4?4 
THE. TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [January i, iSB 9 . 
are shown — some of them (in cases) being fancy teas, 
and others (contained in bottles) teas known to com- 
merce. Round the stand in the centre are ranged a 
number of little tables and chairs at which the repre- 
sentative of tbe Company entertains free of charge 
all who may wish to try a cup of genuine Oeylon tea. 
The privilege is, as may be imagined, largely made 
use of, and every afternoon numbers of visitors are 
to be seen enjoying the refreshments provided for them. 
The tea is neatly and daintily served, and there must 
be few persons who do not pronounce it to be excellent. 
By those who use Ceylon tea one thing must be borne 
in mind. Though lighter in colour it is a good deal 
stronger than most China teas in common use, &nd 
about two-thirds of the amount required of the latter 
will be found sufficient to use in the case of the 
former. Some samples of coffee are also to be noticed , 
among which the beans of the Liberian giant, a shrub 
6 feet high growing wild in Liberia, are shown in 
the parchment. Cocoa, coconut oil, cinchona bark, 
cinnamon, and kapok, a sort of natural silk down, 
are exhibited. Among the contents of the stand 
attention may also be directed to a new liqueur called 
a Creme de cocoa,' delicately flavoured with cocoa, and 
forming a most delicious drink. 
" Olo&e to this stand may be seen a fine specimen of 
Cingalese workmanship, exhibited by Mr. Arthur 
Sinclair, which consists of a massive table of ebony, 
inlaid with different woods of Oeylon, from the cala- 
mandar down to the common jak. The design of tbe 
table is cleverly executed, and, it is believed, took 
many years to complete." 
« 
SCALY INSECT ON THE COCONUT PALM 
IN THE WEST INDIES ; AND OUE OWN 
COFFEE AND TEA INDUSTEIES. 
Mr. Hart of the Trinidad Botanic Gardens sends us 
an interesting communication (see page 476) on a 
subject which he has seen discussed in our 
Tropical Agriculturist. Besides affording useful 
information respecting a pest affecting coconut 
palms in the West Indies, Mr. Hart enters on the 
general laws governing the epidemic appearance of 
inseot and other pests, a subject which is of special 
interest to Ceylon with its coffee leaf fungus and 
green bug inseot troubles. Why it may be asked in 
this connection has no pest, at least in an epidemic 
form (for the coconut palm has its euemies here 
like every other plant) appeared in this island on 
a palm whioh has been so widely cultivated not for 
40 or 50, but for 100 to 200 years ? It may be 
that the narrow area occupied round the coast up 
to 40 years ago or so was insufficient to induce 
the condition referred to by Mr. Hart ; but still more 
may be made of the absence of continued droughts 
such as have affected Jamaica (for three years in 
one case) and yet again may we not refer to the 
fact that the latest and best authority (De Can- 
dolle) concludes that the original home of the 
coconut palm is not in the far West— not in 
South America or the contiguous Pacific, — but more 
probably in our own East Indian Archipelago with 
very much the same conditions, of climate at least, 
as Ceylon.— The case was different with our coffee, 
and the universal planting of this one product 
over our hillcountry exactly fulfilled the predisposing 
oause referred to by Mr. Hart. But he and other 
observers and scientists should help us now to under- 
stand why— when coffee has dwindled down to 
isolated fields in each district, only the very best 
being preserved and well looked after with careful 
cultivation— this new and dire pest of a green 
soale insect cannot bo driven away. We can 
show Mr. Hart some of the finest coffee trees in 
the world in Udapussellawa, Haputale, the Agras 
and Bogawantalawa— bushes fresh and vigorous-look- 
ing, full of vegetation, stems as stout as a 
man's thigh, with no appearance of failing 
in any way, and yet these same bushes cannot 
shake off this dire soale pest which not only de- 
stroys the chance of crop, but must gradually 
yet surely affect the vitality. Experiments with 
kerosene oil, soap, lime, &a., have been tried, but 
so far without such success as would afford en- 
couragement to persevere. And yet if ever we were 
getting back to the condition most suitable to 
keep good coffee in isolated fields free of pest, it 
is now. — How then about tea which is fast taking 
the position of coffee in " the days of old," by 
occupying nearly the whole planting country with 
one product ? Well, one bit of consolation offered is 
that tea, like the coconut palm, is much more at 
home in Ceylon than evercoffee was, that our olimate 
and soil are much better adapted to a leaf than a 
fruit crop, that we can fight any fungoid or insect 
pest on tea (which can be pruned down till not 
a leaf is left) far better than we ever could on 
coffee — that in fact a tea garden might be burnt 
off, so killing all adverse insect or fungoid life, 
without permanent injury to tbe tea roots and stems 
which in a few months would again display a 
cover of luxuriant green. This is all very good 
— and yet — and yet — we should like to see, if it 
were possible, Mr. Hart's idea of varied cultivation 
on our plantations more widely followed than it is 
at present in Oeylon. 
■ ♦ 
TEA ! TEA 1 TEA 1 
(Sorroivful Facts from a Sorrowful Man.) 
Tea comes tumbling down once more with that 
annual and proverbial regularity which is positively 
disgusting. 
I wonder that for very shame the brokers can 
keep up the old threadbare joke of "inferiority," 
" falling off in quality," &c. (See the old gentleman's 
last London letter to the local "Times.") 
No, it won't do. These " old man yarns "* may gull 
the Indian planter away in far off Assam, but we 
here absolutely refuse to swallow this so regularly 
dished up viand. 
Here is a nice little table I have proved by practice : — 
Good teas, good market, good prices. 
Good teas, bad market, bad prices. 
Bad teas, good market, good prices, comparatively ! ! 
Bad teas, bad market, bad prices. 
Tea has evidently no evenly fluctuating value, and the 
price is as unsettled as a breakwater crab (outsider) 
during a uor'-easter. To revert to our " wretched 
fall," every year we sink lower and lower. Once we 
flattered ourselves that lOd was our limit, but alas for 
vain delusions, we have managed to touch 9Jd or 
9d ; and at the present rate there will be no difficulty 
this coming seasm in getting down to those ouriously 
shaped and oft repeated numerals, which are the 
principal representatives of this now rapidly vanishing 
period of time which is determined by the revolutions 
of the earth in its orbit. (See Nuttall, page 749.) 
Why do tea-roller men try to rival tbe veracity 
of a certain well-known Biblical gentleman and bis 
better half? Has anyone a tea-roller that will work 
off the prescribed quantity of leaf advertised, but un- 
fortunately not guaranteed by inventors and patentees ? 
Why does Mr. Davidson contioue making Siroccos ? 
By his last pamphlet there are 1,900 now in use. 
Many of them must have an easy time of it. I have 
set them all agoing full speed, and have worked them 
for eight hours a day for nine months, and dried 90 lb. 
an hour, and have turned out 369,360,000 lb. of dry tea. 
I feel perfectly exhausted and must conclude. 
* " Old man yarns." No disrespect or allusion to 
the venerable " J. O.," merely an Australian term : 
somethiug to do with kangaroos. A squatter friend 
has sent me copious notes with full particulars, whioh 
I will forward.— S. M. 
