744 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [May i, 1888 
The Consumption of Tea is still increasing as 
compared with the last two years, the amount taken 
out of bond last month being 15,255,000 lb. against 
14 318,000 lb. in February 1887. It is a pity that 
a distinction has not yet been made between China, 
Indian, and Ceylon teas as regards withdrawals 
from bond. That this ought to be done is evi- 
dent from the fact that the annual imports from 
India alone are not much less than those from 
China. During the first two months of the present 
year, indeed, the Indian arrivals have been 
3,000,000 lb. larger than the Chinese.— PI. <£ C. 
Mail, March 9th. 
Tea. — Tbe example of Ceylon is being followed in South 
Africa and the West Indies, and even in Madagascar; 
and tea-growing is the planters' delight just now. The 
report upon some samples of Jamaica tea which ap- 
pears in the Kew Bulletin of Miscellaneous Inform- 
ation for this month, accompanied as it is by notes on 
similar experimental efforts in Natal and Madagascar, 
shows that the products of India and China will 60on 
be called upon to face the competition of numerous 
rivals. The Botanical Department of Jamaica has 
demonstrated the possibility of creating a very con- 
siderable tea trade, not only! in Jamaica itself, but 
also with the outside world. The report from Messrs. 
Gow, Wilson, and Stanton speaks well of the first 
tea grown in the island, although all the specimens 
indicate a faulty manipulation of the leaf. The Natal 
tea is said also to be of good quali y, and its cultiva- 
ation is rapidly passing beyond the experimental stage. 
The first real field was only planted in 1880, but the 
cultivation has extended so widely that the output 
for last year has been estimated at something over 
100,0001b.— if. cfi C. Mail. 
Tea-preparing Machinery.— Mr. Dalgarno is 
about to leave for Calcutta en route to the several 
Indian tea districts. (He reports that the best of 
the Sylhet tea gardens of Messrs. Finlay & Co., 
Glasgow and Calcutta, are said to be yielding up to 
20 maunds per acre !) Mr. Dalgarno has erected 
one of Jackson's latest improved Boiling machines 
—already referred to in our columns— on Pera- 
deniya estate, and one of the improved " Driers " 
on Labookellie estate, Eamboda. We expect to 
publish accounts of the working of both machines 
after they have been tried a little longer. Mean- 
time Mr. Boss of Peradeniya is much pleased with 
the Boiler; while Mr. Corrie on Labookellie finds 
the new firebrick arrangement a great improve- 
ment, so much so that the heat is retained 
up to 150 degrees all through the night, and so 
the Drier is very quickly brought into work each 
morning. Mr. Jackson and his staff are now bent 
on solving the "withering" problem, and experi- 
ments on a varied scale are shortly to be made. 
A Green Bug in England is thus noticed in 
a paper in the Journal of the Society of Arts, on 
diseases of plants : — 
Of Insects, the Hemiptera require our attention for 
a moment. I believe that the injuries which bugs do 
to cultivated plants are not sufficiently recognised. 
As an example, I may cite a green bug, a kind of 
Strachia (sp.'O, which annually destroys in my garden 
many buds and leaves of dahlias. Its presence is recog- 
nised by minute brown spots on the buds and 
earliest branches, the result of the stinging of the 
animal. Every stung part dies, and the leaf, there- 
fore, becomes pierced like a sieve, and remains mis- 
shapen. I search for the animal (there being rarely 
more than one on a bush in high summer) by open- 
ing the young leaves. The animal then rushes out, 
and, like the bull before tossing, or the partridge 
after the first rise, stops for an instant. Then is the 
time to seize it. If it makes a second move it is 
generally lost to sight in an instant, and, once dis- 
turbed, never returns to the same dahlia plant. It has 
a distinct mint-like smell, less strong than the large 
coloured stracbias on raspberry and other bushee. 
Labour Difficulties in Indian Tea Dis- 
tricts. — Says the Pioneer : — " The system of free 
emigration from Bengal to the tea-districts has 
lately been getting into some disrepute. There have 
been some cases of illegal recruitment in Chota- 
Nagpore, and a sentence of three months for assault 
in one of these cases was recently upheld by a 
Divisional Bench of the Calcutta High Court. There 
have, moreover, been one or two cases of wholesale 
kidnapping of coolies on the way : whether with or 
without the connivance of the recruiters in charge, 
it is at present impossible to say. The cases are 
being inquired into by a special police officer. The 
arrangements for feeding and lodging the coolies 
on the way are also defective. Large aumbers have 
been recently despatched by the Eastern Bengal 
State Bailway and an outbreak of cholera has 
followed at various halting stages on the route, and 
especially at Sara and Damookdeah." Our readers 
will thus see that the labour difficulties in Ceylon 
are slight when compared with those endured by 
some of the Indian tea planters. 
The Opponents of the Produce Clearing House 
scheme are not strong enough to prevent the in- 
troduction of the new system, so that they must 
be content to record their protest against it. The 
meeting of gentlemen interested in coffee which 
was held last week, proves that on this, as on 
nearly every other subject, there is nothing ap- 
proaching unanimity of opinion. On the one side 
it is argued that it is a mistake to make gambling 
in produce easy, while, on the other hand, it is 
contended that as gambling in produce is carried on 
to a great extent, it is absurd not to recognise 
the fact, and impart some system and method into 
the mode of conducting time bargains in produce. 
Many of the good old firms naturally object to a 
degenerate step, which will transform the whole 
system of business, but the weaker go to the wall in 
these and other matters, and we may look upon 
the Produce Clearing House as an accomplished fact. 
—PL. A G. Mail, March 9th. 
Forests and Floods and the Effect of Cul- 
tivation in Flood Prevention are thus noticed by 
a writer in the Pioneer :— " I cannot give in my 
adherence to the apparently obvious dictum that 
forests prevent floods. So far as I can learn forests 
have no effect on this holding back water when it 
rains in excess. The water sweeps through a 
forest with the same vigour that it does over an 
unforested tract. I recollect very well we were 
saluted once with a sad record of the effects of 
deforesting the hills in North Italy— floods, devas- 
tation, loss of life and property, and so forth. 
Either the previous, or the following year, there 
were equally destructive floods in the Black Forest, 
the model in all forest operations ; but never a 
word did we hear of the failure of the forest dog- 
mas to prevent such floods ! Ask the Engineer at 
Dowlaishweram whether the floods in the Godavery 
have been hindered by the forest operations in the 
Central Provinces. In point of fact, we have had 
in the last three or four years the very heaviest 
floods on record sweeping down the Godavery. I 
am constrained to say that the humble rice-growing 
ryot with his common bunds does more to prevent 
floods than all the efforts of Sir D. Brandis' dis- 
ciples, and that what with the turning up the soil, 
thereby making it more porous, the levelling of 
high sides of water-worn courses in the operation 
of the agriculturists, the construction of channels 
and tanks, and, as aforesaid, the raising of innumer- 
able bunds all over the country, the water is more 
diffused over a cultivated plain and held in better 
check than it is in a forest left by man just as God 
made it." 
