92 



The Supplement to the Tropical Agriculturist 



desirable to know with some approach to certi- 

 tude what js ;being taken from China by the 

 foreign coursMef? to.whieh we are looking hope- 

 fully for expansion in the business we do with 

 them, apd> jn the light of feat knowledge to re- 

 adjust estimates .which* perchance have been 

 made from imperfect data. Those who are con- 

 vinced of the superior merit of British-grown 

 tea naturally believe that it will eventually 

 supersede its rivals in most of the world's 

 markets ; but that cannot be until two things 

 have happened, the first being a total supply of 

 it large enough for the purpose, and the second a 

 complete change in the taste of those who prefer 

 to use kinds of tea which we either cannot or do 

 not produce. Neither of these conditions is 

 within sight. Id the meantime, iforeign buyers, 

 who have no preferential interest in our indus- 

 tries, have made larger purchases in China, aided, 

 no doubt, by a favourable rate of exchange; and 

 it is well to know it. 



Approximate Total Export of China Tea 

 (not including Brick.) 



To the U.K. 

 „ Continent 



Russia 

 ,, America 

 „ Other places 



Season 1907-8. 

 lb. 

 22 600,000 

 12,250,000 

 41,500,0 

 42,500,000 

 4,250,100 



Season 1908-9. 

 lb. 

 J5.O0P.00O 

 16,500,000 

 48,50 ',(100 

 51,000,000 

 4,000,003 



Total. 12 >,0i 0,000 135,000,000 



Formosan tea, although now passed through 

 Japanese hands, is by custom reckoned as 

 Chinese and is included in the above figures, 



Of the total increase of 12,000,000 lb. about 

 5,000,000 lb. are black and about 7,000,000 lb. 

 are green tea. The increased entry for the 

 Continent is about equally composed of black 

 and green, the probable destination of the 

 latter being for North African markets. 



Russia has taken rather less black, but much 

 more green tea, which is said to be for sale in 

 the Central Asian provinces where green tea 

 is in demand, and the means of buying it pro- 

 vided by a bountiful harvest. 



America has taken less green tea, but a much 

 larger quantity of black, far in excess of any 

 known rate of consumption, coincidently with 

 the heavy purchases made in London for the 

 United States under the belief that an import 

 tax would be imposed. 



AN ENGLISH SUBSCRIBER. 



THE LORANTHUS PEST. 



An article in " Ceylon Men " by Mr C Drie- 

 berg, b.a., f.h.a.s., is of timely interest. He 

 says : Considerable attention has lately been 

 drawn to the plant known by this name (called 

 in Sinhalese Pilili and in Tamil Kuruvichchai), 

 owing to an alarming report that if is threaten- 

 ing the destruction of the tea plant in the 

 neighbourhood of Nuwara Eliya, 



The genus Loranthus, to which the English 

 mistletoe is closely related, includes some 

 seventeen species, five of which are found in the 

 moist low country, two in the dry region, and 

 four at high altitudes ; the rest are more or less 

 general in their distribution. No less than 

 eight species are endemic, that is peculiar to 

 the Island. 



The flowers are tubular and variable in colour 

 being green, yellow, pink, purple, scarlet, 

 orange or brown, or of mixed hues. Loranthus 

 does not grow on the ground like any ordinary 

 plant ; but attaches itself to another plant. 

 Hence it is called a parasite, and the plant 

 upon which it grows the host. Parasites may 

 be divided into two classes : — 



(1) Complete or true parasites, which depend entirely 

 on a host for their nutrition, neither procuring nor pre- 

 paring food on their own account. 



(2) Partial parasites, which look to the host to supply 

 them with only part of their crude food, procuring the rest 

 for themselves. They are able to prepare their own food. 



To the former class belong the parasitic fungi 

 which cause serious diseases in plants, such as 

 the coffee leaf disease which ruined the industry 

 in Ceylon. Loranthus bolongs to the latter class. 



To more clearly understand the difference 

 between theee two classes it is necessary to know 

 something about the nutrition of plants. 

 Ordinary plants get part of their food, by means 

 of their roots, from the soil ; and a part, by 

 means of their leaves, from the atmosphere. Now 

 the presence of green colouring matter in the 

 leaves is necessary for getting food from the air. 

 As the complete parasite has no need for doing 

 this, it is destitute of green colour, but a partial 

 parasite, like Loranthus, is coloured green, 

 which indicates that while it gets its soil-food 

 from its host, it procures its atmospheric-food 

 direct, and also elaborates or prepares its food, 

 that is, transforms the raw materials, consisting 

 of solutions of inorganic matter, into organic 

 su bstances. 



Though it would appear that Loranthus does 

 not cause such serious loss to the host as do the 

 true parasites, yet the damage it does is consid- 

 erable, and if not interfered with it generally 

 kills its host in the end. 



In the low-country Loranthus is commonly 

 seen on old mango trees ; in the Nuwara Eliya 

 district it infests the Australian acacias (wattles) 

 found growing about the town. 



The eradication of a partial parasite, like 

 Loranthus, is a very much easier matter than the 

 eradication of a complete parasite. Loranthus 

 is propagated by birds conveying the seeds to 

 the branches of trees, to which the parasite 

 attaches itself by sending its roots into the wood 

 tissue of the host from which it sucks the crude 

 sap brought up from the soil. Parasitic fungi 

 on the other hand are propagated by spores, 

 which are microscopic bodies, corresponding to 

 seeds in the higher plants, and easily conveyed 

 by wind and other agencies. When it is further 

 stated that the parasitic fungi are extremely 

 minute organisms and mostly live in the in- 

 ternal tissues of the host, it will be understood 

 how difficult it is to deal with them. In order 

 to protect trees from Loranthus it is only 

 necessary to watch for and cut out the parasite 

 as soon as it appears; but it must be removed 

 completely, "root and branch," or it will start 

 growing again. In this way we can soon get rid 

 of Loranthus, but there is always the danger 

 of its again finding its way into our gardens 

 if our neighbours harbour the pest. Land- 

 owners and householders should therefore co- 

 operate with one another in order to keep out 

 this enemy of our cultivated plants,— "Ceylon 

 Men," June, 1909, 



