Decembkr i) 1887.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
TBIAL OF THE GIBBS & BARRY TEA 
DRIER AT ELKADUWA ESTATE. 
(By our Special Reporter;) 
As had boen announced previously by advertise- 
ment, a trial of the above machine look place this 
(Tuesday) afternoon (Nov. 1st) at Elkaduwa, and if fine 
weather, a good attendance, and genial hospitality 
could insure success, then without doubt this drier 
would havo carried the day by storm ; lor only 
one shower fell during the drive up. There was 
a gathering of some thirty-live of tho wisest-headed 
and strongest-bodied planters of canny Ceylon, and 
Messrs. Barry, Hodgson and Skrino did all in 1 
their power to render our visit a pleasant as well 
us a profitable one. Traps were in attendance at 
Watagama station to take tho party to the estate, 
and as there is no train to Kandy later than 1-20 , 
they waited to bring us back again the full 17 
miles. The scenery, being new to many of us, 
was much admired, and the steep, pre- 
cipitous road was very romantic, but, on the pre- 
sent occasion, romance must give way to hard dry 
— I may say Drier — prose. 
After some very acceptable and ample refresh- 
ment in one of the stores, the following 
gentlemen proceeded to the old pulping-house where 
the drier has been temporarily erected: — Messrs. 
K. Anstr uther, P. G. Ambrose, H. W. Ashley, 
Barry, W. Booth, N. S. Brown, Neil Campbell, 
Hastings A. Clarke, E. M. Davidson, T. S. Dobree, 
J. M. B. Duncan, T. Dickson, A. M. Ferguson, jr., 
R. S.Fraser, Jos. Eraser, Chas. Gibbon, Jos. Hadden, 
T. Hodgson (Manager of Elkaduwa), A. M. Hurst, C. 
A. Kynaston, A. T. Karslake, Geo. Moir, C. S. Morns, 
Geo. Reid, E. Gordon Reeves, A. C. Smail, VV. L. 
Strachan, D. Skrine, E. Skrine, A. Tait, Arthur 
Thomas, and A. Melville White. 
900 lb. of green leaf had been withered, rolled, 
and fermented in readiness, and at 2-11 the first 
handful was thrown in at the end of tho cylinder 
furthest away from the furnace, the tomperature 
being between 150 and 500 ; at 2-25 the first tea 
appeared at the other end, and at 2-38 it began to 
pour out freely. Of course as the trial went on 
the work got faster, and fermented tea put in at 
one end camo out I fired tea in an average of 
about 11 minutes. I think it is always unfair to 
judge of a machine by one hour's trial or one day's 
trial, especially where the working is quite new to 
most present, and so several minor faults presonted 
themselves in the Drier today which most likely 
will never occur when the machine is in regular 
use, a month hence say. For instance, some of 
the toa came out decidedly highly fired in- 
stead of only J or ? done, and at the 
end of 1 hour and 10 minutes when the 
machine was stopped only 10x lb. was weighed 
instead of about 200, as the out-turn ought to have 
boen according to the prospectus. No doubt, how- 
ever, tho second and every succeeding hour would 
havo turned out much more, and I can honestly 
Bay that the trial on tho whole was a great success. 
Tho machine is so simplo that, as one planter 
plainly put it, the stupidest idiot of a cooly could 
understand it. There is absolutely no handling 
of tho tea after it lias once entered tho Drier; 
and it empties itself automatically, so that no 
cooly can burn or over-lire your tea wheu once 
tho temperature, nnglo and rato of feeding havo 
bcuu regulated; and two coolios could easily work 
the whole machine, furnaces, fermented loaf and 
all. A proper technical description of tho Drier 
is given below from tiio prospectus, but in simple 
language I may say that it is a hugo cylinder 
lilted with shelves, rxaotl) like 11 water-wheel turned 
inside out. constantly revolving, taking the tea up 
aud lettiug u Jtop duwu o^aiu through iho bliul 
•it> 
of hot air which is sent by a fan from end to 
end from the furnace, and with such an inclination 
on it that the tea gradually works its own way 
out at the other end. The disadvantages of the 
Gibbs & Barry Drier seemed to many of us to 
be the enormous price (R1,000 I believe); the 
burning of coke alone; the huge out-turn fitting 
it only for very large gardens (though Messrs. 
