January i, 1890.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
by experts, a good deal of diffidence was felt by 
me owing to my want of acquaintance with such 
subjects, but Mr. Hughes has this week confirmed 
the view expressed. He has told me that distil- 
lation would bring all waters pretty much to a 
parity in qualification, with the exception, how- 
ever, that the distilled water produced from that 
containing the larger proportion of solids origi- 
nally would be more "lively," more full of the 
carbonic acid gas which would be evolved from 
the impurities during distillation, and which could 
not be pot rid of. He told me of his surprise 
at reading in the last Ceylon Observer of the 
result to analyses of your Colombo water only 
showing 1-5 grain of deposit per gallon. Now 
the purest water in the United Kingdom is that 
of Glasgow, and this has 4 grains per gallon of 
such deposit. London water has as much as from 
25 to 30 grains, and Mr. Hughes considers the 
report on tl e Colombo water to be quite exoep. 
tional in the results it records. Not that he thinks 
you are altogether to be congratulated upon this 
exceeding purity. All such very soft waters, he 
says, are deficient in lime-salts, ar>d the absence 
of these in potable waters is very injurious to 
infants and growing children. So much so is this 
the case, that Glasgow, with its lowest record 
of solids in its water, is notorious for rickety 
and badly developed children. It is _ desirable 
in the case of such waters to add constituents to 
it when given to infants and young children. But 
this allusion is somewhat foreign to the immediate 
subject of this paragraph. Mr. Hughes thinks, 
however, that the suggestion timidly made by me 
would, if carefully aoted upon both in Ceylon and 
at home, do much to removo the diverseness com- 
plained of between the two sets of reports. But he 
is not inclined to think it wise to expect an 
absolute coincidence as regards these even were 
such precautions fully taken ; beoau^e he holds 
that great changes may not improbably take plaoe 
during the journey of the tea homewards. If, he 
says, it should happen that there remain the least 
dampness in the tea, the great heat of the holds in 
the Red Sea— in his own experience fully 90 degrees, 
and I should personally nut it at a far higher range, 
would be certain to induce a further amount of 
fermentation, and if this had been carried to the 
proper standard during curing operations to insure 
good tea, the second fermentation would go beyond 
that standard and the tea would be deteriorated. 
Therefore he thinks that under any condition it 
would be unwise for merchants here to buy teas on 
reports made by tasters in Ceylon. 
During the course of our conversation on the above 
topic, Mr. Hughes informed me that he had lately 
been consulted by Mr. Rutherford about manure to be 
applied on that gentleman's well-known estate of 
Mariawatte, and that a consignment of a fertilizer 
he had reoommended was to be shipped within the 
next few days. Mr. Hughes holds that now that the 
price of tea has so much improved, you should take 
early steps towards neutralizing the exhausting 
effect of growing tea on your soils. He had been 
reluotant to urge this while pricesremained depressed, 
as he saw the uselessness of his doing so. On my 
inquiring the nature of the manure he had recom- 
mended, he said : — " When travelling last year in 
the South of Franoe and Italy, I was struck by 
the great use made of old rags for manuring the 
olive trees. These rags were collected all the 
oountry round, and the stench from them was 
beastly and must have been unhealthy. But there 
could be no doubt of their great effect in promoting 
the vigour of the olive plants. Old rags contain a 
large amount of nitrogen. This, if applied suddenly, 
is injurious to all shrubs, it is too forcing: You 
want to apply it gradually, and the rags do this 
during the iong process of rotting. Mr. T H. 
Woodman, of 75 Quintin Road, Blaokheath, subjeots 
woollen rags to the aotion of steam and produces 
a fine powder which is perfectly innocuous, but 
it retains the full quantity of nitrogen contained 
in the rags. I have recommended that this 
should be mixed with a proportion of super- 
phosphates, which will have the effect of keeping 
in the volatile ammonia, and I believe that the 
admixture is likely to be productive of good re- 
sults, for Ceylon soils are very deficient in natural 
phosphates, while nitrogen is the best possible 
stimulant for tea and other growths of the kind. 
The new powder is largely made use of in the 
composition of mixed manures." Possibly, there- 
fore, some day Ceylon will be giving us tea grown 
from our own cast-off garments ! 
TRIAL AND INSPECTION OF STANLEY* 
WRIGHTSON TEA CHESTS. 
London, Nov, 22nd. 
On Monday last (Nov. 18th)— as was stated in my 
last letter would probably be the case — the public 
inspection and trial of the maohinery erected for the 
making of the Stanley- Wrightson tea chests was held. 
At 10-45 on that morning, between twenty and thirty 
gentlemen left Fenchurch St. for Grays in a 
speoially provided saloon carriage and descended — 
the train being stopped for that purpose — at the 
grounds of the Tunnel Cement Works within which 
the new buildings have been erected by the 
Syndicate. Among these visitors we observed Messrs. 
Rutherford, Alexander Ross, 3. F. Churchill, J. 
Capper, W. M. Leake, Channing Esdaile, and one 
or two other gentlemen connected with Ceylon. 
It had been mentioned to me that out of its nominal 
capital of £2,500, the Syndicate had expended but 
little over £1,200 in the provision of buildings 
and machinery, so my expectations were not raised 
about beholding anything very striking in the way of 
exceptional novelty in the machinery. The Syndi- 
cate has done wisely in commencing what is but 
a tentative experiment by restricting its present 
outlay as far as might be possible, and by its 
adaptation of existing forms of machines as far 
as practicable to the speciality of its manufacture. 
For fully two hours, however, the visitors were 
interested in watching the operation of making a new 
tea box from the first handling of sheets of straw- 
board as received from Holland, to the final turning 
out of the finished article. There are two branches 
of operation entailed in the manufacture, one 
consisting of the manipulation and treatment of 
the boards, the other being connected with the 
cutting, drilling and bending of the iron strips and 
hoops by which those boards are put together. 
Taking the former operation first in order, we 
saw the boards which are received from the Dutch 
faotory of the exact sizes required, passed through 
a sizing maohine which by means of felt-covered 
rollers spreads the size evenly upon their surfaoes 
passes them on wires through a long chest heated 
by steam pipes, and delivers them ready for re- 
ceiving the varnish at the further end of it — 
the varnish is applied by hand only to that 
face of the boards which is to be external, 
this being dried in an iron cup-board furnished 
with shelves of corrugated iron. A maohine having 
a table through the surfaoe of which the heads of 
several small circular saws appear, cuts off the 
strips of straw boards which are rivetted on to 
the tops and bottom panels to give the thickness 
required for holding the screws. This list oomprises 
all the methods of treatment to whioh what may 
be termed the " raw material " of the boxes is 
subjeoted. A goodly array of cutters, pinchers and 
