May i, 1890.] THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST* 
773 
ceptionally light water, and generally with a flavour 
most nearly resembling Choice Japans. 
Some of them, notably B No. 1 1856, B No. 2 1857, 
A No. 1 1851 and A No. 1 1852 are very rich in the cup. 
Those referred to as " Glazed " are most likely to be 
acceptable in our market we think, but as the mode 
of preparation is so entirely unlike anything hereto 
fore shown, the usual difficulty of introducing a now 
article to the public will have to be encountered. 
Their most favorable reception will probably be by 
consumers of the Japan leaf. 
We have shown these teas to several of the trade and 
they invariably pronounce them finest to choicest Japans 
in the cup, and say they will have to be eold as such.— 
Yours very truly, (Signed) Beebe & Brother. 
The Speculative Purchases op Cinchona 
Barks, upon which we (Chemist and Druggist) com- 
mented in our issue of February 15th, were repeated 
at this week's auctions. The same brokers aoted for 
the anonymous investors, and Becured some cheap 
lots for their patrons. Altogether they bought just 
over 46,000 lb. of bark, at an outlay approximat- 
ing 900Z. 
Planting in Bakwana, March 2oth. — Rainfall this 
month to date 4'34 iDches, and as 1 write another re- 
freshing shower is falling which cools the sultry and 
close atmosphere, the heat of which has been very 
noticeable for some days past in the afternoons 
and evenings. But this is the weather which makes 
the tea flush. The gemming operations have not 
so far as they have gone caused "a boom" exactly, 
but there is no doubt that money is to be made 
if care is used on the seleotion of land, and i£ 
Government do not by a short-sighted policy check 
this new industry by the heavy taxation proposed. 
Fruit and Vegetable Culture in Servia. — A 
Foreign Office report on the trade of Servia is not very 
complimentary to Servian gardeners. A considerable 
quantity of fruit and vegetables, it is stated, in an- 
nually imported into Servia, chiefly from Austria- 
Hungary. The Servians are unwilling and careless 
gardeners, and with the exception of their Plums and 
Vines, in the cultivation of both of which there is room 
for great improvement, neither fruit nor vegetables 
of any but the poorest quality are produced. Apples, 
Pears, and Apricots grow in great abundance through- 
out the country, and there are unlimited opportunities 
of profit to be derived from their careful and in- 
telligent cultivation. The fruit is in itself of a good 
description, but through want of attention to pruning, 
grafting, and manuring, it is, generally speaking, 
iusipid in flavour and small in size, and seems to 
know no medium between acidity and mealiness. 
There can be little doubt that study and cultivation 
would make both fruit and vegetable raising a most 
important Servian industry, — Gardeners' Chronicle. 
Linnean Society, — At the meeting on November 
21st, Mr. W. Carruthers, F.R.S., President, in the 
chair. Mr. Edward E. Prin was admitted, and Col. 
J. H. Bowker was elected a Fellow of the Society. 
Prof. Duncan exhibited and made remarks on a stem 
of Hyalonema Sieboldii, dredged between Aden and 
Bombay, a remarkable position, inasmuch as this 
glass sponge had not previously been met with in 
any waters west of the Indian Peninsula. Prof. 
Stewart criticised the occurrence, and referred to a 
parasite on the sponge which had been found to be 
identical with one from the Japanese Seas. Mr- 
James Gioves exhibited and gave some account of 
new British Chara, Nitolla tatrachosperma, which 
had been collected in the Island of Harris. Mr. 
Thomas Christy exhibited some bark of Quillaia 
saponaria from Chili, which has the property of pro- 
ducing a great lather, and is extensively used for 
washing silk and wool. It is now found to solidify 
hydro-carbon oils and benzolino, and 'hereby to 
ensure their safe transport 011 long voyages, a small 
infusion of citric acid rendering shorn again liquid. — 
Gardeners' Chronicle. 
THE TEA TRADE. 
