neighbour- 

 ing districts have suffered considerably ow ng to the 

 cold, wet weather ; but, up to the present, nothing 

 of this has been discernible in the arrivals of tea at the 



.open ports. — Japan Weekly Mail. 



Copra. — There appears likely to be an increasing 

 demand for copra, so that our northern settlers may 

 plant coconut palms with a liberal hand. The 

 Demerara Argosy advertises, as " a new colonial 

 product," " coconut oil meal," which ia fold In Deme- 

 rara for 2.J cents a pound and is fed to stock. 

 The advertisement says that " this oil is made from 



i the kernel of the coconut, after the oil has been 

 extracted ; but considerable oily and other nutritious 

 matter still remains in the product, and consequfntly 

 makes it one of the most nutritious and fattening 

 feeds that can be got for stock of every kind, 

 especially for fowls. Stock of every kind, which have 

 been ful on this meal, when cooked have a delicious 

 flavor, an immense improvement on the tough taste- 

 less things we have hitherto been accustomed to. 

 We can quite believe that this article would be all 

 that ia claimed for it in feeding poultry at any rate. — 

 Queensland Planter and farmer, 



