362 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [December i, 1887. 
nace, for wherever there is machinery there must be an 
eugineer and a stoker who can easily attend to this 
duty. The amount of coke consumed is very small, and 
the cost of it per maund of tea compares very favour- 
ably with the cost of charcoal as used in the old process. 
These results, namely, the large quatity of tea it is 
capable of manufacturing, regularity in quality, con- 
venience and simplicity in working, and economy in 
labour and fuel, are claimed as advantages peculiar to 
this machine, and place the " Gibbs and Barry " Tea 
Dryer in front of all its competitors. 
Particular attention and care should be bestowed on 
the construction of the furnace. If this be done a 
vast amount of trouble and inconvenience will be avoided 
afterwards. Time should be allowed for the brickwork 
to become thoroughly dry before any fire is put inside 
the furnace. 
For constructing the furnace 300 fire bricks, 6,000 
common red bricks, and one cask fire clay are needed. 
With reference to the supplementary apparatus of 
trays sent, if required, with each machine, the Paten- 
tees consider it is not needed. Users will find it 
advantageous to build their own. 
A number of machines were supplied last year for 
the current season, and as there was some delay in 
consequence of the orders having been received late 
in the year, it is suggested that orders for machines 
to be made for use in the forthcoming season should 
be given at an early date. 
It having been ascertained that the cylinder will 
work as satisfactorily with two, as with four, friction 
rings, some machines are being made on this pattern. 
The price of them will be £10 less than for the old 
style. 
Prices (which include packing, pyrometer, belting, 
and everything complete, except firebricks and clay): — 
Large size, with 4 friction rings ... £275 
Ditto, with 2 friction rings ... ... 265 
Small ditto .. ... — ... 175 
Supplementary finishing apparatus if supplied 
with dryer ... ... ... 25 
Ditto, if supplied alone ... .». 35 
Delivered F. O. B. London. 
For full particulars apply to J. B. Baeky & Son, 
110, Cannon Street, London, or to Babby & Co., 5, 
Lyons Range, Calcutta. 
The above prices refer to the original type. The 
prices of the new type are £225 net for large 6ize. 
♦ 
PLANTING IN DELI. 
(Translated for the Straitu Times.) 
The weather in Deli during the last month took a 
turn favourable to the planting interest, hitherto the 
worse for unseasonable rain. Many planters who had 
given up all hopes of securing even a moderate crop 
have been marvellously helped up by this change for 
the better. September usually a wet month has proved 
a particularly wet one this year. It has rendered crop 
operations easy and remunerative. Heavy rain only 
fell on the 29th of the month. 
Coffee is grown to some extent in Deli. One 
hundred piculs of that article lately brought 53 
guilder cents per pound at Amesterdam.. Experiments 
with cultivating the berry there have so far proved 
unprofitable enough to discourage planters from try- 
ing it Tbey stick to tobacco as the safer investment. 
Nowadays tobacco holds a high place in the market. 
That from Deli enjoys a bigh reputation for wrap- 
piug purposes. When North Borneo comes fairly in 
the field, Deli with its restricted area of land will 
have a hard struggle to avoid being distanced. 
A GROWL AT INDIAN TEA. 
Mr. R. M. Holborn, tea dealer of Mincing Lane, who 
nourishes a singular antipathy to Indian tea, writes a 
letter to the Grocer upon the subject of a recent 
article im the jubilee of Indian tea, which appea red 
in the Standard, and was given in our issue of Se pt- 
ember 23rd. Mr. Holborn is indignant with everbo dj 
who dares to insinuate that China tea is uot all h is 
fancy paiuts it, He says ;— 
" Yonr extract from that journal (the Standard), 
is full of 'crams' from end to end. It is not likely 
that the 1886-87 import of Indian tea will be 90,000,000 
lb. ; last year I think that it was 79,000,000 lb. in 
round figures, but I am short of returns here. Mr. 
