20 TEA 



medium of a tea-house at the Imperial Institute, 

 London ; everyone is invited to go there, on any day 

 of the week, and drink a cup of Ceylon tea. It is 

 believed that all connoisseurs among the guests will 

 come to the conclusion that the quality of Ceylon tea 

 has greatly improved, as a result of the hive of cultiva- 

 tion being now in the highlands instead of the lowlands ; 

 and that many of the guests who have hitherto ordered 

 " tea " from their grocer, and left him to supply any 

 variety at the price named, will henceforth order 

 Ceylon tea, and see that they get it. 



We spend the remainder of the afternoon at the 

 world-famous Botanical Gardens at Peradeniya, which 

 are within driving distance of Kandy. I can quite 

 sympathize with your desire to go everywhere, and see 

 everything at once, in these lovely gardens ; but time 

 presses, so we must remember that we have come hither 

 expressly to see what the scientists are doing to further 

 the interests of the Ceylon tea industry, and must there- 

 fore turn a deaf ear to the call of the beautiful tropical 

 flowers and of other alluring tropical crops. An expert 

 enthusiast shows us round the tea section. All the 

 bushes we see here, he explains, are mediums of ex- 

 periments, the object of all such experiments being 

 to obtain the biggest possible yearly average of best 

 quality yield per acre. Some of the plants, he tells 

 us, are giving a yearly average of 4,000 to 5,000 

 pounds of leaves per acre ; that is to say, about 1,000 

 pounds of marketable tea, since from 4 to 5 pounds of 

 fresh leaves go to the making of 1 pound of dried and 

 baked material for the teapot. The experiments have 

 to do with such matters as the selection of seed, 

 manuring and pruning. Our attention is specially 



