July t; 1889.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 1 
71 
district under the supervision of properly appointed 
Government experts," the "company to conduct the 
business of a tea plantation on the Indian plan," 
would prove useless, handicapped as China is 
in the struggle with India and Ceylon, where the 
plantations are managed by energetic Europeans 
eager to adopt every new improvement as it turns up. 
In Paragraph 7 Sir Robert makes a most astounding 
statement, viz., " Even England does not yet take 
less China tea," which is capped by a statement 
almost as extraordinary that " so many places want 
Chinese Tea that do matter what quantity is produced 
there is but little fear of its not finding a market." 
A glance at the figures below will show that England 
takes considerably less China tea and also that the 
annual diminution has assumed alarming proportions. 
But it is not only in England that the Indian pro- 
duct is ousting the Chinese from the market ; 
Australian and New Zealand houses are opening at 
Calcutta ; we shall soon see them at Colombo : and 
Indian and Ceylon teas are rapidly gaining favour 
in these countries. Sir Robert will find less and less 
money coming in from the export duty, but doubtless 
it will last his time. Possibly when the harm is 
done beyond recall, the Chinese Government will 
recognise its error, and by removing taxation en- 
deavour to resuscitate a defunct trade, but that 
China's trade with Great Britain is being gra- 
dually extinguished the following figures plainly 
show : — 
Export 1886-7 
1887- 8 
1888- 9 
Hoping you will be able to fiad room in your 
valuable paper for the foregoing remarks. — I remain, 
yours faithfully, An Old Hand. 
Canton, 29th March, 1889. 
...149,000,0001b. 
...122,000,000 lb. 
...102,000,0001b. 
CURING VANILLA.* 
The process of curing vanilla in Mexico, a writer in 
the San Francisco Chronicle says, is a delicate one, 
requiring, as it does, not merely drying, but that the 
pods shall retain certain softness, that they shall lose 
little in weight, that they shall develop all possible 
fragrance, and that the active principle shall be brought 
out to coat the surface in the form of crystals, produc- 
ing the effect familiarly known as "the silvering of 
the vanilla." For these purposes, the pods are spread 
in layers upon gratings of sticks or twigs, arranged in 
tiers for convenience of inspection. These gratings are 
arranged in an ample room, dry and well-ventilated. 
After twenty-four hours the pods are picked over, and 
the green and the damaged rejected. If any show signs 
of opeuing. they are gently rubbed between the fingers 
wet in castor oil. The following day the pods are 
placed in the sun, spread upon dark-coloured blankets. 
Before sunset, they must be collected and stowed inl 
a box or case wrapped in a blanket previously w el- 
sunned to expel possible dampness, and the pods care 
fully arranged in layers to preserve them in good shape- 
If this manipulation be properly conducted, the vanilla 
takes on, in sixteen or twenty hours, a very dark brown 
colour. It is again placed in tne sun, if the weather be 
fine ; if not, spread on the gratings. This process is 
followed for from twenty to thirty days, which is the 
time necessary for crystallization to take place, and 
during which it is sweated three or four times. If the 
weather be bad during the first important days of cur- 
ing, or if the crop be very large, ovens are employed 
for drying, with a temperature ranging from 95° to 
120°. For oveniug, five hundred or six hundred cap- 
sules of vanilla are wrapped in a blanket, then j n a 
petateor rush mat, and securely corded. The vanilla i s 
left in the oven eighteen or twenty hours, as deter- 
mined by inspection. The ovening must be followed 
by twenty or thirty days of sunning and sweating, as 
in sun-curing. These processes over, the vanilla is as- 
sorted by grades, tied up in bundles of fifty pods each 
and packed for shipping in tin cans or cases not dis- 
similar to coal-oil cans, and, I shrewdly suspect, evolved 
from that article. — Pharmaceutical Journal. 
* From the American Druggist, March. 
CEYLON EXPORTS DNA DISTRIBUTION 1888-9. 
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