JtmE 2, i8gd.j TH£ TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
859 
THE OLDEST REGULARLY CROPPED TEA 
IN CEYLON STILL THOROUGHLY 
VIGOROUS. 
LOOLE CoNDTJRA FIELDS PLANTED IN 1869. 
In suooessive issues of our " Handbook and 
Directory " in connection with our Planting Review, 
we have not failed to call attention to the good 
service clone to the Colony by Messrs. Harrison 
and Leake, the partners in Messrs. Keir, 
Dundas & Co. and their faithful, intelligent 
Superintendent of Loole Condura, Mr. James Taylor. 
We refer more especially to their pioneering work 
with tea ; although cinchona misfit also be men- 
tioned. So early as 1865, Mr. James Taylor by 
Mr. Harrison's orders, began collecting tea seed 
from Peradeniya and he put out the plants along the 
roads and paths in Loole Condura in the follow- 
ing season. In that same year (1866) Mr. Leake, 
as Seoretary of the Planters' Association, moved 
that body to get Sir Hercules Robinson to send 
Mr. Arthur Morrice, an experienced coffee planter, 
on a mission to Assam to inspect and report on 
the tea districts. As one result, Mr. Leake was 
induced to order for his firm a consignment of 
Assam hybrid tea seed — the first probably ever 
imported into Ceylon— and this seed was also 
handed over to Mr. Taylor on Loole Condura. 
Mr. Taylor's first clearing for tea — 20 acres — was 
felled towards the end of 186S and this is decidedly 
the earliest planted field of Assam-hybrid tea in 
Ceylon. It is respecting this field that we have 
at intervals made inquiries as to the condition 
and bearing qualities of the bushes. Here is the 
answer to our latest application prompted by the 
desire to give the required information in our new 
"Handbook and Directory." Mr. Taylor replied in 
the following satisfactory way : — 
To the Editor, Ceylon Observer. 
The Oriental Bank Estates Company, Limited : 
Loole Condera, April 28th. 
Dear Sir, — Your note of 25th received. The 
original field of Assam Hybrid Tea here, planted 
in 1869, is still a thoroughly vigorous and healthy 
field of Tea. — Yours faithfully, James Taylor. 
We have in edition after edition of our Hand- 
work acknowledged the great debt which this 
Colony owes to the proprietors and managers of 
Loole Condura, in connection with the tea and cin- 
chona planting industries, and we may be allowed 
to repeat on the present ocoasion and in our daily 
columns, a recommendation made in the volume 
referred to on the last occasion of our alluding to the 
subject : — "To Messrs. Harrison and Leake of Messrs. 
Keir, Dundas & Co., and their intelligent and indus- 
trious manager (Mr. James Taylor) on Loole Condura 
belongs, therefore, a chief portion of the credit of 
starting both the tea and oinchona enterprises 
successfully in Ceylon. As an acknowledgment the 
Government ought, at least, to give ires grants of 
land to these gentlemen." 
+ 
SUNSTROKE, HEATSTROKE, AND HEAT 
EXHAUSTION. 
Sunstroke, coup de soleil and insolation, are synony- 
mous terms, indicating a train of symptoms of a very 
grave nervous disorder brought about by exposure to 
the powerful heat of the sun. In sunstroke the patient 
becomes giddy, feels a " rash of blood to the head," 
and falls, becoming rapidly unconscious. The pupils 
are contracted, the pulse hard and quick, the skin 
hot and dry, the face red, often cyanosed, the carotids 
throb visibly and the respiration is laboured and coma 
rapidly ensues, and death often follows in a few hours. 
Curtain conditions predispose to sunstroke. The full 
blooded, shortnecked. Ilorid European in the tropics 
is a likely subject. Exposure to the sun after indul- 
ging in alcoholic stimulants or engorging the stomach, 
favours this condition. Those in whom the nervous 
system has been much lowered by exhausting forma 
of disease are particularly prone to suffer from this 
malady. It is common in India among soldiers and 
sailors who imprudently, and with little knowledge of 
the fearful risk they court, after a heavy meal and 
tolerably free potations of beer, saunter out into the 
bazaars, to be brought back unconscious, comatose 
and dying from sunstroke. It occurs often as an un? 
expected complication in the course of ordinary re- 
mittent summer fevers, when the heat has been severe. 
It is strangely true that exposure to the sun's rays 
is not a necessary factor in producing heatstroke or 
heat apoplexy, as it is sometimes called. This condi 
THE HEALTH OP THE SKIN. 
The surface of the body comprehends a space 
of about twelve square feet. When it is taken 
into consideration that the skin is a breathing or. 
gan as well as are the lungs, though in less degree, 
we begin to appreciate its importance. Besides 
this the skin performs an important funotion in the 
way of perspiration. Of the many quarts of fluid 
that pass out of the body in twenty-four hours, 
fifty per cent passes off by the kidneys, thirty 
per cent by the lungs, and twenty per cent by the 
skin. Then the skin is constantly secreting an oil 
and excreting substances that are injurious to the 
body. Its surface is covered with a tiny film 
of oil ; beneath the oil are the horny scales, which 
come off as scurf. The oily film and the scales pro- 
tect the underlying tissues. If the oil be removed, 
the skin is more sensitive to atmospheric influences 
irritating gases, and the like ; hence it is that 
those who use much soap, and then are exposed 
to a cutting wind, find the skin chapped, reddened, 
and inflamed, for the action of the soap tends 
to remove the oil from the surface of the 
skin, and with the oil the dirt. In this con- 
nection reference may very appropriately be 
made to Lanoline Soap. This is a pure neutral soap, 
containing Lanoline, the design of the Lanoline 
being to minimize and prevent the action of any 
alkali set free when the soap is dissolved, Phy. 
sicians speak of it in the terms of highest praise. 
There is a function peculiar to the skin which" 
is seldom or never taken into account, and that 
is its oontractility. The number of tiny blood- 
vessels, mieroscopio in size, that permeate the 
twelve square feet of skin covering the body are 
counted only by billions. If the skin be weakened, 
these vessels are dilated, and the internal organs' 
of the body supplied with less blood. When the 
skin is burned or largely ulcered, there is great 
difficulty with its healing, and this difficulty is 
largely attributable to the lost oontraotility. This 
fact accounts for ulcers upon the legs having been 
cured by bandaging. Those whose face and hands 
are prone to become very red will find in this 
paragraph an explanation of the redness, and they 
should bear in mind that a free application of a 
bland and natural unguent to the skin will afford 
them the best means of prevention. Lanoline Cold 
Cream answers this purpose well. It is a delicate, 
emollient, creamy product, of pleasing fragranoei 
and is delightful to use. It never turns ranoidi 
and never irritates the skin. It is composed 
primarily of Lanoline, a fact found in hair, horns 
nails, and the horny layer of the skin. Lanoline 
differs from all other facts in that it is constituted 
of cholesterine with a fatty aoid instead of glycerine 
with a fatty acid. Lanoline Cold Cream never 
turns bad, is absorbed by the skin at once, does 
not run like ordinary ointments, aud is slightly 
adhesive, so that it can be applipd to mucous 
surfaces for cold sores. — " Health," London. 
