September 2, 1889.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 189 
which the broker deduces from this is " Let every 
estate have its own characteristics, avoid uni- 
formity." But it is only natural to suppose that 
in time the taste for bad teas will die out, and 
that the sounder and better our teas are the 
better prices they will command in the long run. 
One may here spare a pitying thought for the 
poor wretch who can complacently swallow a cup 
of " oolong" pure and simple. To what depths of 
depravity, mental and stomachic, must he have 
sunk ! 
But an entire coincidence of views between the 
planter who wishes to make his estate pay and 
the broker who wishes to sell good tea and get 
the good prices (for I give these credit of wishing that) 
cannot be looked for. I do think, however, this 
divergence is greater than it need be. And hpre 
I approach a somewhat delicate subject. It is not 
so much the quantity of Ceylon teas coming for- 
ward that is complained of, but the falling- off 
in quality. Now it may be heresy to say so, but 
I have come to the conclusion that from the 
broker's point of view they have distinctly fallen 
off. Be it admitted that as much bard work has 
been put into the last 20 million lb. exported as 
into any other equal quantity ever made, but 
hard work will not make good tea. Take a 
typical case such as the following which can be 
matched in every district in the island. A planter 
has 50 acres of tea ready to pluck. He puts up 
half-a-dozen chulas, sends 3 of his best coolies 
to a neighbour to learn to roll and fire, gets a 
fortnight's leave to learn something of plucking, 
and starts operations. May be he spoils a chest 
or two, bat after a bit he turns out first-class tpas 
and dispatches every month a small break, the 
prices of which are satisfactory to all concerned. All 
this time he has been in and out of his little factory 
all day long and often in the night. Every leaf has 
been well and evenly withered, and he has handled 
the trays of roll as Isaak Walton did his worms, 
" as if he loved them." He has now established 
a certain standard for his teas which he and his 
proprietor fondly hope will be maintained. A 
permanent factory is now put up, roller and drier 
bought, five times the amount of tea turned out 
every now and then double the amount of b af is 
taken in which the sheds will hold, and what is 
the result ? A decline of 4d a lb. 
The planter is disappointed. "But," says he, "you 
can't expect to keep up fancy prices when you 
have to make 60,000 lb. in a little place like that." 
No, mv friend, very likely not. But the broker has 
nothing to do with that. His knowledge of tea- 
making, unless he happens to have travelled in the 
East, is very much like that of agriculture possessed 
by Mark Twain when he edited a farmer's journal 
(" do not shake the turnips from the trees but send up 
a boy to pick them "). His business is to report 
on the teas, and he does so to this effect : — 
"These teas are wanting in point and have lost 
the delicate flavour which used to characW : ze 
shipments from this estate," and so on and so forth. 
Now it seems to me that this sort of thing re- 
peated on hrlf the estates in the island will in itself 
account for the falling-off in teas so much tnlked about 
That being so, the question arises " How are we to 
avoid it." W H, we cannot avoid it. But vve can 
minimize it. How common it is to hear such 
remarks as the following in Cevlon : " I 'm making 
the most awful muck just now." "The leaf was 
(i inches deep all over the floor last night." "had to 
li>-<- at 270 to work off the rolls," <fec, <&o. Wry good. 
Any man whose leaf was 0 inches deep last niuht 
has driven a nail into our coffin. Not a harmless 
little tintack, look you, but a great big brass-headed 
nail. 
The time must come — the time will come — when if 
we are to make a living at all, Ceylon tea must be a 
synonym for "good tea" and " sound tea," and tea 
made under the above conditions is not " good tea " 
and is not " sound tea." No one thinks of mixing 
his " tails " with his " first parchment" : why then 
should he calmly ship home a break half of which 
he knows is utterly bad ? 
Yet such things have been done every day; and so 
long as these shipments brought an average which 
though not high still left a profit, it was perhaps 
too much to expect from human nature to 
resist the temptation. But that time is past and 
never will return. I cannot say "Be warned in 
time," for we have not been warned in time and 
now we have got to suffer it ; but when pekoe 
souchong arrives in London as happened last week 
which is valued at 3d alb., one begins to hope 
that the irresistible logic of facts will bring it 
home even to the poor creature who shipped this 
poison that it does not pay. Any higher argu- 
ment would probably be thrown away on him. One 
can understand, too, the piteous tone of the broker 
who said to me " What are we to do with stuff 
like this ? " 
1 have, of course, written broadly and generally, 
but when all is said and done it must occasion- 
ally happen that a batch is, for instance, over- 
fermented : what then should be done with it ? 
The broker tells you "Go on over-fermenting, send 
us an over-fermented break, and the chances are 
it will find a buyer for some local market, but do 
not mix it with good tea and make the who e 
break without point." 
Be that as it may, the point I want to bring 
out is that every man who deliberately takes in 
more leaf than he can turn into sound tea is driv- 
ing a knife into the heart of the enterprise. 
Enlarge your factory if you will (iimple withering 
accommodation is probably more important than 
anything) but do anything, stop buying leaf, abandon 
your best fields, use your bad tea for fuel or 
packing cheroots, but don't, whatever you do, send 
it to Colombo : — 
Good name in man or woman, dear my lord, 
Is the immediate jewel of their souls. 
Who steals my purse steals trash ; 't is something, nothing, 
"f was mine, 't is his, and has been slave to thousands ; 
But he that niches from ine my good name 
Robs me ol that which not enriches him 
And leaves me poor indeed, 

THE ASSAM TEA COMPANY. 
The Chairman, in moving the adoption of the re- 
port, said that the year 1888 began with the pro- 
mise of success. 
Pricfs.— Large quantities of tea were sent home, 
which realised some of the best prices that had been 
obtained for Indian tea, showing that their tea had 
not lost its ancient record. But this bright state of 
things did not last, for though larger quantities of 
tea had been sent home, there was a tailing off in 
price, that obtained being llfd against Is fd the 
previous year. In this, however, they were more for- 
tunate than their neighbours, who had a drop of 2d 
to 3d per lb. The fall they had thus experienced 
was equal in total v.ilue to a dividend of 6 per cent. 
New Plants.— Instead of patching up in order to 
repair this weakness, which it was felt would be 
short-sighted policy, they had planted out 1,150 acres 
of new ground a d cleared 750 acres more of the 
land which belonged to them. It was eoi-t'y work 
but they had done it as thoroughly and economically 
as possible, and they hoped the re.-uit would be seen 
in improved quality and quantity o£ their tea, and 
ultimate benefit to the snareholder*. They had u.so 
made changes in the management of their estates. 
Under the old sj stem, the whole of their gardens u re 
controlled by one general manager, and their teas 
