122 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[August i, 1888. 
OUTTUBN OF MADE TEA IN PltOPOB- 
TION TO GBEEN LEAF. 
The correspondent who sends us interesting figures 
or proportion of made tea to green leaf in two 
years within his experience accounts a go id deal 
for an average lower than the normal and accepted 
25 per cent, by t'ne figures he supplies for copious 
and well-distribuled rainfall. Further information 
would have been interesting as to the system of 
dealing with the green leaf, and, in the absence 
of desiderated details, wj suppose we are justified in 
assuming that our correspondent's calculations are 
founded on the weight of the green leaf exactly as 
it was received at the store, with all the moisture 
included, no deduction being made by either arbi- 
trary or settled formula, or by actual testing of 
a portion of the leaf for proportion of wet. We 
heard recently of a tea-store superintendent, who 
secured a good return of cured leaf in proprotion 
to green, by regularly and systematically deduct- 
ing 10 per cent from the actual weight of the 
latter ! We believe that, as a general rule, the 
pluckers are credited with the full weight of the 
green leaf brought in, without any deduction for 
moisture. That is, — if 16 lb. is the nerrick, as they 
call the daily task in India, leaf weighing 16 Id. is 
accepted on v\ et days as well as dry, and so if 
extra payment is made for extra quantity plucked? 
But various means and appliances are resorted 
to in factories to rid the green leaf of excessive 
wet, before it is spread on the lofcs or trays for 
the withering process. From leaf merely placed 
on a cemented ground floor a good deal of mois- 
ture is deposited, but naturally the leaf parts much 
more readily with moisture when placed on sacks 
or other absorbent substances. In some ca^es, we 
know the moisture is forcibly expelled from the 
leaf by the action of a rapidly revolving cylinder, 
with orifices along its surface; (a green leaf sifting 
machine answers the two purposes, indeed). Now 
it is obvious that the average proportion of dried 
to green leaf must vary with the system pursued 
in dealing with the green leaf, and must largely 
depend on whether the calculation refers to leaf 
as received from the pluckers, or leaf divested of 
superfluous ;moisture. We suppose the usual mode 
adopted is to compare the result in dried leaf 
with the quantity of green divested of excessive 
moisture. And so, we suspect the received pro- 
portion of 1 lb. cured tea to 4 lb. green leaf is 
fairly correct. But we should be glad to hear 
from tea planters as to the general practice and 
results. 
♦ 
LIFE AS A TEA AGENT IN THE OLD 
COUNTBY : 
(By an ex-Ceylon Planter.) 
[The following extracts from the graphic letter 
of a well-known planter to a friend in Ceylon will 
be read with interest by all connected with tea. 
— Ed.1 
Since coming North I have been struggling hard 
to make a living by selling tea, but find the work 
uncongenial and discouraging. I doubt very much if 
I shall ever become reconciled to it. A revolution is 
taking place in the tea business. The consumer fixes 
his figure about 2s per lb. which is Is 6d duty unpaid, 
and from this has to be deducted commissions, 
brokerages, warehousing, freights, and profits to dealers 
and grocers, and a host of other charges which would 
fill a page and add 2d or 3d per lb. to the cost price 
The grocer must havo t> I and 8d per lb. for retailing. 
If you consider all this you will see at a glance how 
impossible it is to do anything in first grades of 
Coylon tea, i.e., with a view to retailing it at 2s 
yet lb. Taking the lower grades I find they come 
into competition with Assams, Oaohars, and Darjeelings, 
which can be purchased at 2d per lb. cheaper in the 
Lane. Appearance goes for nothing in this class of 
tea, and Ceylons cannot compete in strength with 
the kinds I have mentioned. So it is next to impossible 
to do a decent turn-over in Ceylon teas uulef-s one starts 
on a lar^e scale in Loudon, and sells it to grocers 
for mixing and flavouring cheap teas! I cannot bring 
myself to this game, even if I had the means, and 
ttie consequence is I am obliged to deal principally 
in fodiau teas ! Better to ran the opposition than aid 
and abet those who are adul r erating Ceylon tea e . 
The tea business is run very close, some of the large ! 
Londoo houses selling at Jd profit per lb. I dare- 
say they score more off Chiua siuff which they can 
buy at 4d and 5d per lb., hnt Ceylons they supply at 
little over cost price in order to secure their regular 
customers. If I could get a good unassorted Ceylon 
tea landed in bond at lid to Is per lb., I would 
guarantee to do good business with it, but where is it 
to be found? 
Apart from business, home life in these, parts is far 
from congenial to one who has spent half his life on 
a coffee totum. The hardest work I have yet expe- 
rienced is attending office and sitting there tor hours 
on and expecting people to " turn up " with orders 
for tea! I would much rather walk all day at four 
miles per hour than continue this game. I am at 
my office at 9 a.m., and get out of it about 7 p.m., 
reaching horn? ah mt 8 p.oa, more tired and fagged 
than if I had beeo doing a twenty miles' walk. Tnere 
is no relaxation except what I can find on Saturdays 
after 3 p. m. a id on Sun lays. 
The haunts of uoy boyhood in the adjoining shire 
are in the possession of strangers, and the rivers and 
pools we used to fi-h are preserved. The old country 
lairds who uBjd to allow us to shoot over their moors 
and covers are dead, and their properties are in the 
hands of retired comb-makers, and soap-boilers, and 
carpet- weavers, whose income runs from £20,000 to 
£40,00') per annum, veritable snobs of the first water, 
void of manly pride, but stinking with the pride of filthy 
lucre ! 
CHINA TEA. 
The indefatigable Governor of Formosa, Liu Ming- 
chuan, is planning to draw away the greater portion of 
Amoy's tea trade to his island. Hitherto the want of 
harbours in Formosa has sent her teas to be loaded on 
the ocean steamers at Amoy ; but Liu Ming-chuan is 
buildiog a railway from the centre of the Formosa tea 
trade, Twatutia, to Keelung, and is improving the capa- 
bilities of that port, and to use Mr. McLeavy Brown's 
words, " whatever may be the upsbot of the activity 
now being displayed in developing communications in 
and with North Formosa, the effect on the prosperity 
of Amoy of the schemes in hand and projected can 
scarcely, iu the long run, be favourable." There will 
still be the Amoy Oolongs to be shipped from that port; 
but they only amounted last year to some 42,000 piculs, 
while the re-exports of Formosa tea were nearly 
120,000 piculs, and a diminution in the production of 
Amoy Oolongs is expected iu the future. 
In Canton, according to Mr. AVhite, the general trade 
was of a satisfactory character last year, and pursued 
a steady and fairly progressive course. Mr. White is 
the only commissioner who is able to write with satis- 
faction of the tea trade of his port. Oanton teas, he 
says, are holding their own in the home markets, and 
" Indian competition has not decreased the deman ! for 
them; in fact, they are largely used for mixing with 
the latter, and this should preserve them from a rivalry 
that would lie disastrous to their, interests."— N.-C-_ 
Herald, July 7th. 
PEOGRESS IN SUNGEI UJONG, STB AITS 
SETTLEMENTS. 
Coffee cultivation is making headway in Sungei 
Ujong. The Liberian coffee on estates belonging 
to Messrs. Hill and Eathborne, is reported upon 
as yielding a crop of seven and a half hundred- 
weight an acre. Ou another plantation the outturn 
