I- i4 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [December k, 1887. 
at present existing. But with bad news of crops 
from nearly all producing countries, it is difficult 
to understand how even now the prices can be 
said to be too high. Coffee is surely for a long 
time to be a scarce and dear article. 
I have been with Mr. Morris at Kew, and corre- 
sponding with Dr. Giinther — to whom Mr. Gow 
has been sending specimens of green bug— but 
I must reserve details and information for an- 
other time. 
To revert to tea, it is quite evident, as Messrs. 
Geo. White & Co. were reminding me, that China 
cannot do much to retrieve the position it has 
lost unless some of the heavy levies made on tea 
in that country are relaxed and modified. Even 
as it is, the low price at which decent Congous 
can be sold is wonderful : one sample passed at 
4§d per lb. surprized me. 
But what is this to the position and price of 
our other planting staple — Cinchona Baek ? With 
50,000 ounces of quinine selling at Is 4d or so 
per ounce, and with 250,000 ounces besides, said 
to be in middle hands, there are some authorities 
on the bark market who say they would not be 
surprized at a regular crisis, through manufacturers 
refusing for a certain interval to buy any more 
bark, until the stuff in middle hands and their 
own stocks are more freely passed into consump- 
tion. I have had the privilege of discussing the 
question with several Ceylon merchants or agents, 
and with Messrs. W. H. Cole & Co., Mr. John 
Hamilton, Mr. J. H. Boberts, and others In the 
offioe of the first-named, I saw a circular issued 
by an Amerioan firm, in the drug trade I fancy, 
trying to bear the market by proph sying that 
quinine would be a shilling an ounce, and even 
then that the planters of ' ledgeriana ' could make 
100 to 200 per cent profit on their capital ! By 
the way, I was clearly shown the absurdity of the 
notion freely held in Ceylon and lately propounded 
by Mr. Hody Cox (whom I have yet to see) that 
the very large quantity of ccmmon twig etc. bark 
has rnuoh to do with the keeping down of prices. 
Quantity also (especially of inferior bark) has not 
much leverage on a market where buyers are guided 
solely by analyses and percentages. Everything is 
analysed, and therefore 500,0<'i0 lb. of one per cent 
bark has not as much influence on prices or the 
market as 100,000 lb. of 4 to 5 per cent quality. 
Of course, the point where the twig bark ceases 
to be profitable of harvesting is a very practical and 
important one to consider ; and certainly to get 
all unprofitable stuff kept back is very de- 
sirable. With prices at less than 2d per 
unit, no doubt Ceylon planters will be very 
chary of harvesting common stuff. But they 
have scarcely had such an experience as a recent 
sale of cuprea bark at little more than one penny 
per lb. presents 1 The dock charges alone are in 
excess of the sale-proceeds, apart from freight 
agency, carriage, cutting. No wonder, though all 
imports of South American forest-cut barks should 
be disappearing ; but cultivated Bolivian kinds are 
coming in their place, and the quality is well 
spoken of, while I am told that owners of plant- 
ations there make out that 8d or 8Jd per lb. in 
London will pay them, just as 6d used to be the 
limit fixed for the cost of average bark from India 
and Coylon. By the way, the higher percentage 
of Ceylon bark for last season, as a whole, has 
attracted attention ; and also the fact, that, as soon 
as the past season closed, with a less export than 
in 1885 C, there was a rush during the opening week 
of 1887-8 and a big comparative increase estab- 
lished ! London brokers and buyers doubt where- 
to this may tend — and I am, of course, besieged 
with enquiries as to the probable export foe the 
current season. To such I can only give very 
tentative cautious answers. I do point out that 
reserves have been largely trenched on, that much 
has died or been cut out, that with a wider area 
bearing tea the labour force will not be available 
for cinchona harvesting, and the planter not so 
necessitous about " raising the wind " from bark 
only. On the other hand, there is the chance of 
cinchona which interferes with tea being out out 
more freely than ever nowadays, so adding to the 
exports temporarily, and there is also tik«. prospect 
of increased returns from Java and India, if 
not from Bolivia and Jamaica. It is an order 
to buy bark that may be looked for from America 
nowadays, but as I say to mv friends (the 
speaker, a man of experience in the bark market) 
they had better send over here to buy quinine in 
the alkaloids by the ton 1 All have been much 
interested in my letter to the " Opium Suppression 
Society," which has been acknowledged as exceed- 
ingly interesting by the Hon. Secretary, and which 
is to have a large circulation. I have yet to see 
some of the big houses about making the cheap- 
ness of quinine better known. There is a strong 
feeling in the City that an organization 1 1 promote 
the free distribution by sale in small packets of 
the invaluable tonic and febrifuge should be 
established. America seems to be the only country — 
that is the Southern States— whore the cheapness 
of the article has been so realized as to lead to 
a special increase in consumption. It was expected 
that the demand from Sou hern Europe would 
expand freely, but this is not the case ; nor 
have the brewers, German or otherwise, done 
much with oinohona, finding a cheaper bitter 
(or substitution of hops when scarce or dear) 
in quassia, calumba root, &c. All this is dis- 
appointing. But there is undoubtedly much room 
for the legitimate use of quinine in a very extensive 
way in England, and in India and China. 
«. 
TEA. 
It is an ungrateful task, year after year, tb« pre- 
diction of low if not lower prices for China teai, 
and the perpetual preachment of caution in their 
purchase ; but the event unfortunately seems always 
to justify the foreoast, and there is little reason to 
anticipate a. variation in the future. China teas pay, 
of course, when they are judioiously bought, and 
when circumstances are favourable. Sometimes — as 
last year — it is the commoner sort which "come out;" 
sometimes, as this, it is the better kinls which 
thrive ; that is a question of luck and discretion ; so 
much indeed, it would often appear, of luck alone, 
as almost to justify Mr. Ryrie's recent classification 
of shares and produce in the same category. It 
would be a dull trade, however, which h-id no fluc- 
tuation, and it may be this very speculative element, 
which stimulates the perennial supply of credits. Still 
it is none the less true that the course of the 
market, year after year, is downward — precisely 
as might be auticipated from the careless manufac- 
ture to which Sir Kobert Hart called attention, 
and from the increasing competition of India and 
gOeylon. It was not to be expected that tea would 
scape the depreciation which monometallism is bring- 
ing about in all values at the present moment. It 
shares on the other hand, with Indian wheat, the coun- 
ter-balancing advantage of low exchange, in that the 
taels of silver with which it is bought cost fewer pounds 
sterling. But the causes we have named are more 
depressing than currency fluctuations which thus 
roughly regulate themselves ; and never ptrhaps has 
their effect been more marked than in the current 
year, when, in spite of a short export of nearly 
30,01)0,000 pounds, " dull and declining " is the cur- 
rent quotation for China tea, 