Robert Giffen is a charming and accomplished statist 
but a very hybrid tea-dealer — probably an Indian share- 
holder. They really must grow hyperbole in the Him- 
alayas between the tea plants. Invention and imagin- 
ation have always been blends with any statements 
upon tea coming from Anglo-Indian sources. Tbey 
cannot, even in the present article, allude to China tea 
without the slimy, mean introduction of the odious 
feature of 'adulteration' ! The scribe in the penny 
daily appears not to know such authorities as Messrs. 
John Reeves and William James Thompson, sen. 
who fully satisfied the Special Committee of the 
House of Commons in 1874 upon the question of 
adulteration in China tea. As the article before me 
progresses, a distinct position is given to Ceylon tea, 
showing that it was not included in the estimate of 
90,000,000 lb. I believe that the Ceylon output of 
1886-87 was about 9,000,000 lb. and not 10,000,000 lb. 
— as insinuated, but not stated clearly. Blending tea 
is not an unalloyed advantage; the fine bloom on a 
well-cured China tea flies off on disturbance, and may 
be taken up in palmfuls, as a fine soft grey down in 
the mixing rooms of our larger dealers. You can see 
the greyness and the bloom on the face of a sample of 
high-class Shanghai black leaf ; and when this is dis- 
turbed, and this tender freshness separated, the 
richest flavour of the brew goes with it. I deny that 
the Chinese prepare tea in the manner in which it 
has been done from time immemorial.' I do not 
admit that 'the liquor produced from China tea is 
thinner and less pungent than that obtained from 
India tea.' The two terms are nonsensically para- 
doxical. Except fine Hyson, no liquor could be thin- 
ner than that for which the Liverpool man got fined 
by Dr. Brown, the quasis analyst, yet it is the most 
pungent cup which we have, viz., the finest gunpow- 
der. The beauty of fine green tea in its herbal pun- 
gency and natural fragrance. The pungency of Indian 
tea is produced by firing: it tastes of toast; every minute 
portion of turpentine* is condensed on and in the leaf ; 
it tastes sharp on the tongue, and it is invaluable 
as an alternative after whisky. I question, upon this, 
whether the Belfast dealers are not the most cleverly- 
adaptive men among all your subscribers, for they 
sell the largest proportion of Indian tea in their total 
supplies to the public. No doubt, to a very sad 
extent, the general sense has been weaned and warped — 
(I do not believe that that taste has been yet entirely 
perverted), — it is led on, first by economy, ' colour in 
the cup,' next by 79,000,000 lb. weight of Anglo- 
Indian pedantry, proselytism, but worst of all, by 
that easily-acted-upon credulity and prejudice. Pre- 
judice , by the fool, sir ! The general grocer, the 
bulk of your readers, ought to know the meaning and 
application of the term I Why has his coffee trade 
gone to false French productions imported here ? But 
there — prejudice ! When it first came down upon 
green tea, I told my dear old Nottingham and Derby 
friends, ' Fine pure green still sold here, — stick it in 
your windows.' Prejudice is a thing always to face, 
always to fight, and to sink. Every grocer might 
feel that he was a victorious man, because he can 
hold in ridicule Charies Dickens's vicious nonsense 
that the grocer ' sanded his sugar.' I submit, sir, 
this to you, as one of your oldest humble servants." 
—11. & C. Mail. 
AVERAGES OF INDIAN AND CEYLON TEA. 
Messrs. Walker, Lambe, and Company say: — "The 
heavy sales which commenced during the last month 
have caused a downward tendency in the market, and 
prices have fallen for all grades, teas with excep- 
tional quality alone remaining at former quotations. 
The chief weakness has been shown i:i Souchongs 
under Sd, which are Jd cheap er, and in poor liquor- 
* " Turpentine" ! Who ever heard of terebinthine 
elements in tea ? Fanatical prejudice gone insane !— 
Ed. 
