776 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [May i, 1889. 
Oeylon Tea stands unrivalled for its combination 
of strength and flavour ; and the pure Tea gives a 
beverage pleasant and beneficial to those who drink 
it. One cannot doubt that were the well-meaning 
evangelists in the cause of temperance to realize the 
difference between pleasantly-strong well-flavoured 
stimulating Tea and the " wishy-washy " decoction 
infused from the cheaper China Teas, their efforts to 
substitute " the cup which does not inebriate " for 
that which does, might be made much more suc- 
cessful. 
In addition to the other good qualities Ceylon Tea 
possesses that of being economical ; for it is gene- 
rally admitted that two pounds of Ceylon will go as 
far as three pounds of China. 
The Tea you' drink should be— 
1. — Pure. 3. — Pleasant. 
2 — Wholesome. 4. — Economical. 
And Ceylon Tea justly claims pre-eminence on 
these grounds. 
Would-be purchasers of Ceylon Tea must be warned 
that there is danger (just as there is with every- 
thing which has earned a good name and become popu- 
lar) of a spurious or admixed article being sold 
instead of what is genuine. 
♦ 
THE REAL WEALTH OP BUEMA. 
There can be no doubt that, although, we have in 
Burma abundant evidence of vast mineral wealth, we 
have also in the fertility of its soil a cause which has 
everywhere acted as a stimulus to human energy in 
the creation of wealth, and as a consequence civilisa- 
tion. In Egypt, centuries ago, the periodical rising of 
the river Nile covered a narrow alluvial deposit which 
enabled cultivators of the soil to acquire a rich re- 
turn for their labours. As a natural result wealth 
was accumulated and the country bordering the Nile 
became a contrast to the adjoining lands, whose in- 
habitants had not emerged from their pristine state 
of barbarism and ignorance. From the examples of 
all history we may learn how to take advantage of 
the fertility of most parts of Burma. Already in Lower 
Burma we find the Karens abandoning their old and 
barbarous methods of cultivating a hill for a few years, 
and then emigrating to another, when they found their 
returns decreasing. This interesting people encouraged 
by the American missionaries who have so long and 
successfully laboured among them, are now yearly in 
increasing numbers settling on the plains, and finding 
the advantages of doing so in their being able to obtain 
more leisure for the purpose of educating themselves 
and their children and rising higher in the standard 
of civilisation. We have room in the fertile parts of 
Burma and the Shan States for some millions more 
agriculturists, who will be able to derive from culti- 
vation of the soil not only ample present subsistence 
for themselves and families, but a less precarious and 
more absolutely certain means of acquiring wealth 
than any afforded to the dwellers in our towns and 
cities. We must hope that under such favorable 
existing circumstances, agriculturists will be attracted 
t« the country, and whether they are from India or 
China matters but little so long as they come. The 
opening out of the country by the extension of railways 
and the increase of river steamers is likely to afford 
increased facilities to settlers, and is therefore earnestly 
to be desired. With a few thousand more foreign 
settlers on the land, such lawlessness and anar- 
chy as has prevailed in remote parts of Upper 
Burma, since the death of the King Mindoon, 
would be impossible, and thus the increased 
population we require in Burma would not only in- 
crease the wealth and happiness of the people engaged 
in cultivation, but would make pacification and 
good government easier and less expensive. Govern- 
ment therefore should do all that is possible to at- 
tract to Burma the settlers we so much require, and 
we hope that it will offer inducements to well behaved 
sepoys both of the native infantry and the military 
police, to remain on in Burma after their period of 
service has expired. This might be done either by 
giving such settlers land on easy terms, or by grant- 
ing free passages to a certain number of individuals 
of the families of each, to join them if they wished. 
The establishment here of such settlers, — men who 
have been drilled and disciplined would have th-j 
happiest effect, and and the Burmese villagers, would 
we are sure, tired as they are of dacoity and lawltss- 
ness, be only too happy to have such colonics formed 
in or near their own settlements. — Rangoon Times. 
EXPERIMENTS IN MANURES. 
Professor Kineh, of the Royal Agricultural College 
at Cirencester, bus printed an account of some im- 
portant experiments upon the value of manures. He 
deals only with barley and pasture. In each case a 
number of plots were treated with different mauures, 
and the resulting crops were carefully compared. 
So far as the barley is concerned, it appears that on 
the average of four years the application of two 
hundredweight of nitrate of soda to each acre pro- 
duced eleven and a quarter bushels of grain and eight 
and three-quarter huudredweights of straw more than 
the same soil would otherwise have yielded. The qua- 
lity of the.'grain was less affected, but it was decidedly 
best from those plots which received both nitrate of 
soda and superphosphate. On the pasture plots the 
influence of manures differed widely. Thus kaiuit 
produced little or no effect, and superphosphate by 
itself was hardly better. Guano gave a good thick 
crop, but not so large a yield or so long a grass as 
either sodium nitrate or ammonium sulphate. These 
nitrogenous manures both yielded very heavy but 
somewhat rank crops, the ammonium salt seeming 
to be particularly advantageous to the growth of plants 
of the clover and vetch family. A mixture of ijper- 
phosphate and nitrogenous manure gave the heaviest 
and raukest crop. It is curious to note that when 
superphosphate is mixed with ammonium sulphate one 
grass is specially abundant, while if it is mixed with 
sodium with nitrate the herbage chiefly consists of 
another. The promised continuation of these experi- 
ments ought to be very useful to the owners of pas- 
ture farms. — Daily News, March loth, 
CEYLON TEA IN GERMANY AND RUSSIA. 
The following is a brief summary of the article 
in a Stuttgart paper referred to in our correspondence 
column : — 
" The island of Ceylon bitherto known by the pro- 
duction of the finest quality of coffee and spices, 
will soon attain an equal fame for producing the 
finest tea." Then follow statistics and general infor- 
mation on the preparation of tea and the superiority 
of our Ceylon manipulation, these being mainly 
culled from "Ceylon in the Jubilee Year;" a clear 
woodcut of Tientsin in Bogawantalawa illustrates 
the letter press. " Every Ceylon planter," says the 
writer, " is willing to guarantee his tea as pure and 
unadulterated, aa long as it is in its original packages. 
"In Russia in the beginning of the year, out of 200 
samples of tea examined, 40 were found to be mixed 
with Epilobium (French willow leaves or willow herb) 
in the proportion of 14 to 50 per cent. 
" It has iately been ascertained through a lawsuit 
in Moscow and also by various testings in St. Peters- 
burg that tea is abominably adulterated in Russia. 
Out of 44 samples officially examined, 4 consisted 
of a mixture of tea and ' Koporny ' grass, 4 of 
Koporny grass alone and 5 of tea that had already 
been used. In Moscow, where there are regular 
methods of adulterating tea, the police have discovered 
a number of vessels containing sweepings which wt-re 
destined to be mixed with tea. As tea contains con- 
siderably more oxide of ir«n and oxide of manganese 
than coffee, it is to be specially recommended to con- 
sumptive or senemic people. The owner of the 
plantation Tientsin, H. Sixtus, in Bonn, has Lt^un 
introducing his tea into Germany, and is ready to 
grant samples," &c. 
