850 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [October 1,-1889. 
for New York. As we remarked several weeks ago, 
when the prospectus of the company was published, 
our Ceylon friends must realize at the start that 
the demand throughout this country is for Japau 
tea and that this preference will not be easily 
overcome. 
[But surely our friends of the Grocer will aid 
in getting a fair field and no favour for a good 
pure product like Ceylon tea : the new Company 
has no intention to interfere wiih existing tea 
dealers but rather hopes to work through them. 
—Ed.] 
A RIVAL TO HAVANNAH. 
The Vietubs or Vera Cruz Cigars. 
The State of Vera Cruz raises about 5,000 tons 
of tobacco per annum, and exports about 700 tons. 
England is the greatest buyer, taking £96,000 
worth of manufacture and £5,000 worth of raw, 
or £101,000 out of a total of £140,000. This ex- 
port is believed to be only a preliminary to a very 
extensive foreign trade. The climate and soil are 
very suitable to the tobacoo plant, and there is a 
wide field for the employment of British capital 
in tobacco planting, especially if the capitalist 
allied himself with the local cigar manufacturers, 
who are always ready to buy or make up leaves of 
equal size, colour, and quality, conditions which 
can only be obtained by a regular system of 
planting, sowing, curing, and sorting. Buying raw 
tobacco in the open market is a lottery, and leads 
to the present unevenness in the colour and 
flavour of the Vera Cruz cigar, which is found in 
so many otherwise good brands. Planters often 
operate with very little oapital, and have to mort- 
gage or sell their crop while it is growing, con- 
ceding to the mortgagee or buyer, as the case may 
be, large interest or profits to cover the risk of 
crop being lost. But planteis with command of 
sufficient capital make very large profits, especially 
those who combine cigar-making with planting. 
As regards price there is always a large margin 
between the lowest and highest. Some tobaccos 
can be bought for 7d per lb. of small planters, 
while the highest qualities fetch even on the 
plantation as much as 5s per lb. The prices of 
the oigars range from £3 9s per 1,000, weighing 
8 lb. per 1,000, to £17 10s per 1,000, weighing 
about 20 lb. per 1,000. The cigar which is princi- 
pally exported for England is the " condh fina," 
weighing from 13 lb. to 14 lb. per 1,000, tha local 
price of which is £3 9s per 1,000. The making 
of this cigar ooBts about 50 per cent of its whole- 
sale price. The workmen are paid by the piece, 
the prices ranging from 2s 9d to 13s 4d per 100. 
A good workman can make 200 cigars of medium 
quality in a day, receiving 10s 6d for his day's 
work ; but a first-olass maker will often earn at 
fineBt work 18s a day. The price of a cigar often 
depends more on the quality of the make than of 
the tobacoo, Bkilled labour being dear, especially 
in the towns where living is very expensive. The 
principal cigar manufactories are in the town of 
Vera Cruz, where one maker alone exports £50,000 
worth of cigars per annum to England.— P, M. 
Budget, Aug. 8th. 
TKIP TO THE TEA VAN CORE DISTRICT. 
On my return to Cochin I found that the Resi- 
dent had come back, and we paid him a visit on 
his island opposite the town. The Resident of 
Cochin and Travancore has his lines cast in 
very pleasant places. Some five or six palaces 
are kept up for him all along the coast from Cape 
Comorin to Cochin, and he has besides a house on 
the Permade hills and another at Oourtallum, the 
sanitarium of Tinnevelly. Numerous boats are kept 
up for him for travelling and while the position 
is dignified he has but little to do, for the State& 
to which he is appointed are so-called model ones, 
and there are none, or at all events few, of the 
ructions which occur in States like Hyderabad, 
Bhopal of Indore. He oan get as much big-game 
shooting as he likes, and lives in a fair climate 
where it is never very hot and never very cold. 
From Cochin to jjTrevandrum, the capital of 
Travancore, is a distance of 120 miles. The jour- 
ney is done by cabin boat with ten rowers as 
before : and Buch iB the endurance of these men 
that they oan go the whole distance without a 
break. We pass Alleppey, an important Beaport 
about 30 miles from Cochin, at night, and early 
next morning are near Quilon, another port of 
importance. We have been travelling all the 
time over backwaters, sometimes broad like a lake, 
but, generally speaking, about the size of a good- 
size river. Everywhere are dense masses of coco- 
nut tees, from which indeed the chief portion of 
the revenue is derived. A tax is levied on each 
tree instead of on the land, and as it is very small 
the growers make large profits. A coconut tree 
should yield an annual profit of one rupee, and as 
they are planted very thick a man owning ten 
acres of trees is a rich person. There is perhaps 
no tree in the world like the coconut tree of which 
every part can be utilised. The timber, the leaves, 
the web-like covering that binds the leaves to the 
trunk, the spathe, the nut, the sap or juice, even the 
very roots, which when the ground is dry pene- 
trate an enormous distance in search of water, are 
useful as articles of commerce; and not only can 
each part be utilised, but it can be used for so 
many different purposes. The juice of the tree is 
made into toddy, arrack and into jaggery, or a 
coarse kind of sugar ; the outside covering of the 
nut or husk is made into ooir ; the inside shell is 
used in a number of different ways, from a spoon 
or ladle down to firewood ; the water of the nut 
forms a refreshing drink ; from the flesh is extracted 
coconut milk, and when allowed to ripen is pressed 
into oil. The leaves again are used for thatching, 
baskets, mats, <fec, and for deeds and documents, 
being far more durable in this moist climate than 
the paper in ordinary use. Mr. (now Sir Charles) 
Lawson, in his interesting book on Cochin, pub- 
lished nearly 30 years ago, has a chapter on the 
coconut tree which reads like a poem. This chap- 
ter he concludes with the following apt quotation 
regarding the marvellouB yield of this wonder of 
Nature : — 
" Clothing, meat, trencher, drink and can, 
Boat, cable, sail, mast, needle, all in one." 
At Quilon we stop for a couple of hours for break- 
fast and in order to pay a visit to the principal 
forest officer. Here the waterway is diminished to 
a narrow channel, and about 15 miles further the 
canal passes through two tunnels each about a 
couple of hundred yards long. These tunnels form 
a really very fine engineering work, and were built 
at a very great cost so as to complete the connec- 
tion of the waterway to Trevandrum. Wo pass 
through them about sunset, and arrive at Trevan- 
drum during the night. When we wake next morning 
the boat is moored alongside the wharf and a carriage 
is waiting to take us to the Club, where accommodation 
has been provided. Trevandrum is a prosperous-look- 
ing town : the houses are well and substantially built. 
It has more the look of a hill-station than a sea- 
coast town. The sea is not visible and the houses 
are scattered over a series of small hills, most 
of whioh are covered with trees through which 
the houses appear. At the Club we found a 
letter from the Dewan fixing an hour for an 
