TEA MACHINERY. 247 



appears in the Tea Gazette, November 7, 1881. It is too 

 long to insert here. No one can read it and doubt that the 

 trials were most carefully conducted, and without bias of 

 any kind. The results are not in favour of the machine. 

 Moreover, were Jackson's Dryers a real success I should 

 have been aware of the fact long ago. I incline to the 

 belief Mr. Jackson thinks he can do better, for he has lately 

 brought out a Self-acting Tea Dryer regarding which the 

 following appeared in the Tea Gazette : 



JACKSON'S NEW SELF-ACTING TEA DRYER. 



Messrs. W. and J. Jackson have invented a new apparatus that 

 will deal with the Tea itself throughout the drying process, and thus, 

 they submit, secure a perfection in the dessication of the leaf not 

 hitherto obtained. The objects arrived at by the new invention are 

 as follows : 



i. After the leaf is fed into the machine it requires no more 

 attention until it is discharged dry. 



2. Every individual leaf is simultaneously exposed in precisely a 

 similar manner to the action of the heated air, thus producing an 

 unvaried and perfectly even dried leaf. 



3. The Tea is steadily but very slowly kept in motion, thereby 

 dispensing with the tedious and tiring watchfulness of attendants, 

 hitherto required in Tea drying on the tray system. 



4. There are no trays about the machine to handle, and it is, 

 therefore, thoroughly durable and cannot get out of order. 



In operating with the machine, a boy or attendant has simply to 

 spread the leaf on a slowly moving feeding web or band, which carries 

 it forward and places it in the machine, where it is steadily but 

 inactively kept in motion, and in due course is discharged dry and 

 crisp from a shoot at the delivery end ; so long, therefore, as the 

 attendant continues to supply the machine with leaf, it will steadily 

 dry and discharge it, and should he have occasion to leave the 

 machine at any time, no injury can take place to the leaf in the 

 apparatus, as it must pass on and be discharged. 



The leaf is continuously, but very slowly, turned over, disentangled 

 and individually presented to the action of the heated air by a peculiar 

 combination of concentric cylinders, thus ensuring not only the most 



