January i, 1886.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



485 



i^oiTCspnndcncc. 



To the Ed! /or of the " Ceylon Obsm'er." 

 LOSS IX WEIGHT ON TEA. 



Colombo, -i'.ltli Nov. 1H85. 



Dk\k Sir,,— I am constantly receivinK complaints 

 from constituents in London as to the heavy loss 

 in weight on shii)tnents of tea from (,'pylon. 



My attention was drawn to a case the other day 

 where the tares of teas from a certain well-known 

 estate were 1 ox. over the pound— incurring a loss 

 of 1 lb. per package. 



I will instance an extreme ease to show your 

 planting readers what <•«» be lost by not seeing 

 that the gross weights of their packages are rather 

 over the pound, with tarej; slightly under the lb. 



Suppose a half-chest (jfi lb. 15 oz. gross, Itj lb. 1 oz. 

 tare. The Customs in London would return this jiack- 

 age as (ili gross, 17 tare, or net I'.l lb., whereas the 

 package actually contained 50 lb. 11 oz. of tea. 

 Had the package weighed 07. lb 1 oz. or even ()7 lb. 

 gross, tare Ki lb. or under, the Customs would have 

 returned the weight as 51 lb. nett (gross (;7, tare 

 Hi), making a dilTerence of 2 lb. per half-chest or 

 4 per cent. .\dd to this the loss incurred by the 

 trade allowance of 1 lb. per package draft and you 

 have a loss in weight of (l per cent, whereas by a 

 little care it would have been reduced to '2 per cent 

 (draft allowance). 



It appears to me so easy for a planter, especially 

 if he used a lever scale, to make his packages up 

 to witliin, say, 2 oz. of the lb. by adding sheet or 

 lumps of lead, and then packing J of a lb. of 

 tea over and above what he invoices and marks 

 his packages. This } of a lb. could save, in the 

 case given above, 1 Id. 11 ox. in London. 



TEA BUYEE. 



JAPANWOOD TEA BOXES. 



Colombo, 30th Nov. 1885. 

 Ue.vb Sik, — At the request of Mr. H. D. Deane 

 we have the pleasure to send you herewith 'i samples 

 of .Japan tea chests made of the following woods 

 half-an-inch thick: — 



(1) Cedar wood, which, though objected to by some 

 on account of the smell, has been pronounced by un- 

 doubted authorities in London not to taint the tea. 



(2) Momo wood. 



(3) Matsu wood. 



The names of the respective woods will be found 

 marked on one side of the chests, and on the lid 

 the weight of each. We may also mention that 

 each chest will contain about 70 lb. nett of tea. 

 —Yours faithfully, .1. .M. HOBKKTSON * CO. 



[The specimens referred to can be seen at Ohxerver 

 Office : Mr. Deane has decided to have no more 

 boxes under h inch thickness. The cedar wood 

 box onlv weigh Hi lb. ; the other two, l8t and 

 21 lb.— Ed., '_ 



TEA-BOXEH AND SEASONED TIMBEB AND 

 THE " TAKE " BECKONING. 



Dinibula, 2nd Dec. 1885. 

 Dkak Sii:, — "Tea Buyer" 's dodge with the bits 

 of lead will not quite get us out of the dilliculty. 

 The wood of a half-chest, and a portion, there- 

 fore, of a full chest (in Ce;.lon, whatever may be 

 the case elsewhere) will ta'.u- up or Irse, in pro- 

 portion to its condition as to seasoning, and accord- 

 ing to the weather it meets with, nmch more 

 than 2 oz. So that a well-seasoned paeknge weigh- 

 ing 2 oz. under the jjouml in the fiiclory, might 

 Weigh I oz. over the pound in Colombo, and 

 Heaven knows what it might weigh in London I 

 1 believe well-seasoned wood shows the least vari- 



ation. A full chest made of half-seasoned wood 

 will lose, a pound in a very short time in the 

 temperature of an ordinary tea-house. For which 

 reasons I have long ago given up marking the tare 

 on my packages, as the weights marked cuinwt 

 be correct when the chests reached their destination. 

