October r, 1887! THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
1883 1882 
Jan. Anj*. Jan. Aug. 
1st 25th 1st 2-itli 
Middling Plantation 611/ 77/ 75/ 70, 
Good Ordinary Guatemala '11/ 45/ 52/ 48/ 
Good Ordinary Java (Am.ster- 
dnm 27c 29c. rtljc. 29o. 
Good average Santos (Havre) ... 4 1 Jf . 56f. Bit- 45f. 
Kair Kio (New York) §8 1-8 $10 $10$ S»r 
P.vntY & Pasteup.. 
THE " TEA COMPANY OF CEYLON," 
UDUGAMA DISTRICT. 
Wo recently mado reference to this projected tea 
Company, and have just received some furthor partic- 
ulars, which may be of interest to our readers. The 
land is described to us as being, without exception, 
heavy forest on an undulating lay of land. Tlin lake, 
which we described as being situated in the 
centre of the laud, is quite as large as we 
stated, and is found on examination to be very deep, 
having two or three very largo streams flowing into 
it. The bund has a height of some 30 feet to 40 feet, 
a large stream of water overflowing the spill. At 
the foot of the bund, and some little distance from 
it, is the old sugar factory, still standing, with the 
vats, the crushing machinery, and the water-wheel, 
all complete. The whilom proprietor of the land has 
been utilizing the water-wheel, supplied as it is by 
an enormous stream of water, for the purpose of 
sawing timber, with which the laud is very heavily 
stocked. Thero cannot be the slightest doubt that 
the present proprietors of the land — Messrs. J. F. 
Baker, Shelton Agar, and Hall — have a very valuable 
venture to offer to the public, as we believe they will 
vory shortly do. Surveyors are at present at work 
cutting out the boundaries of this block of land, said 
to contain 2,178 acres, of which 500 acres in the centre 
(including GO acres of lake) are now being felled, and 
nurseries are shortly to be laid dowu for future plant- 
ings. From the description which wo have received 
of the lay of the land, we should imagine that no 
finer investment than that shortly to be offered in 
this Tea Company exists in Ceylon. One great point 
iu favor of the Company will be its extreme accessi- 
bility, and the great facility of transport afforded, for 
we find that it has transport by river both to Galle 
(by the ( ! indura-gauga) and to Bentota (by the Bentota 
river), whichever is deemed preferable, as both streams 
pass in juxtaposition to the laud. 
TEA AND COFFEE AS SANITARY BEVERAGES. 
(From the English Mechanic, Aug. 12th.) 
Nearly every article of human consumption, 
Plken in excess,hiB a deleterious effect on the system, 
mote or less, according to the climate and consti- 
tution of the consumer — notably the above two 
vegetable products in daily domestio use. 
Analytical investigation has long ago discovered 
two active principles, theinc and caffeine, both of 
which proved fatal to cats in some laboratory ex- 
periments. The fresh leaves of the tea-plant are 
powerfully emetic, a property only removed by the 
bruising, squeezing, and rubbing they undergo on 
coarse bamboo mats in the first stage of manu- 
facture. When the rolling tables are annually 
cluaned, this poisonous juice is found inspissated, 
or in dry masses. Some specimens were forward- 
ed to Europe for examination ; but I have never 
heard the result. 
The infusion of high-class properly roasted leaf 
generally diluted with milk, on the moderato scale 
of a cup or two with a hearty meal, is highly bene- 
ti ial to the digestive organs, being a very mild 
stimulant of a soothing character. Its value was 
recognised during a groat epidemic of Asiatic cholera 
in Franco, for use of convalescents, who had a 
particular longing for this liquid food. It is also 
m.icli prai.ed in that country as a pleasant drink 
or suflororu from cold, and coughs. Only chemist.; 
keep tea in stock there, and no tea-dealers or 
grocer vendors (or were not at the time I mention), 
for our Gallic neighbours call it a medicine. In 
my own case of " Insomnia," produced by over- 
study, very strong green tea, prescribed by an 
amateur homo'opathist, on the usual timilia simililms 
formulary, proved very effective. I was reading 
hard at three Oriental languages (often till mid- 
night) and was brain racked by hard-worded phant- 
asms — this, too, in spite of daily rides and many out- 
door recreations. The counter excitant proved the 
stronger to the nervous system, and I soon slept 
woll and naturally. Of course, there must be no milk 
in the infusion, and I have eschewed that animal 
lluid from boyhood, having a dislike to it —like the 
Chinese with whom I have occasionally enjoyed a 
cup of pure, aromatic Bohea, tasting only of itself. 
Newly manufactured teas are stored in bulk for 
a year or more, with the object of ridding tkem of 
the acrid volatile principle adherent to the fresh 
leaf, besides adding aroma to the same. The Cel- 
estial opium-eater long ago discovered this " pick- 
me-up " preparation, without which aid he would 
have succumbed to sleep and sloth ; still, he is 
short-lived. 
No doubt the all day long tea-drinking habit of 
a few individuals in this country induces prema- 
ture decay by impairing the functions of the stom- 
ach, and then the nervous system. I know a town 
practitioner who has been preaching widely to dom- 
estic servants on this addiction to "too much of a good 
thing ;" but how much worse and more general is 
the abuse of alcohol, the gluttony in fat-producing 
alimonts, and many other self-indulgences of modern 
life ! For many years after I arrived in trophal 
climates I could not swallow the'usual early morn 
cup of tea without the attendant emetic effect of 
ipecacuanha; hence I took a disgust to the beverage, 
and substituted iced water, or the coldest I could 
obtain, with much benelit to my stomach — a nat- 
ural tonic of invigorating character, if the element 
be chemically pure. 
The preparation and consumption of tea -leaves 
doubtless originated in China; hence the traveller 
in N. E. India comes across what is locally termed 
" Indigenous tea," scattered in occasional belts and 
patches over the great wilderness of Upper Assam, 
and in the forests of the Shan frontiers, where 
man without written language hunts the abundant 
fauna. He is fond of the native leaf; having col- 
lected a supply of the young shoots and buds, he 
pounds them between stones, kneads them, and 
mixes with salt. When dry, he gets a hollow joint 
of the large bamboo and rams this queer mess into 
the cavity. He slings this crude tea-caddy by a 
librous string over his shoulders, and when in want 
of the cheering cup he picks out some of the ugly, 
dirty compound with the point of his trade knife. 
I never saw his teapot or kettle, but hiving used 
a joint of bamboo as cooking-pot for rice myself 
in Savageland, I suppose the wild man can boil 
his tea equally well. In Kashmir and Central 
Asia " brick tea " is in popular use. This is 
merely any good sort of tea reduced to dust and 
kneaded with sheep's blood into small oblong 
slabs (for the sake of portability, I imagine). A 
largo iron pot is placed on the lire ; when tin: 
water boils, a large piece of the brick is thrown 
into it ; then soda, bitter aromatic drugs, snlt, 
sugar, butter, Ac. — a most awful brew, which 
for politeness sake I have accepted, and secretly 
emptied on the ground, while I used to mutter, 
" Deliver me from tuch an ufternoon tea." The 
colour of said decoction resembles that of a 
mountain torrent in first flood, ruddy and 
turbid ! There are many agreeable substitutes to 
my thinking : fresh mint leaves with a slice of 
