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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [November r, 1889. 
TEA WITHERING AND TEMPERATURE. 
The remarks made by Mr. John Hughes, the 
well-known Agricultural Analyst, to our London 
Correspondent, and reported by the latter in 
his latest letter, are certainly worthy of careful 
consideration. It seems to be the opinion of 
many of the home experts in tea that the 
irregular quality of much of the outturn of our 
staple must be held to be due to some defect in 
the primary operation of withering the leaf. 
Whether the imperfection asserted as to our local 
methods in this particular can confidently be 
attributed to the cause to which Mr. Hughes has 
assigned it, will no doubt form the subject of 
considerable controversy ; but Mr. Hughes is so 
capable an authority on many matters oonnected 
with agriculture, that it would certainly be unwise 
to pass his remarks on this subject lightly by. 
That gentleman has stated his experience with 
regard to three of our local factories visited by 
him. In one of these he found the temperature 
of the room in which withering was proceeding 
to be 85 degrees Fahrenheit ; in a second it was 
but 73 degrees ; and in the third instance he was 
unable to ascertain it owing to the fact that the 
establishment was wholly unprovided with the 
necessary instrument fordoing so. The last of these 
instances is certainly a very extraordinary one, 
or we believe that it will generally be conceded 
that the temperature in which all the several 
operations of tea preparation are carried on is an 
important element towards their success. Indeed, 
we should say that when that element is entirely 
neglected — as it appears certain it must have been 
in this particular ease — no decided results could 
with confidence be anticipated ; and if we thought 
that such a " happy-go-lucky " procedure was 
common among us, we should not have far to 
seek for the causes upon which the complaints 
occasionally reaching us from home as to irregularity 
in the quality of Ceylon teas are founded. But 
we must refuse to consider this as anything but 
an isolated and extreme ease. The question of 
temperature, we are sure, is not neglected by the 
mass of our tea planters, and we are equally 
sure they would be glad of any intelligent sug- 
gestions which would enable them to give fuller 
effect to their desire to so regulate the heat of 
their withering-rooms as to produce the best re- 
sults. In the preparation of their teas, the planters 
of India and Ceylon have taken what is a new 
departure from the crude practices of ages of 
procedure in China. They have endeavoured by 
scientific methods to attain the results which 
centuries of practice have enabled the cultivators 
of China to achieve by the most simple manual 
methods. To make machinery imitate the intelli- 
gence and careful manipulation of man, neces- 
sarily involves long experience which is sure to 
be attended during its progress with many mistakes 
and shortcomings. 
Now to this matter of the withering of tea the 
peasant of China devotes his personal and most 
careful attention. He sits over his trays either in 
warm sunshine or in the almost unvarying tem- 
perature of his hut, and shifts the leaf constantly 
bv hand as the conditions observable by him vary. 
We have to endeavor to imitate that cara and 
watchfulness on so large a scale as precludes the 
same close personal observation. How then can 
this bo successfully accomplished? Our toa fac- 
tories are mostly situated in localities exposed to 
constant changes of temperature and climatic con- 
ditions generally. They are largely built in such a 
manner as to be open to the effects of the external 
temperature, and if the operation, of withering is 
to be successfully conducted, these adverse con- 
ditions must be combated. In order to do this, it 
must first be necessary to make provision for the 
exclusion of free currents of air, charge 1 as these 
constantly must be with the damp so commonly 
experienced in our hill-country. This may be 
readily done by having the Venetians, with which so 
many of our factories are endowed, capab : e of being 
shut or opened to any desired degree. If that be 
done, the question of raising the heat in our drying 
rooms is one which need never prove difficult of 
solution. Heat to any required degree ^n always 
be made available. It is far more diflicu't, on the 
many sultry days experienced, to rethtee the tem- 
perature below that of the external air. But 
motive power of one kind and another is always avail- 
able on our estates, and it might be employed 
to effect the required reduction in temperature 
when the absence of motion in the external air 
prevents this passing during its entry through 
wetted cloths or tats. 
It has been suggested to us that a fan, worked 
by the power we have stated to be always at 
hand, should draw air through a box chamber in 
which cloths kept constantly damped should be hung. 
We all commonly know how very great is the 
cooling effect of such a process, and the air so 
drawn and passed into the withering-rooms 
would soon bring down to the desired ligure the 
registration of the thermometer within them. It 
may perhaps be correctly thought that air so 
obtained would be charged unduly with moisture 
and so prove detrimental to the dry withering 
desired , but we are assured that, if the air, be- 
fore leaving the discharge pipe from tiie fan, is 
passed through a loose packing of cotton wool or 
other closely fibrous material, it would give up 
all trace of dampness in its passage through it, 
and frequent changing of this woul i insure 
perfectly dry, cold air entering the withering-room. 
Of course, it has first to be determined what should 
be the standard of temperature best calculated to 
ensure good results. We have no doubt, however, 
that experience can already dictate i his, and 
we believe that some endeavour in the direction 
we have pointed out to maintain the air at the 
perfectly uniform level of a standard so fixed 
would prove to be productive of good results. 
Certainly the view taken by Mr. Hughe) appears 
to be founded on commonsense, and it will be a 
pity if, in their own interests, our planters do not 
make the endeavour to act upon it. 
CEYLON UPCOUNTRY PLANTING REPORT. 
UPCOUNTRY RAINS AND THE DIFFICULTIES PLANTERS HAVE 
TO CONTEND WITH — THE HIGH PRICE OF RICE AND 
COOLIE WEDDINGS — COFFEE CROPS AND COFFEE -STEAL- 
ING —TEA — CACAO. 
Sept. 19th, 1889. 
The present weather really demands the first 
notice : more outrageous for September could hardly 
be conceived, and the sodden condition of the 
ground pretty well represents our mental state; 
anything that offers itself is seized on as a source 
of excitement in this dreary dead level of daily 
drip. A bushel otficus seed arrives at a neighbour's, 
and he gets properly jubilant over it ; se .-s in the 
near future a bright career opening for our Old 
King, and tries to forget the wretched weather, in the 
contemplation of a revival of coffee. This gleam 
; of hope has the same kind of mental effect as sun- 
shine, but it is a sorry substitute for it. At the 
morning muster you consider that you are a 
special favourite of Providence, if you have " a dry 
blink " during parade, but if a smart shower sweeps 
