Edible Products. 284 [May 1907. 



within the tobacco-growing area, it is by far the cheapest nitrogenous manure avail- 

 able at present. The fact that this plant grows so largely on lands suitable for to- 

 bacco cultivation is perhaps an indication of the nature of the use to which it may be 

 so advantageously put. Acting on the suggestion made by Mr. Bamber, some of 

 the cultivators who hitherto regarded this plant as a noxious growth and burnt it 

 with other shrubs and weeds as waste, have buried them while turning the soil for 

 this year's cultivation. They have, however, failed to see the importance of 

 the suggestion that the plants should be used as green manure before they blos- 

 somed and podded. If "Pila" is at all to be used as green manure, the seed ought to 

 be sown on the land proposed to be cultivated only a few months before January or 

 February, so that the plants may be turned into the soil before they come into 

 bearing. If the difficulty of ascertaining what short of manure, whether potash or 

 nitrogen, is necessary for a certain land, can be surmounted, with the assistance of 

 the Scientific Department at Peradeniya, the cultivators can be tauajht to grow pila, 

 albizzia or other kinds of green manure to supply the nitrogen and to use wood 

 ashes or some such thing to supply the potash without groping in the dark as to 

 the quality and quantity of manure they should use, and thereby avoid a surfeit 

 of one or a neglect of the other, The superior advantage of the use of scientific 

 manure in the cultivation of tobacco cannot be availed of unless the tobacco grown in 

 Dumbara finds a better market than Jaffna and obtains a better price than it does 

 at present. If not, it is neither encouraging nor profitable to undergo an initial 

 heavy expenditure under head " manure." The Jaffna trader being not discri- 

 minating as to the quality of the article he purchases, and the market being 

 glutted with leaves of indifferent curing and quality, the cultivation cannot 

 be carried on with profit. The present system of promiscuous cultivation 

 by which diseases and pests are annually increased is bound to continue 

 until either tobacco cultivation in Dumbara altogether fails, or the cultivator 

 is induced to adopt a more scientific system of cultivation and curing. 



[These results are very interesting, but unless some co-operative manure 

 supply were put in hand, the cost of the manure would be beyond the means of the 

 villagers, and quite possibly even then.— Ed. T. A .] 



THE LEADING TEAS OP THE WORLD. CHINA. 

 By the late Herbert Oompton. 



I had intended devoting but a single article to China teas, but I have 

 changed my mind. My acquaintance with the " Flowery Land " is not so immediate 

 as with India and Ceylon, and consequently, in order to do justice to the subject, 

 I made a couple of pilgrimages to the libraries of the British Museum and India 

 Office to look up the subject thoroughly. As luck would have it, I stumbled upon 

 one of the most interesting old books I have ever found in the former gold mine of 

 research, albeit I have spent many hundreds— I think I might veraciously write, 

 thousands— of hours in that Valhalla of written lore and learning. A discovery like 

 this sets me itching to share its delights with others, and, so — although it is outside 

 the four corners of my commission— I purpose to be a little discursive after applying 

 myself to modern commercial facts about China teas. 



China teas are manufactured from the variety of the plant known as Thea 

 bohea, which is, substantially, the only one found in Cathay. The foliage is of a dark 

 green, often a sage or live green colour, and the size of the leaves varies from 1£ to 

 3 inches. It is a shrub or a bush rather than a tree, and this is where it differs from 

 the Thea viridis of India, which is a large, strong-growing plant, increasing into 

 quite a tree with spreading branches, and whose mature leaves range from 3 to 5 

 inches in length. 



