and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society. 



518 



stage are of such great importance that I ven- 

 ture to atk you to give me a small space in which 

 to record some results which have been attained 

 in the VVest indies, It has long been known 

 that Barbados is the only VVest Indian island 

 that is absolutely free from malaria and from the 

 presence of the anopheles mosquito. Major 

 fl odder, R.E., in his report to the War Office 

 three years ago on drainage works that were then 

 being curried out in St. Lucia, came to the con- 

 clusion that there was some hitherto undiscov- 

 ered reason whv the anopheles failed to pro- 

 pagate its kind m Barbados, where the culex 

 was abundant. It appeared from his observa- 

 tions that the anopheles could, or did, only breed 

 on the ground level ; none of its larva- being 

 found in tanks which were raised a few feet from 

 the earth, nor even in those which were actually 

 resting on the ground. The culex can, on the 

 other hand, breed in the gutters on tho roofs of 

 high buildings as easily as in the low-lying 

 swamps and pools. My friend, Mr, C Kenrick 

 Gibbons, who has given a good deal of attention 

 to the matter, pointed out at once that all the 

 pools and swamps in this island were stocked 

 with swamps of tiny fish (know locally, from 

 their vast numbers, as "millions''), and that 

 their favourite food was the larvai of the mos- 

 quito. It is obvious that any species of that 

 insect which is unable to breed above the ground 

 level must fall a prey to this enemy. The fish 

 has been identified by Mr. Boulenger, f.vl.S., of 

 the British Museum, as Girardinus Poeciloides. 

 Some specimens were successfully got to Eng- 

 land, and flourished for some time in the insect 

 house at the Zoological Society's Gardens. Mr. 

 Gibbon's suggestion that the " millions" should 

 be imported into malarial districts in other 

 islands has been acted upon, and with felicitous 

 results. For instance, the County Health Board 

 of Antigua, " being convinced of the useful part 

 played by these fish in consuming mosquito 

 larvae, have arranged for their systematic dis- 

 tribution throughout the ponds and streams of 

 the island." Similar news comes from Jamaica, 

 whither a consignment of the fish was sent in 

 November, 1906. The Secretary of tho Agricul- 

 tural Society writes that the tanks at the Titch- 

 field Hotel are full of them, and that he had 

 been informed that "there has been a marked 

 diminution of fever round about, the ' millions ' 

 evidently accounting for tho mosquito larysG." 

 They have also been sent to Colon and to British 

 Guiana. One cannot help wishing that those 

 useful little fish were given a trial in the deadly 

 districts of Africa, if, like the malarial mos- 

 quito, the insects which convey tho terrible 

 diseases which are endemic there, pass the larva 

 stage of their existence in water. One may add 

 in this connection that the Swedish Consul at 

 Frankfort has discovered a small fish ("the 

 blue-eyed") which feeds on mosquito larvrc, and 

 that, at tho request of the Italian Government, 

 some are to be, or have been, sent to the Cam- 

 pagna, where so much has been done in recent 

 years to diminish malaria. 



BROKERS' REPORTS OR TEA. 



And What they Exactly Mean. 

 The object of the present article is to show 

 some connection between the terms used by the 



brokers in valuing the teas submitted to them 

 for inspection and the processes in the manufac- 

 ture, to which those terms apply. 



The terms in common use are : — (1) Flavour 

 (-2) Quality ; (3) Pungency ; (4) Color ; (5) Brisk- 

 ness ; (6) Appearance. 



1. Flavour. — The terms used to denote flavour 

 in the sequence of their estimation, may ap- 

 proximately be put down as follows — Darjeeling, 

 Assam, Wynaad, Kangra, Travancore, Ceylon, 

 High Level, Dooars, etc. From this it would 

 appear that flavour is an attribute, applied to the 

 localities to which the terms refer, and that 

 flavour cannot be induced in any way, known at 

 present, by variations in the process of manu- 

 facture. 



2. Quality.— All gardens can make quality 

 relatively to their class of plant, situation, and 

 climate. To obtain this quality, line pluck- 

 ing is essential, combined with the most 

 careful supervision in the manufacture ; a 

 most comprehensive term. It is greatly in- 

 fluenced by weather. Blights, and the class 

 of plant dealt with, and its market value can be 

 made, or marred, by the lack of suitable assort- 

 ment, or grading. Quality can only be com- 

 manded by a combination of Pungency, Colour, 

 Briskness, with appearance, in fine and carefully 

 plucked leaf. 



3. Pungency. — This is an attribute inherent 

 in its greatest efficiency in newly plucked leaf. 

 It is rapidly lost if the leaf is left in baskets 

 longer than is imperative, or if it is left in heaps 

 even for a short time, or thickly spread, i.e., 

 more than three inches thick. It is lost in over- 

 withering, or withering that has taken more than 

 15 to IS hours for its accomplishment. To 

 maintain full pungency in the leaf the process 

 of bringing it into the Factory should bo conti- 

 nuous. The leaf should be most evenly and 

 thinly spread as it comes in, and the process of 

 rolling should commence the moment the stems 

 cannot be broken, and be carried on conse- 

 cutively with no reference except to the con- 

 dition of the wither. The quicker tho 

 wither the longer the roll will take to 

 acquire a proper colour, and up to the 

 point of instantaneous withering, which sterilises 

 the loaf, the acme of pungency is maintained. 

 Tho drawback to all artificial methods of wither- 

 ing, is this tendency to sterilise the leaf. Leaf 

 which has been kept a long time, anything over 

 20 hours, becomes affected in the same way as 

 leaf that has been spread too thickly, or left in 

 heaps, and loses its pungency though not so 

 rapidly. When in doubt, leaf is generally rolled 

 underwithered, which ensures the retention of 

 the pungency up to thetime of rolling. Excessive 

 colouring while thickening and darkening the 

 liquors detracts from the pungency. 



4. Colour — Is a term applied in the market to 

 the appearance of the liquor and is induced by a 

 process known as fermentation. This process as 

 mentioned above if pushed to excess causes the 

 tea to lose its pungency ; but under suitable 

 circumstances thickens and darkens the colour 

 of the resultant liquor. Some estates push this 

 process to the extreme, sacrificing a certain 

 amount of pungency to the thickening and 

 darkening of the liquors ; specialising for 



