June i, 1889.] 
THr TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
To the Editor. 
CEYLON TEA. IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA. 
Adelaide, S. A., 30th March 1889. 
Dear Sir, — Enclosed please find copy of letter 
sent by us to Secretary, Ceylon Tea Fund, which 
kindly insert in your paper. Mr. Hughes called 
on us on his way back to Colombo and was quite 
in sympathy with our views. — We remain, yours 
faithfully, DRUMMOND BROS. 
Adelaide, S. A., 30th March 1889. 
To the Secretary, Oeylon Tea Fund, Ivandy, Oeylon. 
Dear Sir, — We duly received yours of 28th January 
and note contents of resolution passed at Tea Fund 
meeting. We are now prepared to make a fresh 
application to the Committee and hope the matter 
will be settled with as little delay as possible. We 
do not wish for any grant of tea, but what we 
want is to represent the Planters' Association in South 
Australia, and be able to advertise to that effect. 
We feel quite confident the idea will prove quite a 
success, and while we have the privilege of 
using your honorable Association's name, it will 
cost them nothing and will be the means of 
making Oeylon tea more widely known. We 
may add we have had the interests of Ofylon 
at heart ever since we started business which proved 
a loss for some time after starting, and we only hope 
that your honorable Society will grant us a favourable 
reply. — We remain, dear sir, yours faithfully, 
Drummond Bros. 
THE FUTURE OF OUR TEAS. 
Colombo, 13th April 1889. 
Sir, — The news now reaching Colombo from up- 
country tea districts are all full of the grand flush 
everywhere present. The news now reaching us 
from the Mincing Lane tea auctions is enough 
to make any ordinary tea planter's face turn 
pale. What of the future '? Are we to see prices 
still further recede when the question will be asked 
again, "Watchman! what of the night ? " who can 
tell. Meantime we wish " Godspeed" to the parties 
rescuing us and now about to enter the lists in the tea 
tournament in Australia and America. Every well- 
wisher to Ceylon will, no doubt, pin one of their 
favours to his or her breast in the shape of a 
fully paid-up sliare. But where, in conclusion, 
may 1 take, in your columns, the liberty to ask the 
editor of the leading Ceylon paper, is Sir Robert 
Hart's last words to the Chinese tea growers : 
his prophecies be they good or evil ? The uncertain 
quantity in today's calculations iB the Chinese 
prospective exports. Are they to continue to 
diminish, is the most momentous question of today 
as regards the future of tea prices. Parnell and 
Pigott and ruby mines have no such interest as 
this today to a Ceylon tea planter. — Yours truly, 
PROPRIETOR OF TEA PLANTATION. 
[In deference to the wish of our correspondent 
Sir RoberL Hart's Report is given on page 780 ; a great 
deal of additional information and of the criti- 
cism in detail to which it has been subjected must 
be reserved for the Tropical AgricuMivri&t. And 
this every tea merchant and estate proprietor should 
study.— Ed.] 
THE ' BURNING QUESTION " OF THE DAY! 
Matale North-East, 14th April 1889. 
Dear Sir, — As a superintendent, whose means of 
livelihood depends on the success of the tea industry 
in Ceylon, permit me to appeal to my brother 
superintendents in other districts on what has now 
102 
become the ' Burning Question ' of the day. The 
serious fall in price of our teas and the probable 
consequences, if new markets are not speedily 
opened topurchase the increased shipments of 1889-90. 
As to fall in price, everyone who has the manu- 
facture of tea in his charge is fully aware, and will 
doubtless maintain that the fault is not in the 
manufacture, nor in the quality of the leaf, but 
in the overstocked markets to which he may add, 
but the fall in the market is not my lookout. 
Ou this latter point is the difference of opinion, 
Have we all done our best to obviate this evil 
by supporting the Tea Fund specially organized for 
making our teas better known '? I don't know that 
anyone of us has contributed directly to this Fund, 
because we were not called upon to contribute, 
but the opportunity is now offered and every super- 
intendent in Ceylon should avail himself of it, 
and join in the proposed Ceylon Planters' American 
Tea Company, the main object of which is the 
opening up of a new and wide field for the sale of 
our teas. 
If there be any who argue : — this is not our duty, 
but the proprietor's, or let private enterprise take 
it up, we have got quite enough to do with the 
manufacture of the tea, without concerning ourselves 
about a market for it ; — to the first my reply is, 
that, as we have not hitherto been called on to 
contribute to the Tea Fund, it is our duty in 
self-defence to avail ourselves of the opportunity 
now offered of becoming shareholders in the Com- 
pany intended for our benefit as well as for that of pro- 
prietors. Private enterprise has already done much 
in the old country, but nearly ten years have elapsed 
since the first agency was opened and now 
in most towns it is as it deserves to be the 
popular tea. But the English market is over-stocked, 
and how are we to prevail on private enterprise 
to enter new fields where we do not care to go 
ourselves. Let us create a demand for our tea by 
the American public and the merchants now selling 
Chinas and Japans will very soon draw on our 
supplies, but until we do so, they are quite happy 
and contented with the handsome profits they are 
now making. 
It is no matter of opinion, but a fact, that the 
present state of the tea market is of deep con- 
cern to us superintendents and only a few minutes' 
quiet consideration will be sufficient to prove to 
most minds the serious results whioh must follow 
if nothing is done towards opening new markets. 
What I therefore ask is that every estate super- 
intendent, who has received a copy of the prospectus 
of the Ceylon Planters' American Tea Company, 
should become a shareholder in the Company, now 
formed for the purpose of making our teas known 
to a large and wealthy tea-drinking population, 
but who have not yet had our teas sufficiently 
brought before them, to enable them to see their 
vast superiority over the teas they have been ac- 
customed to. The shares of the Company are only 
R50 of which R5 are payable on application to the 
C. M. B., R10 on allotment and the balance as 
required in calls of not more than R10 of which 
not less than three months will be given. — Yours 
truly, AN APPLICANT FOR 2 SHARES. 
THE FUTURE OF OEYLON TEA AND 
PRACTICAL CRITICISM OF A BROKER'S 
REPORT. 
Duar Sir, — Your correspondent " Quality or 
Quantity " makes some very sensible remarks, but 
surely he is indulging in a little hidden satire, 
when he suggests a column for ' profit per acre.' 
Had not Messrs. Wilson, Smithett & Co. better add 
one for ' loss per acre ' too '? No doubt they know 
a great deal, and think they know muoh more, 
i 
