10 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, [Jul* i, 1889. 
cacao or even young coconut gardens. The cotton 
itself will not take much out of the soil that 
we cannot spare. The seed will, but it could be 
returned with the stalks in an improved form. 
I have not seen any caterpillars or pests of any 
kind on my cotton yet, and being well satisfied with 
the results so far, I have left the bushes for a second 
crop, instead of putting them out as I intended at 
first, and they are spreading and seemingly putting 
on a better crop than the first one. 
In sowing or planting out the seed, it must be 
done at such a time when about three months' fairly 
dry weather may be expected to ripen the crop from 
five to six months after planting; occasional showers 
will not hurt the ripe crop if left to dry on the 
bushes before pluoking. 
The cotton your London Commercial Correspon- 
dent refers to, as appears in the Observer of the 
6th, must be mine. — Yours faithfully, 
JAS. BLACKETT. 
COTTON-GROWING IN CEYLON. 
Colombo, llth June 1889. 
Dear Sir, — With reference to the article in your 
issue of 10th on cotton cultivation and the prices 
that the Ceylon Spinning and Weaving Company 
can afford to pay for cotton, we append copy of 
a letter that has been addressed to all the Com- 
pany's agents at Jaffna, Point Pedro, Trincomalee, 
Batticaloa, Hambantota, Galle, Kandy, Matale, and 
Ratnapura, from which you will see that we have 
increased the prices to figures as high as circum- 
stances will admit of, and we feel sure that they 
will pay cultivators well. —We are, dear sir, yours 
faithfully, For the Ceylon Spinning and Weaving 
Co., Ltd., DARLEY, BUTLER & Co., 
Agents and Secretaries. 
Colombo, 6th June 1889. 
"With reference to the arrangements made with you by 
Mr. W. W. Mitchell regarding the receiving of cotton, and 
the letter of 20th March to Government, we beg to acquaint 
you that we have amended the prices which we are pre- 
pared to pay for clean cotton, which will be as follows :— 
1st quality. 2nd quality. 
Tinnevelly ... 25 eta. per lb. 20 cts. per lb. 
Kidney 30 „ „ 25 „ „ 
Egyptian ... 30 „ „ 25 „ „ 
Fiji ... 30 „ „ 25 „ „ 
New Orleans ... 30 •„ „ 25 „ „ 
Sea Island ... 40 „ „ 30 „ „ 
The Spinning and Weaving Company regard this as high 
prices, but they feel prompted to offer them, so that all 
possible inducement and encouragement may be held out 
to growers. 
" We shall be glad to know if there is any cotton being 
ffered for sale in your district'" 
The Settlement op Christmas Island.— The 
tiny Christmas Island, lying 200 miles south-west 
from Java, and recently annexed to the British 
F.mpire, is to be settled by the Ross family, who for 
the last half century have ruled and developed the 
remote Keeling or Cocos Island in the same neigh- 
bourhood. Christmas Island, it will be remembered, 
is remarkable as being the highest coral island 
known, and also for the exuberance of its vegetation. 
The Ross family — the present owner, George Clunies 
Ross, is son of the original settler— have created 
quite a happy family in the Keeling Islands, and 
made them the richest coconut plantation in the 
world. The people are mostly Mabys from the 
neighbouring mainland, and are all well off and 
well cared for by their Scottish chief. Mr. Rrss 
sends a ship home every year for the various 
articles necP3sary to carry on his life on these 
beautiful island specks, the only drawback on which 
is their liability to occasional destructive but in- 
frequent hurricanes. No doubt Mr. Ross will make 
an equally attractive paradise of Christmas Island. 
— GLus'jout Herald. 
THE TEA TRADE OF CHINA. 
To the Editor of the '■'Hongkong Dailg Press." 
Sir, — On seeing in your paper the " Report on 
Tea addressed to the Tsung-li Yamen by Sir Robert 
Hart" I turned to it with much interest in the 
hope that so clever a man would have found some 
means of assisting the China trade in its struggle 
with India and Ceylon. I was the more disappointed 
to find that all Sir Robert Hart's ability is devoted 
to finding reasons and arguments for maintaining the 
taxes which are slowly but sirely destroying China's 
trade with Great Britain. Many of his arguments 
are so fallacious that it is surprising to find them 
advanced as the result of long and patient enquiry. 
In paragraph 2 it is stated that " Chinese Tea is 
superior in flavour to all other teas. " This is not 
a fact, for as regards choice teas many gardens in 
India and Ceylon produce teas fully as good as, if 
not superior to, the best Chinese product, while if 
comparison is made between the average quality of 
the entire crop of India and Ceylon with that of 
the entire crop of China, all engaged in the tea trade 
know quite well that the former is immeasurably 
superior. A very large quantity of the Chinese pro- 
duction is mere rubbish compared with the com- 
monest teas from India and Ceylon, and it is this 
rubbish which has been one of the curses of the 
China trade. 
Then Sir Robert Hart says that the export of 
China tea has not fallen off. Even in August, 1888, 
the date of this " Report," it must have been rather 
difficult to make this statement. In August, 1889, 
it will be quite impossible, and by August, 1890, Sir 
R. Hart will have to bewail a most 6erious 
diminution. 
In paragraph 3 Sir Robert Hart says that Indian 
tea can be sold at a profit at about 6d. and from 
that fact proceeds by a process of reasoning truly 
Chinese to show that it would be no benefit to 
the China trade to remit the taxes. 
But Indian and Ceylon teas cannot be sold at a 
profit at 6d. Only favoured gardens can produce teas 
even at 8d. to 8Jd. without loss. But to say that 
in the struggle which is now going on as to which 
country can produce the best possible tea at the 
lowest possible price, China would not be benefited 
by the remission of a tax which according to Sir 
R. Hart amounts to 33 per cent, of the cost of the 
Indian product, is manifestly absurd. To contend 
for the maintenance of the tax while advocating the 
paltry remission of the land tax also seems absurd, 
and that the latter 13 not collected by the Imperial 
Maritime. Customs seems the only reason for ad- 
vocating its remission. In paragraph 4 Sir Robert 
says that " it does not appear to him that deterior- 
ation in quality is the coase of less China tea being 
sold in London." It may not, but to all who like 
me have been engaged in the China trade for the 
past 25 years it is most painfully apparent. Look 
at the melancholy position of Foochow : deterioration 
in quality has certainly been the cause of decline 
there ; while Hankow teas have borne the strain 
of competition in that their quaiity has been better 
maintained. 
In paragraph 4 Sir Robert attempts to account 
for the badness of London business by the fact 
that Russia draws her supplies direct instead of 
taking them through London as formerly. This is 
not a fact ; the badness of London trade is caused hi/ 
a decreased and constantly decreasing home consumption 
of China tea and by nothing else. It is true that 
Russia takes direct what used to pass through London, 
but by so doing she removes a weight of tea which 
if added to the present over-supply would only in- 
crease the depression. 
Paragraph 5 and 6 relate to various improvements 
in growing, making, and packing teas which the 
Chinese grower might adopt if his energies were 
quickened by the remission of taxation. But these 
improvements will never take place while the trade 
is crushed beneath the present imposts. 
The "Joint commission of intelligent experts," the 
"Tea School," the "model plantation," tha "Tea 
