4H 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [December i, 1889. 
Chittagong, Oct. 17th. — The rains ceased about 5th 
October and further showers are much wanted. The 
nights are getting cool. Oct. 22nd — Notwithstanding 
the deficient rainfall (over 40 inches, as compared with 
last year at some ooncerns) there has been a fair 
show of leaf, and some of the Northern gardens are 
ahead of last year in manufacture. Rain is wanted for 
both tea and rice. 
Chittagong, Oct. 29th. — The weather has been un- 
settled for the last week, and most concerns have had 
good rain. The cold weather will probably Bet in now, 
as flocks of pelicans passed down south this morning. 
Mongledye, Oct. 28th.— Hot dry weather. Leaf 
getting generally scarce. Slight earthquake at 7-45 
a. m , morning of the 26th. Rain threatening, much 
wanted ; but few gardens will pack estimate. Much 
dissatisfaction expressed at recent circular of Steamer 
Companies. Steamers calling here very irregularly. 
Our latest from Habeegunge ia : — The rainfall for 
the last week has been upwards of five inches. Since 
this rain the temperature has fallen considerably. 
In tea, oofFee and other plantations 363 lakhs of 
paid-up capital are invested, of which 344 lakhs are 
held in Bengal, most of the tea companies being regis- 
tered in Calcutta. — Indian Planters' Gazette. 
♦ 
DRY GOODS AND TEA DEALERS. 
A. tea oounter'has become a feature in the leading 
dry goods stores, chiefly through the efforts of 
parties interested in the introduction of blended 
India and Ceylon tea.* This is an innovation, but 
it is difficult to draw the line now-a-days and say 
where the mammoth store, dealing in dry goods, 
notions, boots and shoes, clothing, brio-a-brac, 
house-keeping utensils, toys, furniture, crockery, 
trunks and other lines of merchandize, shall stop. 
We believe in a live-and-let-live policy and question 
the wisdom of concentrating the distributive trade 
in large retail stores. Such a policy weakens a 
multitude of customers whose patronage is of value 
to the dry goods store, but whose purchasing 
power is reduoed the moment the dry goods dealer 
becomes a universal provider. Silk and syrup will 
not mingle, and we have no fear of dry goods 
dealers going fully into the grocery business. We 
believe wiser and better policy would be to leave the 
tea and coffee counter to those whose business fitted 
them to be dealers in food. If not, then the grocer 
can retaliate and put in stock of toilet articles and 
notions generally. — American Grocer. 
♦ 
THE TEA FOR AMERICA. 
(By the " Peripatetic Planter.") 
* * * Notwithstanding all I have written on the 
subject of taste, "Cachari" maintains his position 
of lawgiver in the matter of Taste, to all the World 
in general and to Americans in particular. Because 
he esteems Indian black teas, and deems them "best" 
as I do for that matter, he will not allow that others 
less interested in Indian teas, are of a different per- 
suasion 1 He will not allow that, to tell an average 
man that his taste is all wrong, is almost an insult ; 
and that to "educate" his taste, of neoessity im- 
plie s an evolutionary process. Give a man an olive 
for the first time, and your highest praise only pro- 
vokes pity for your taste. Argue with him as you 
may, you leave him of the same opinion still. You 
can't coerce him into appreciating that olive with 
your palate. Prepare them for him; soak out the 
salt ; givo them to him cooked with his entrees ; by 
degrees he will appreciate their flavour, and in time 
* N. B.— Ed. 
participate in the full enjoyment you reoeive from 
them. Do you expect to make a warm friend 
of a man by telling him that his wine, the 
wine he appreciates so highly, is poison ? Take 
" Cachari's " own stand-point, that Indian teas 
being he knows, the best, people who prefer other 
teas, must be wanting in judgment — fools in other 
words. Does not even proverbial philosophy 
warn us that, "it is better to humour a fool than 
to fight him ? " — not to quote Holy Writ. 
Enthusiasm is an excellent thing, and a necessary 
item in one's psychological equipment now-a-days 
— but discretion is no less a necessity, otherwise 
Don Quixote would be an ideal leader. 
One little personal matter may be referred to, in 
passing away from these platitudes ; " Cachari " 
says : — " A difficulty does exist, but not the one 
' P, P.' points out, that of overcoming the taste 
acquired by the American public for green-teas, 
but of overcoming the prejudice of the existing 
trade, who have retailed your teas so profitably to 
themselves in the past." 
" Your teas," I presume, is a misprint for green 
teas, otherwise the paragraph would be nonsense. 
This statement does me scant justice, seeing that 
I have over and over again raised the point of 
the vested interest of the trade, in America, as 
an important enemy in the way of the progress 
of Indian black tea — and have UBed it to advocate 
long, long ago, a very similar system for pushing 
Indian teas properly manufactured and blended) 
in America, as that just propounded as a novel 
idea by " Cachari": — who merely leaves out the part 
of the Prince of Denmark from the play of Ham- 
let, by failing to provide the chief item in the 
Enterprise, a tea suitable to the end in view 1 
In the meantime, as every pound of Indian black 
tea, sold by accident or design to a green-tea 
drinker in America (instead of to a blaok-tea 
drinker) is certain to make an enemy of| that 
purchaser, who will take care to warn his friends 
against " the horrid stuff," of course, I go so 
far as to look upon the unrestricted sale of Indian 
black-teas to other than black-tea drinkers in the 
United States, as the worst possible polioy— and 
no less than suicide. 
If Americans only require to be introduced to 
Indian teas to at once appreciate them with 
'• Cachari's" palate, how is it, may I a3k, that 
time and again, one meets Americans in London 
who declare, " they can't get a cup of tea in all 
London fit to drink, it is all beastly black stuff, 
and not a bit like the exquisite, flavourably light 
tea they can get in the States 1" This I solemnly 
declare, I have heard over and over again. Yet 
Indian teaisnowthe vogue in London 1 and those 
Americans were not referring to the Hotel teas only. 
The taste for " green-teas" takes a strong!hold when 
once it has been acquired, more especially the 
better kinds of Japan teas, as I know personally ; 
having for a considerable period longed for 
Japan tea in Assam, after having got used to 
it in Japan ; until after a year or two, through 
the enforced necessity of having to drink Assam 
tea daily (which necessity, remember, does not 
exist in America) I, too, like " Cachari," learned 
to appreciate Indian tea. — Indian Planters' Gazette, 
Nov. 5th. 
* 
INDIAN AND AMERICAN COTTON SEED. 
The Pioneer thus writes : — 
The question of a possible development of the ex- 
ports in Indian cotton seed has arisen out of a remark 
made on the subject by Mr. O'Oonor in his Review on 