In reviewing the trade returns of the China Treaty 
Ports for the past year it is obvious to all that the one 
trade which has suffered most is the Tea trade, the 
price of this staple having fallen to a previously un- 
known point and with a formidably lessened tri.de. Much 
has been written and sa'd on the subject of the decline 
of the Chinese Tea trad' j , but we doubt very much if 
the root of the evil that has caused this depression has 
yet been reached. In the report on Tea, 1888, pub- 
lished by the Customs a year ago, Sir Rc bert Hart com- 
ments most unfavourably upon the advice given by 
many experienced merchants, who after an exhaustive 
inquiry strODgly recommended the reduction of the 
heavy tax-ition to which tea was subjected, as the only 
means likely to preserve tlu> trade, and he concludes 
his letter to the Tsung-li Yamou with the ludicrous 
suggestion that the Shan-li, or a paltry hill tax of a few 
c f nts, should be removed, and whilst absolutely ignoring 
the cry for the abolition of the heavy export and likin 
duties, he goes on to say that he is of opinion that no 
matter how much tea may be produced by other and duty 
free countries China tea will always command a mar- 
ket. The fallaoy of this argument as regards the 
greatest market in the world, viz , London is only 
too clearly shown by the English Customs Returns, 
where we find the consumption of China Congou has 
fallen to a trifle over five million pounds a month, 
or to less than half of the consumption of a few years 
back; and it seems that Cbina tea is literally going 
out of consumption in England, for its rapid falling 
off has exceeded the most pessimistic prophecies, and 
it is beyond question now that a few years will see 
China tea used only in minute quantities to suit the 
fancy of a few, unless some ftimulus be given to the 
trade, and that oan only be done by relieving the pro- 
ducers and exporters of the heavy duties and taxes 
which weigh so heavily upon them. China can pro- 
duce, if free from taxation, a fine medium tea to sell 
in England at 8d to 9d per lb., at which price it 
would enter most keenly into competition with the 
Indian article and should undoubtedly hold its own 
in that grade, providing of course that proper care 
had been bestowed on the leaf during manufacture, 
but at present the inquitious likin and abnormal 
export duty absolutely prevent the production of good 
tea at any such price ; and when Cbina tea has to 
enter the market at prices over one shilling per lb., 
it cannot aDd never will compete with the Indian and 
Ceylon exoeptingi n small quantities and as a fancy arti- 
cle. In fact the result of the past year's trade shows 
that the average price of China tea sold in London is 
about 6d per lb. showing enormous losses to both 
native producers and foreign exporters ; and the 
wretched quality of this tea has brought the 
name of China if it be possible into worse 
repute than it was before. With a tax in China of Tls. 
5 per picul on tea the country manufacturer can only 
afford to pay the grower a trifle for bis raw leaf, know- 
ing that the foreign buyer in turn will only pay him 
for his tea a price at which it can compete with the 
duty-free Indian, and the grower of the leaf can now 
barely make a living out of it, much less expand money 
on replanting his shrubs or manuring and pruning the 
old ones as he is always being warned and advised to 
do in the public prints. In fact it would seem that the 
owners of the once flourishing tea plantations of China 
are forced to let their plants go to ruin, no encourage- 
ment being given them to improve the growth, and 
are in many large districts absolutely grubbing up 
their tea plants and replacing them with bamboo. 
Consequently the quality of the yield deteriorates 
year by year, the price paid to the grower by the 
native buyer is in accordance with the quality of 
the product and the price paid eveutually by the con- 
sumer continues to fall with the quality. Now if the 
burdensome duty and alikin amounting to an ad-valorem 
tax of about 40 percent, ou the average valuo of the 
exported article were abolished, the. peasant proprietors 
of the tea plantations might be induced to expend some 
time and money on the improvement of their plants, 
in the knowledge that were tho tax removed, more 
would be loft in the buyer's baud wherewith to purchase 
