Foreign Notices : — Madeira. 359 



(see p. 113.) proved acceptable to j'ou ; and I have requested your ; friend 

 Dr. Lippold to see a plant of the Ceylon cinnamon in my garden in town, 

 with a full crop of berries or acorns, which promises equal future advantages 

 to this island, through its cultivation in the low lands, as the tea does in the 

 mountains, and Dr. Lippold has taken a small branch with berries on it to 

 forward it to you. 



I have had this plant about eleven years, but all my endeavours to propa- 

 gate it by layers or cuttings proved abortive, and though it often gave flowers, 

 it never perfected its seed till last year, from which I succeeded in rearing 

 fourteen young plants ; and from the beautiful condition of the plant and 

 berries this year, I have every reason to hope that none of them will fail to 

 germinate, so that I have now little doubt that I shall succeed in forming a 

 plantation of this valuable spice in this island. 



I feel much obliged for your information and suggestions regarding the 

 manipulation of tea, and they entirely quadrate with my own ideas on the 

 subject. The whole theory of preparing the leaves for tea is merely to de- 

 stroy the herbaceous taste ; and the leaves are perfect, when, like hay, they 

 emit an agreeable odour ; but I confess that to roll them up for package, in 

 the way they are sent from China, so far as I have been able to accomplish it, 

 is so tedious and expensive, that I despair of ever getting a profitable return 

 from my plantation through that means ; but I cannot fail to agree with you, 

 or resist the conclusion from the many experiments which I have made, that 

 much useless labour is spent in the manipulation of tea, especially in rolling 

 up the large green tea leaves, which, on examination, show that each leaf is 

 rolled and folded by the hands separately. Your suggestion, therefore, of 

 compressing the leaves into cakes or forms, seems to be a most feasible me- 

 thod of preparing them for package and preservation against humidity, the 

 two great objects to be provided for ; and might, I conceive, be effectually 

 accomplished by a hydraulic press. Your suggestion, I think, therefore, may 

 prove of the utmost advantage to the Indian government or Assam specu- 

 lators, for if I cannot succeed in rolling up the leaves with the dense popu- 

 lation of these mountains, which admits of my employing young women at 

 about 4|fi?., and boys and girls at about 2Jc?. sterling per day, in that occupa- 

 tion, how will it be possible in Assam to succeed, or compete with the 

 overplus population and cheap labour of China, 



Compression would have a great advantage over rolling up the leaves, as it 

 would take place when the leaves are perfectly dry, whereas the latter can 

 never be efifected except when the leaf is in a moist state ; hence the neces- 

 sity of roasting and re-roasting them in copper pans of a conical shape before 

 embarkation, to prevent mustiness, which, from the acid of the tea acting on 

 the copper, causes the astringency in all the teas sent to Europe. I have 

 one of these pans, which was brought from China, and others in iron, made 

 in imitation thereof, and beautifully executed and plated inside, by Mr. Harri- 

 son of Liverpool. Still the trouble of rolling up any other than the small 

 young leaves, which can be effected on a sort of basket work tablet (of which 

 I have one of those used in China, made of the bamboo cane), seems to me 

 to be impossible to accomplish without great expense. If, however, the 

 tea leaves compressed into shapes could be brought into vogue, I could pre- 

 pare immense quantities at this island, and afford to sell the tea much cheaper 

 than that brought from China ; while it would possess the double advantage 

 over the practice of rolling up the leaves, of being both more wholesome and 

 better calculated for package and preservation. For as to the plants, it is 

 impossible they can succeed anywhere better than they do in the moun- 

 tains of Madeira ; and where the OMea fragrans, the flower of which is used 

 to scent the teas, the black in particular, grows with a luxuriance quite in- 

 comprehensible to those who have seen it grow elsewhere, forming a small 

 plant for the flower-bed in the low lands of this island, and growing up 

 almost to a tree in the mountains. I have reason to believe, also, that the 



