May i, 1889.J THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
775 
The rain we are having every few days, although 
just what we want for tea, is killing our hope as 
far as another blossom on coffee is concerned. The 
first blossom seems to have set fairly well, but 
unless we got more, the crop will not be up to 
much, I fear. Peppercorn. 
BARK AND DRUG TRADE REPORT. 
London, March 28th. 
Cinchona. — The periodical auctions held on Tuesday 
were lighter than they have been for some time, the 
aggregate catalogued weighing less than 500,000 lb. 
while the total equivalent of sulphate of quinine would 
probably show a still greater discrepancy, nearly all 
the bark offered being of very poor quality. Many 
holders are evidently keeping back their supplies in 
the hope of obtaining better piices in a few weeks' 
time, and during the auctions a parcel of about 100 
bales of Oeylon bark was withdrawn upon the receipt 
of a telegram from Oeylon, which was hinted to con- 
vey strongly "bullish" views of the position of affairs 
there. The following are the quantities included in 
the catalogues : — 
Pkgs. Pkgs. 
Oeylon bark 1,237 of which 1,034 were sold 
East Indian bark 608 ,, 520 „ 
Java bark 191 „ 176 „ 
South American bark 295 „ 295 „ 
2,331 
2,025 
It should be stated that the quantity of East Indian 
bark offered was less than might be supposed from 
the number of packages catalogued ; one consignment 
of 165 bags from Mangalore, for instance, only weighed 
40 lb. per bag. About three-fourths of the whole sup- 
ply sold was imported in the course of the present 
year. 
At the opening- of the auctions prices were decidedly 
lower, nearly 200 packages South American Oali.saya 
being cleared at 9d to 9M. per lb. — for part of which, 
in a recent auction, offers of lid to ll|d. per lb. had 
been refused. As the auctions proceeded the tone 
slightly improved, aud the balance of opinion seems to 
indicate a fairly steady market, though we should not 
think that the unit averaged more than ljd per lb. 
The following are the approximate quantities pur- 
chased by the principal buyers: — 
Lb. 
Agents for the Mannheim & Amsterdam works 109,455 
Agents for the American, French, &c, works 87,810 
Agents for the Brunswick works ... 85,101 
Agents for the Auerbach works ... 65,946 
Messrs. Howards & Sons ... ... 36,220 
Agents fortbe Frankfort o/M and Mannheim workslti,090 
Mr. Thomas Whiffen ... ... 9,000 
Sundry druggists... ... ... 4,484 
Total sold 
Bought in or withdrawn 
Total quantity catalogued 
414,106 
71,733 
485,839 
It should be well understood that the mere weight 
of bark purchased affords no guide whatever to the 
quinine yield represented by it, firms who buy a small 
quantity of bark by weight frequently taking the richest 
lots, and vice versa. 
South American Bark. — A quantity of 32,714 lb. 
of Calisaya quilla from the Bolivian plantations sold 
cheaply at 6^d to 8d for dull and damaged lots ; 
one lot bringing 5d ; and 9d to 9|d (one lot 10d) for 
good silvery quill from the Yungas plantations. At 
la t week's Amsterdam auctions the following . quiva- 
lents of quinine sulphate were bought in bark by the 
principal buyers : — 
Kilos. 
Gustav Briegleb, Ams'er.am ... 1,450 
Auerbach Quinine VVorus ... 1,120 
Amsterdam and Mannheim Quinine Works 1,000 
O. L. Schepp & Zoon, Rotterdam ... 830 
Brunswick Quiuine Works „. 400 
Oubebs. — Fine bold genuine cubebs are held in Hoi- 
land at £22 10s to £25 10s per cwt. 
Quinine. — The speculative movement to which we 
referred in our article of last week as not unlikely to 
set in for a while after the Is limit had once been 
touched seems to have actually taken place to some 
extent. If reports are to be believed, though there 
is nothing definite to substantiate them, about 80,000 
oz. of German Quinine have been sold since our last 
report, commencing with B & S at Is 0|d to Is Id ; 
Brunswick at Is Id, and Fabbrica Lombarda at Is 
Oid per oz. on the spot, and closing at Is Id for B 
& S and Brunswick on the spot, and Is Id to lslgd 
for forward delivery up to November. — Chemist and 
Druggist. 
CEYLON TEA IN NEW ZEALAND. 
From Mr. J. F. Wingate we have received a 
file of New Zealand papers showing that he and 
Mr. Beckett are not idle in their work of intro- 
ducing our teas into the Britain of the South. 
From the Waimate Journal we quote the following 
paragraph : — 
Pure Oeylon Tea. — We have received, per favour of 
the Planters' Association of Ceylon, two samples of 
their Ceylon tea — pekoe and pekoe souchong. The as- 
sociation claims absolute purity for their teas, the 
cultivation and manufacture of which is fast becoming 
the most important branch of trade in the island of 
Oeylon. In 1873 the exports of tea from the islaud 
were only 231b, while in 1886 — thirteen years later — 
they had increased to nearly 10 million lb. Judging 
from the samples sent us, the tea is most pleasant in 
flavour, especially the pekoe souchong, a better drink- 
ing tea than which could not be desired. Mr. W.H. 
Beckett, Crosby, is the agent for Waimate. 
In the Commercial Report of the Lyttleton Times 
of March 9th, we read : — 
Sales of tea have heen disappointing, while we can 
note a fair quittance of Indian and Oeylon sorts to 
the trade. 
Mr. Wingate has been distributing a circular on 
" Tea in Ceylon " got up very neatly in Christchurch, 
with a good deal of information. We quote a 
few sentences : — 
It has been said that, if to be an Englishman is to 
eat Beef, to be an Englishwoman is to drink Tea. 
True it is that the article which in the sixteenth 
century was a luxury, costing ten guineas a pound and 
consumed by a hundred people, has in the nineteenth 
century become a necessity, costing two shillings a 
pound and consumed by millions. Did the people of 
Britain thoroughly understand the difference between 
British-grown Tea — such as Ceylon's — and that of 
China or Japan, it is certain that those who could 
get the pure, clean, machine-prepared leaf which is 
turned out from the Planter's factory, would never 
touch the far from pure article prepared by the hands 
aud feet of the unwashed Mongolian. In China and 
Japan Tea is mostly cultivated in small patches by 
the peasantry, who gather the leaves and prepare 
the Tea in their huts in a very unfastidious manner. 
The Tea, either in a half-manufactured or finished 
state, is sold to petty dealers who in turn sell to 
larger dealers. The larger dealer mixes and mani- 
pulates Teas, packs and sells them to the European 
Merchants for shipment to England, Australia, or 
America. The manipulation of Tea is an art in 
which the Chinaman excels, and in many of the 
inferior kinds the qnality is infinitely deteriorated — 
thus "the dust of the leaf is mixed with clay find 
manipulated into the form of the ordinary leaf" — 
this is with appropriate philological coincidence 
termed "lie" Tea. "Tea leaves which have been 
already used are again manipulated and rolled into 
shape and sold as genuine Tea." The Teas of Japan, 
which are almost entirely consumed by our American 
cousins, are frequently and admittedly " faced " with 
a mixture of Prussian blue and soapstone. 
The Ceylon estate cultivation and manufacture is 
very different, and it may not be uninteresting to 
give a brief account of how pure Tea is made. * * 
