July i, 1889.] THE TROPICAL 
APRI'OULtURlST, 
♦ ; 
To the Editor. 
BLACK BUG IN COFFEE. 
Pagilaran (Pekalongan), Java, 27th April 1889. 
Gentlemen, — I truBt you will excuse the liberty 
I take in thus addressing you, but having heard 
that one of the greatest enemies of the coffee-tree, 
viz., the black bug, has almost disappeared from 
Ceylon, you would very much oblige me by inform- 
ing me, by what means that happy result is obtained ? 
Begging you will kindly excuse the trouble I am 
giving you and thanking you beforehand for your 
information, I remain, gentlemen, your obedient 
servant, J. EBELING. 
[Mr. Ebeling may be confounding black with 
green bug ; he should read Nietner's pamphlet on 
the former and Mr. Green's monograph on the 
latter. Black bug ceased to affect Ceylon coffee 
seriously nearly 35 years ago, disappearing gradually, 
although patches here and there in high districts 
may still be seen occasionally ; but the modern 
trouble has been green bug following on the leaf 
fungus, and for this there is no specific (any more 
than for black bug). — Thatching the soil with grass 
around the stems of the coffee trees was one 
means of taking black bug off the coffee ; while 
washing the stems with coarse soap and sprink- 
ling with a mixture of kerosene oil and water has 
been tried with some effect for green bug. — Ed.] 
COCA LEAVES : ENCOURAGEMENT TO 
CEYLON PLANTERS OF ERYTHROXYLON 
COCA. 
London, E.C., 3rd May 1889. 
Dear Sir, — No doubt you have been informed 
that the coca leaves from Ceylon were considered 
very fine indeed, and were purchased at Is lOd 
per lb. ; they were like the old-fashioned Bolivian 
leaves.— Yours faithfully. 
THOMAS CHRISTY & Co. 
EGGS ALL IN ONE BASKET AGAIN 1 
Dear Sib, — When coffee failed and brought 
disaster upon all involved in it, if one lesson 
above all others was taught, urged, insisted upon 
and repeated over and over again, that lesson was : 
" Never again let Ceylon planters put all their 
eggs into one basket I" And yet what have they 
now done ? Is tea not worse overdone than ever 
coffee was ? Some excuse may be urged for the 
unlucky coffee planters who found themselves 
with estates on their hands well roaded, lined, 
drained and provided with expensive buildings, 
the majority of them too steep and rugged for the 
cultivation of anything not permanently fixed in 
the soil. For their lands tea offered the most 
suitable substitute for the departed coffee, after 
cinohona got played out ; and all would have 
been well had " tea" flourished only in the ooffee 
zone. But inasmuch as it is a weed quite as fit 
and ready to be grown up the sides of Piduru- 
talagala as at the sea-level, and everywhere 
between, and in the patana lands abhorred by 
coffee, is there any wonder that six short years 
have sufficed to see it overdone ? Are not all our 
eggs again in one basket ? 
The " Movements of Tea" to 31st Mar"h, how- 
ever, do not seem in any way to warrant the 
present scare. An article by you, sir, on the 
"statistics" might do something to aliay this, 
and bring it home to its true cause : the death- 
throes of cheap China congous. PLANTER. 
[We are waiting for the news of the opening 
of the new tea season at the China ports, before 
venturing to disouss the position or prospects.— Ed.] 
4 
INDIAN TEA EXPORTS. 
Indian Tea Association, Chamber of Commerce, 
Calcutta, 13th May 1889. 
Deae Sir, — The General Committee have the 
pleasure to hand you their usual monthly return of 
shipments of tea from Calcutta. 
Exports oflndiau Tea from Calcutta:— 
1889 1888 1887 
lb lb lb 
Exports to Great Britain in 
April ... ... 221,620 264.522 291,697 
Exports to Great Britain 
from 1st May to 30th 
AP"1 - ... 92,492,463 83,419,608 75,857,665 
Exports to Australia and New 
Zealand in April ... 10,685 10 3,896 
Exports to Australia and New 
Zealand from 1st May to 
30th April ... ... 2,869,184 2,408,' il 9 1,567,170 
Exports to America in 
April ... ... 5,120 510 
Exports to America from 1st 
May to 30th April ., 174,538 48,1 15 99,126 
Exports to other places in 
April ... ... 166,806 21,0 0 71,696 
Exports to other places 
from 1st May to 30th 
April ... ... 1,235,087 1,109,696 1,120,188 
Total exports from 1st May 
to 30th April ... 96,771,272 86,935,4158 78,644,14 
—Yours fait hfully, G. M. BARTON, Asst. Secy. 
THE CONSUMPTION OF TEA IN GERMANY. 
13, Rood Lane, London, 10th May 1889. 
Deae Sie,— In the Overland edition of the Ceylon 
Observer of the 10th April, you published a letter 
headed " Ceylon Teas and How to Push Them: — 
No. 2," signed by " A Citizen of the World." 
In this letter the writer after making various 
remarks concerning the duty levied up n tea im- 
ported into France, which is correctly given in our 
circular, alludes to a diagram we publishe , showing 
the quantity of tea consumed in various countries. 
Your correspondent confounds the amount of tea 
actually consumed in Germany with the quantity 
of tea shipped from Great Britain to Germany, the 
greater portion of which only passes through Ger- 
many to other places. 
The two tables given in our circular, to whic h 
your correspondent refers, are totally distinct, and 
we believe an ordinary reader would see tha t no 
connection exists between them ; as an instance we 
may state that in the diagram the consumption in 
the U. S. A. is given as 90 million lb., while the 
table shows that only 3,115,822 lb. were imported 
from England. 
The following information may be interesting to 
your readers : — 
Tea consumed in Germany. Tea exported- from Great 
Britain into Germany (mostly 
for re-export.) 
1881- 3,270,620 18,569,682 
1882 3,275,036 16,693,289 
1883 3,513,379 18,647,979 
1884 3,442,757 21,052,071 
1885 3,950,221 14,705,421 
1886 3,923,894 18,028,586 
1887 (Returns not yet to hand) 8,617,648 
— We are, dear sir, yours faithfully, 
GOW, WILSON & STANTON. 
FIRE EXTINGUISHERS. 
Dear Sir, — All proprietors of tea factoues should 
make a note of the following : — 
WHAT EVERY HOUSEKEEPER SHOULD DO. 
A physician h"s imparted to the " Atlanta Constitu- 
tion," for domestic application the exaci recipe lor the 
solution used in t'ie fire extinguishers HOW otfvred for 
sale, as follows:— "Take oweniy pounds of common 
salt, and ten pounds of sal ammoniac (muriate of am- 
monia, to be had of any druggist) and dissolve in seven 
gallons of water. When dissolved it cau be bottled and 
