anuary 2, 1888.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 435 
TEA— COCOA— KArOK— DRUGS— DYES— BUB- 
BER-WOOD FOR PAPER— QUININE. 
London, 28th Oct. 1887. 
As to new Products, Ceylon Tea never stood 
in higher favour than at present : if only quality 
can be kept up as at present (say experts from 
one end of the City to the other) Ceylon tea 
must bo the tea of the future. One explanation 
of tho high values lately given for our teas is 
that the large number of distributors and dealers 
in packets have got alarmed about being called 
to account— fear of each other 1— under the new 
Act for selling blends as pure Ceylon tea ; and 
that they must have the real article to meet 
customers' demands. I hear most satisfactory 
accounts of high-grown teas :— Glencairn, Errol, 
Calsay, Abbotsford, Mooloya, and of course Loolecon- 
dura. A friend wbo casually met a tea expert travelling 
in a Midland town was amused at the enthusiastic 
way he spoke of Ceylon teas :— " He said it would be 
the tea of the future if a sufficient quantity was pro- 
duced and if the quality were maintained, by 
manuring, &e. Ho added there was one brand which 
generally fetched up the prices when on sale, 
Abbotsford" 1— and this without the slightest idea 
of its reaching those interested.* 
By tho way, I find this question of mannriiu/ tea 
to keep up quality in Ceylon seriously discussed 
in several City quarters, though in others carefulness 
in manufacture is considered of most importance. 
In the office of Messrs. Wilson, Smithett & Co., 
I hear that some doubts are begining to be thrown 
on Ceylon 'Cocoas,' some samples recently not being 
up to the usual mark ; but this may be a passing 
incident. This same firm have been introducing 
Ceylon 'kapok' to the notice of manufacturers (who 
mix it with silk) with success, and I should fancy a 
good demand must set in. 
In " Lane" offices, as well as from the 
editors of the India Rubber and Chemist and 
ptuggUt journals, I learn there is a good pros- 
pect before ' rubber.' The ways in which it is 
utilized aro increasing every day, and raw material 
at 2s (id to lis should pay the Ceylon owners of 
trees by-and-by whan a good yield of milk can 
bo looked for. 
Dyes and Drugs and Coca leaves are subjects of 
inquiry, and Mr. Thomas Christy, whose store and 
offices have been enlarged since I was last over 
(his storo being a regular museum), is busy in 
introducing now drugs to the trade. His patent 
" incubator" has aho been now perfected he thinks 
after many years of experiment, and he has also 
a very promising invention in hand in connection 
with the distilling of water which is likely to nave 
much expense in niaHy directions. 
At the great "paper" house of Messrs. Spicer 
& Sons, Upper Thames Street, I was much in- 
terested in learning from one of the partners how 
largely their manufactories had come to depend on 
"wood" for raw material. I'inewood from Norway 
and Swedon, straight, smooth and free from knot 
or exoroacunce, worked to mucilage by an abundant 
supply of varied chemicals, «ives the paper from 
whiuh nearly all the London newspapers aro supplied ! 
A visit to the manufactory of various machines 
connected with tea-mixers or blenders, cutters, At. 
in company with an experienced China tea merch- 
ant, whoso guest I was some years ago in 
Canton, but who is now a Lane broker eager 
after Oa/lon tin, was interesting, and here I 
• In reality Ahlrotsford tea nclln, at public Bales, at 
only n rojqicclablc nvi rngc. The lliivour is delicate, luit 
the ti a ilo"» not hi em to lie strong rinm^li for the 
purpose of thoho who (irm tiie Mi ruling. I'«cil nlone 
its delicate moutitain tlnvour tollc— Ki>. 
saw an ordinary but useful articlo which, I think, 
should be in request in Ceylon tea stores : — 
steel scoops, flat and half-round, very strongly 
made. Specimens are to be sent out to Ceylon. 
I was glad to see Mr. T. J. Lawrance (growing 
portly enough to qualify as Alderman and Lord 
Mayor one day) at the headquarters of the Ceylon 
Produce Company so largely interested in cacao 
and tea plantations (Peradeniya, Kawdapellella, 
&c). This new Company alone has been the means 
of introducing £100,000 of fresh capital into Ceylon, 
and than Mr. Alexander Ross, they could not have 
a better representative in the island. 
Messrs. Gow, Wilson & Stanton have made a 
new departure in selling valuable tea seed in the 
Lane — see their catalogue for "Manipuri Indigenous 
Tea Seed." 
See also the interesting Produce tables of Joseph 
Travers & Sons I send, and Cooper, Cooper & Co. 
on Teas. 
QUININE AND OPIUM: THE CINCHONA BARK TRADE. 
To turn to another topic, that of the abundance 
and cheapness of quinine and the need of extend- 
ing consumption, my letter to the " Society for 
the Suppression of the Opium Traffic " has brought 
the following acknowledgement: — ■ 
Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade, 
Offices : — Broadway Chambers, Westminster, S. W. 
J. Ferguson, Esq. 
October 19th, 1887. 
Dear Sir, — I bog to acknowledge the receipt of 
your interesting letter of the 14th Oct. Unfortunately 
our periodical The. Friend of China is only published 
quarterly, the last number having appeared on Oct. 
1st, but we shall have your letter set up in type, 
and before it is published, endeavour to obtain some 
influential medical opinions in support of your valu- 
able suggestion. — Yours faithfully, F. W. Cuesson, 
Hon. Sec}-. 
The subject has been a good deal talked of in 
many circles, not only Medical and China Mis- 
sionary, but among press and City men. Geo. 
Augustus Sala may have something to say about 
it, and already the editor of the Christian World 
— one of the most widely circulated of London 
weeklies — has taken up the matter in the follow- 
ing leaderette : — 
Mr. John Ferguson, of The. C'i/lon Observer, has 
written to the Society for the Suppression of the 
Opium Traffic, calling attention to the vivluo of quinine 
as a specific against the taste for opium, and to tho 
present cheapness of the article. His contention is 
that tho appetite for opium, as is evident from what 
is seen in tho malarial regions of China and of the 
Fens in England, is due to a type of low fever, and 
that tho appetite thus acquired is then passed on 
by generation until it has become a habit apart 
from the original cause. The counteractaut of this 
appetite is quinine, and it is so recognised evan in 
the renioto parts of China. Quoting from "Across 
Chryse," it is shown that quinine is more highly 
esteemed in China, than the brightest Birmingham 
goods. Mr. Colquhoun, tho author of that work, was 
asked inoro thin once by .Mandarins if he had any 
cure for tho "black smoke poison" (opium), and on 
his replying in tho negative, "Then have you any 
quinine?' would ho asked. The American mission- 
aries, too, recognise this fact, aud arc introducing 
quinine pills hugely at their mission stations in China. 
On tho second point, the present cheapness of quinine, 
Mr. Fergus 'ii urges on the Society the policy of recom- 
mending the use of quinine. A few years ago it would 
have been idle to make such a recommendation to 
poor people; but the succoss of the Government OX- 
perinienttf, >n India and Ceylon in the cultivation of 
the Cinchona plant has produced a revolution in the 
market, so that tbc price of Howard's Sulphate ol 
Quinine, In place of being 10s to l.'is per ounce, i- 
now down to 2a 6d. If the British, Goveinmoni has 
siniud in encouraging the consumption of Indian 
opium in China, they arc now waking tonic amende, 
