TEA MACHINERY. 243 



I omitted to extract the broker's reports, but they were 

 favourable. I think it likely this Dryer is well suited to 

 small gardens, which cannot afford steam motive power. 



Davidson's Sirocco. Many of these, over 200, have been 

 set up in all the Tea districts ; it has done good work in its 

 time : had it not done so it would not so long (some years) 

 have commanded attention. When it came out it was, I 

 think, the best machine going. I doubt much that being 

 the case now. It requires no motive power, and is thus, in 

 that respect, cheap to work. The following letter to the 

 Tea Gazette in many respects embodies my views of the 

 machine : 



THE SIROCCO. 



Dear Sir, As both sides of a question, viz. for and against, should 

 be stated before the public for their judgment, I think I may say that, 

 as far as we have seen in print, the " Sirocco " is a " first rate Tea- 

 drying machine. " I beg to state that all does not appear in print, 

 though what does appear there may be quite true, and quite right too 

 for the seller to get as many sales of it as he can, for who would be 

 such an ass as to cry down his own invention or anything else he 

 wished to profit by. The " Sirocco," as I have seen (and I have seen 

 over ten, and amongst them the latest improved ones), does not 

 thoroughly fire off the Tea without burning it : the Tea must be taken out 

 of the machine when three parts fired, and allowed to cool, when its own 

 heat, and the fact of it being gathered in one place, give sufficient heat 

 to finish the kutcha firing, but pucka batti is required after that. Again, 

 the advertisement would lead one to suppose that the drying is effected 

 by means of the draught of hot air entirely : now if this were the case, 

 when the fires are first lighted in the machine, the hot air would at 

 once be of sufficient heat to dry Tea ; but this is not the case, for the 

 whole iron work, in fact, the whole apparatus, iron work, &c., has to 

 be heated up by fire, and when a litle off red hot, the Tea is put in 

 and fired. I do not mean to say that hot air does not ascend through 

 the Tea, but I contend that the heat of the iron has more to do with 

 the drying; there is no detriment to the Tea, I feel convinced, whether 

 it is dried by hot iron or hot air, but there is a very considerable 



