April i, 1889.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
that it cannot be employed with iron in connec- 
tion with it. There seems to be a mutual re- 
action between this metal and the timber. Iron 
nails inserted in it rapidly waste away, while at 
the same time the fibre of the wood around them 
decays ; so that a very few months suffices to 
loosen the attachment by such nails. Trenailing 
— or trennelling, to employ the usual term, — has 
therefore always to be resorted to, because of this 
mutually antagonistic action. 
But on the other hand, no wood known to us 
so successfully resists the attack of white-ants as 
does palmyra— always supposing that matured wood 
is used. It does not, as does jak, contain an 
acid which is repellent to the taste of these de- 
structive insects, but it simply resists their attack 
by the hardness of its fibre and its structure 
generally. In a country therefore like Ceylon, in 
which timber of nearly every kind soon succumbs 
to the ravages of th' jite-ant, this timber must 
be exceptionally up '_d for constructive purposes. 
The same qualifie Jon would make it admirably 
adapted for use .s railway sleepers, were it not 
for the repugnrace it exhibits against contact 
with metal. Fjr ages past the high qualities of 
this timber have been duly appreciated in Southern 
India, and there has existed a large export trade 
of it from the ports of the Jaffna peninsula to 
those of the Madras provinces. We have before 
suggested that the food products of this tree, 
the value of its leaves for thatching, and the 
many other useful purposes which it serves during 
its life, — purposes which have been the theme of 
Tamil poetical effusions,— might well direct the 
attention of our Forestry Department to its cul- 
tivation in many localities unsuited to ordinary 
forest growth. The high value of it as a timber- 
producing tree should surely be a further 
and strong inducement to the Government to 
extend its cultivation. Altogether, as an economic 
question likely to affect the future of our timber 
supplies, our. Forestry officers should, it seems 
to us, make every effort to propagate its growth, 
for it will flourish in soils and under conditions 
of climate which are inimical to the growth of 
any other tree known to us. 
♦ 
ANNUAL EEVIEW OF THE CEYLON 
TEA TEADE. 
We call attention to our Special Supplement 
containing a reprint of the very valuable and 
elaborate Eeport of Messrs. Wilson, Smithett & Co. 
on the course of trade in Ceylon teas in the London 
market during 1888. As usual, a table is com- 
piled, showing, with as much acouracy as is possible, 
he total quantity of tea sold under each mark 
and the average realized, for the whole year. It 
is important in looking at this return to make 
allowance for the quantity as well as the prices. 
Thus, if reference be made to successive issues of 
our Directory, a fair idea can be formed, from 
the acreage planted, of the instances in which 
extremely fine plucking— with an unduly small yield 
of orop-has been praotised in order to get up a 
name for a high average. It would be manifestly 
unfair to rank K. A. W. with its 500,000 lb. of tea, 
or even marks with 200,000 or 100,000 lb. against 
estates which have realized fancy prices for a total 
of 17,000 to 30,000 lb. of tea all told in 1888. 
The next table, summarizing the sales as respects 
districts, will excite a good deal of attention, as 
also the interesting statistics which follow. In 
the course of their Eeport it will be observed that 
Messrs. Wilson, Smithett & Co. are very outspoken 
in their advice to Ceylon planters. They call on 
the managers of high estates to do all in their 
power to try and rival the fine teas, with delicate 
flavor, that are typical of the finest Darjeelings 
and Kangra Valleys. In finer plucking generally, 
they at present — pending the opening of new 
markets — can alone see the antidote to low prices, 
and as a further aid they deprecate the tendency 
to "over-sorting." We have no doubt that the 
whole of the remarks of this eminent London 
Broking Firm will receive that careful consideration 
at the hands of our planting community which 
they deserve, and we trust that 1889 may witness 
both the opening of new markets and the despatch 
of finer teas from Ceylon, resulting in a general 
improvement in the average prices realized. 
THE TEUEST BENEFACTOES OF CEYLON 
IN THE PEESENT DAY. 
It has been said that he is the truest benefactor o£ 
his country, who has made two blades of grass 
to grow where only one grew before. Henceforward 
it may emphatically be said that he is one of 
the greatest benefactors of this colony who causes 
two oups of Ceylon tea to be drunk where 
only one was drunk before! How both native 
and European interests are bound up in "tea" 
we need not point out. Every day makes plainer 
the duty which is most pressing before all well- 
wishers to the prosperity of the general community 
of the island. The production of tea has reached, 
such a point that it may be said they are no 
benefactors of the common weal who after this 
season, go on adding to the planted acreage, unless 
indeed they simultaneously do equal work in en- 
deavouring to extend the demand for, and con- 
sumption of our teas. There is, in fact, no other 
question before the local public equal to this in 
practical importance. 
The problem of Ealiway Extension to the north 
and to the south, skins into absolute insignificance 
when compared with the means of disposing 
profitably of the 15 to 20 millions lb. of Ceylon 
tea which will shortly be added to our present 
annual export. Indeed, we may say that there 
is no piece of legislation engaging the attention 
of Sir Arthur Gordon and his Councils which 
concerns the material welfare of the general com- 
munity in any degree proportionate to that of 
our tea problem ! Under these circumstances it 
behoves the Ceylon public, and especially our tea 
planters, to regard with special gratitude all agencies 
established for the advertising and sale of locally- 
produced teas. The men who have quitted our 
shores, even from among the planters themselves, in 
order to start and pu^li such a trade must be regarded 
as benefactors of the Col >ny albeit th a their rul- 
ing motive may have been a purely selfish one. 
The lines may be applied to them which were 
originally written for a very different class of 
exiles : — 
Tiue patriots they, for be it understood, 
They left their country for their country's good ! 
All interested in Ceylon tea property must feel 
that they are bound by tho very law of self-pre- 
servation to give their very beat support to any 