Skrine havo a smaller one, I believe) : and tho 
amount of the wheel's or engine's horsepower it 
absorbs, 14 to 2 h. p. I was told. The advantages 
are its extreme simplicity of construction and in 
work : the automatic feeding out of tea : its great 
out-turn: and the amount ot heat the large sur- 
face of the cylinder would give out for wither- 
ing leaf. 
As we, who had come from far, drove back to 
Kandy in the cool of a delightfully fine evening, 
we felt that we had been well repaid for all our 
trouble by what wc had seen of the manifestations 
of the brain and energy that are being put into 
our tea enterprise in Ceylon. 
THE "GIBBS AND BARRY " TEA DRIER. 
After an experience of several seasons, the Patentees 
are able to claim for this invention that it is acknow- 
ledged by competent authorities to be the best machine 
hitherto produced for drying Tea, Grain, Seeds, etc. 
It has been widely used in India during the past 
three years, and gives increasing satisfaction to the 
users, as evidenced in the accompanying testimonials. 
The Machine is simple in construction, can be 1 a ily 
put together, and with care aud proper attention 
should give no trouble. It may bo briefly described 
as a rotating cylinder, in the axis of which is placed 
a perforated tube for conducting the hot air or gas 
which is forced into it by a fan. The interior of 
the cylinder is fitted with shelves, and the apparatus is 
placed on an incline. The green leaf is fed iu at oue 
end of the cylinder, is constantly carried up by the 
shelves, and allowed to fall through the current of hot 
air as the cylinder revolves, thus travelling down to the 
other or lower end, where it is discharged in a nearly 
dry state. It can be brought out fully dried, but the 
Patentees recommend it to be never more than " seveu- 
eighths-fircd " when it is discharged from the cylinder, 
and the final firing to be completed in trays over ordin- 
ary " choolas." They prefer the tea to be brougbt out 
about " three-fourths-dried." 
It is not claimed that tea dried in this machine is 
superior to all other machine-dried teas, but, as the 
process is automatic, and consequently must if ordin- 
ary care he bestowed, ensure absolute uniformity, it is 
asserted that it produces tea certainly not inferior to 
that made by any other known apparatus. 
The quantity of tea which can be dried by this ma- 
chine) is very large. There are two sizes; one with a 
cylinder 18 feet long and 3 feet 0 inches in diameter, 
capable of " thrce-fourths-dri/iny" about ten maunds of 
(/rccn lea/per hour, and tho other with a cylinder 12 
feet lonn and 2 feet 0 inches in diameter, which 
will " three-fourths-drtf " about four maunds of green 
leaf per hour. In stating this, however, the Patentees 
do not guarantee any particular results. Iu snmo 
cases these quantities havo been exceeded, while in 
othors they have not been reached. 
The Patentees can only guarantee that as each one 
of tho respective sizes is mado from the same pattern 
evory machine is identical. 
For final firing tho tea, ("Pucka batty ") and pack, 
ing, this Dryer has been conspicuously successful. As 
many as 30 maunds of tfa have been passed through 
it iu an hour. 
Both in labour and fuel the Patentees claim for this 
Invention a superiority in economy. The mm who 
foeda iu tho leaf is absolutely tho only ar> 
required by the uiachino iUielf." Tho nun who e..rr> 
thu rolled loaf to, and tho dry tea away from it, 
oro not counted because they aro 1*0 employ d ■» 
every factory. The nuuio may be said of Ui< 
required to look at icr tho wvikin* part* aud the im- 
