87 
All the samples have a peculiar smell, and taste of some substance 
quite foreign to tea ; for this defect we have made due allowance in our 
r 
The leaf of No. 2 is quite limp, instead of being crisp; the sample 
has been damaged in transit. 
Gow, WILSON, & STANTON. 
MADAGASCAR TEA.—The following correspondence has been 
forwarded to this establishment respecting experimental tea cultivation 
at Madagascar :— 
Foreign Office, 29th September 1887. 
I am directed by the Marquis of Salisbury to transmit to you 
herewith a copy of a letter from Mr. Pickersgill, Her Majesty’s Vice- 
Consul at Antananarivo, to Haggard, Her Maj 
Madagascar, on the subject of tea plantations in the interior of that 
Island. 
P, W. CURRIE. 
Antananarivo, 6th May 1887. 
I have the honour to inform you that an experiment in the cultivation 
iles from 
Antananarivo, and that there seems to be reason to believe the result 
will be very encouraging. 
I visited the orchard a few days ago, and found nearly 200 plants in a 
healthy condition. They have all been raised from a small packet of 
seeds obtained from the Curator of the Botanical Gardens of Mauritius, 
and a number of them are already 18 inches high, although it is not yet 
th 
m h ed 
successfully made to clothe the bare hills of Imerina, the preparation of 
opening for European capital which would be well worth a trifling 
outlay now in the promotion of extended efforts to introduce this 
l 
culture. 3 
The publication of the present brief notice of what is an experiment 
made under favourable circumstances might possibly lead some one 
interested in the tea trade to furnish a quantity of seed direct from 
India or China. 
ould be happy to receive and distribute such coritributions to the 
possibilities of prosperity in Madagascar 
W. C. PICKERSGILL. 
TEA. —The first plants of tea which reached Natal were sent 
50. Th 
fr 
Durban Botanic Gardens. The young plants raised from the seed of 
t 
present ndustry i informed by Mr. Brickhill, of 
Prospect, Umbilo, that he obtained 100 plants of the earliest seedlings, 
many of which are still growing wit Iti le that these 
very clearly that the climate and soil of Natal were suited for the - 
owth of tea, and in 1877 seed of Assam Hybrid and Assam 
* from Caleutta in coolie ships, freight free, seed of 
“ the Government agreed to do. Several xes were imported, and 