 Well-seasoned chests (which are very hard to come 

 by, however) will do something to mitigate the 

 evil, and so will the bit of lead dodge, which 

 1 have tried, but the real remedy would lie in in, 

 ducing the gentlemen of the Customs to t.ike thg 

 trouble to weigli correctly. But this is of courij^, 

 out of the question. TEA MAKEK. 



Tea. — Efforts to cultivate the tea plant are now 

 being extensively made in several parts of Europe. 

 In France, on the Loire, the plants have been extens- 

 ively Set, but it is still a question whether the leaves 

 will retain their cimr.ictoristic aroma on a foreign 

 soil. lu Sicily, the plants set three years ago at 

 Jlessina are strong and healthy, aud have liourislied 

 in leaf and seed. Kujsia baa also made the attempt, the 

 first planting being at 111 versts from Aleschbri, ou the 

 Dnieper, and proving satisfactory ; aud plants have 

 also been sent from Odessa to Suchura. lu Cierniany, 

 the Silesian Committee of Agriculture have received 

 seed and direetious from Professor Giippert, of 

 Breslau, with a i-econmieudation to attempt their 

 cultivation. — Vcuny I'ictorical Xiws. 



East Indu Gums are of dark aud light mixture, 

 being in fact a conglomation of rubber, leaves, 

 dirt, and bark. Thi is also true of African rubber. 

 The presence of so much foreign matter in the 

 East India rubber has ever been a great drawback 

 to its successful use in manufacture. The ditiieulty 

 is, however, obviated in part, by running the "mats" 

 when in process of washing through a machine which 

 both crushes the foreign element and, by stretch- 

 ing the sheet, liberates it, the particles Uying in 

 every direction. From 30 to -18 per cent, of the 

 originial bulk is lost by this process of thoroujjh 

 washing, before the gum is sufficiently pure for use. 

 African rubber, unless kept from the sunlight in time, 

 decomposes, and becomes like tar in appearance, 

 aud is entirely useless. — Electrical Trade.i ,/ournii!. 



De. Bon.vvia's letter (page 483) has, we regret to 

 find, been rather too long delayed. He gives us some 

 useful practical information about citrons and 

 oianges which we commend to the attention of 

 growers of these fruits, and the advice tendered 

 to parties attempting the systematic cultivation of 

 the orange tree is manifestly sensible and useful 

 We are not, however, quite with Dr. Bouavia 

 about the Ai/ati iirciiidiflora as a shade tree for 

 estate products, for, although a quick grower, it is 

 also of but short duration. " VV. ]•'." 's notes 

 written hi the Uhserrcr on the subject are not at 

 hand, but we quote from the 'Vreaxiirij nf Ikiiitinj 

 as follows : — 



Agati, A genus of the Pea family (fiii/KminnDu}. 

 A. gruiidijlora is the only species. t is a native 

 of the J'^ast Indies and tropical of Australia, 

 but is connnonly cultivated in trojjical countires 

 for the beauty of its flowers. It, in a small 

 slender tree twenty or thirty feet high, of rapid 

 growth and short duration; its leaves allernate, 

 abruptly-pinn.ate, with from eight to ten pairs of 

 small le:i.'lets. Flower stalks axilliary, bearing from 

 t\.o to four large pea-like reil or white flowers. The 

 poils are ul) <ut eighteen incbe-! lung, and as thick as 

 a common <iuiH. In India tin; II ,wcrs, po<U and young 

 Iea\ es are used by the natives in tin ir curries ; a juice 

 is pressed from the llowers and useil in curing dinniesa 

 of vision ; and the seed are eagerly sutigbt after 

 by birds. The Iwrk is powerfully tonic and bitter, 

 and considered effective in snirtllpMX. The woo<l is 

 useless except for fuel. The tree beiug a fast grower 

 and sparinly clad with leaves is used for the purpose 

 of traiuing the Betel (fijiir JSctle.) 



