THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [June i, 1889. 
Mariawatte has been getting such good averages during 
the recently lowering markets, is that they have am- 
ple withering accommodation. 
2. Oattle manure in poor land certainly figs up 
the tree and produces a softer leaf where betore it was 
generally of a poor nature and very bangy throughout, 
Inference, improvement in quality possessing both 
strength and flavour. 
3. Quantity with quality is the only way to get 
returns in the face of these low prices. 
XI. 
" A Practical Man " should define more clearly 
what he means by " tea bushes flushing most freely." 
Does he mean the quantity of leaf each cooly 
averages from yields of such bushes, because that 
means flushes getting ahead of pluckers and the result 
poor tea. Bushes pruned low give you lots of leaf, but that 
leaf is not equal to that from trees pruned high. 
Manure in my opinion only gives you a larger 
quantity of the leaf the bush would naturally give. 
You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. 
"Practical Man " hits the nail on the head when he 
writes : " Surely the men whose success we should 
emulate are those who combine quantity with quality." 
Let me beg of my brother planters to take up shares 
quickly in the Oeylon Planters American Tea Company 
for that means a large increase to purchasing power 
in local market. Colombo merchants, bankers, brokers, 
should also support it. W hat is the good of Pineo going 
to Uva or anywhere else. Let Mm go to America and start 
his business. If the Company are sure of B.120,000 
of capital, go ahead. Time is everything. 
Old Hand. 
XII. 
Madawalatenna, 5th May, 
1. With regard to whether the quality of tea is 
better when the bushes flush freely I cannot say ; 
it all depends on the weather. I have made 
better tea in one month than another, though in each 
the same quantity was obtained. I consider the best 
tea is made when the bushes are hardening up 
towards the end of season whether flushing freely 
or not ; but this is such a changeable climate that 
one year is quite different from another. 
2. I have not noticed any improvement in teas 
made from manured bushes, though I have tested to 
see; as to quantity there is no doubt that manure is 
efficacious. 
3. What is fine plucking ? Nearly all men 
pluck the same ; ask half-a-dozen men "what do you 
take " ? and they will reply tip, first leaf and J second, 
yet to get this one man has to wait 10 days, some- 
times 12, whilst another finds that he gets this by 
going round every 6 days and sometimes he would like 
to go round in 5. Do any take more than the leaves 
I mention ? Each man must pluck as he finds suit- 
able to his bushes. Some men find by taking tip, first 
leaf and second leaf all in one, that their bushes go on 
flushing fast and well, whilst others lower their estimate 
and make no better tea. I have been in four different dis- 
tricts, and on each estate I have had to pluck in a differ- 
ent way ; on one estate I could not pluck too close or too 
fine; on the other did I attempt to pluck to the half leaf 
above the fish leaf I was left in the lurch and had to 
wait. Each planter must study his own estate. Pluck as 
much as you can and make as good tea as you can. 
Some soils will give good tea even if very coarse Dlucking 
is resorted to ; others, however fine the plucking is, will 
give no better teas, though they may sell a little better 
for appearanoe. To explain all about plucking &c. 
would fill a volume, and yet in this island we would not 
be able to lay down a fast rule, as such might not suit 
the very next month. So many are the soils, such diffe- 
rences in climate, in such a little island: I don't think 
the vast Continent of India can come up to it. H. 
XIII. 
Old Coffee District. 
1. Quality of Tea.— My own firm conviction is 
that no ordinary unscientific planter can give any 
opinion on this subject worth having-. He mn ■ 
back through his past accounts to Bscertain if his 
largest flushes realized the highest or lowest prices 
makiDg due allowance for the fluctutitious of the 
market. This in my opinion, is all his information 
is worth. The Colombo tea experts only ought to 
answer this question. 
2. The 'first part of query No. 2 belongs also to 
the question of quality. As regards qbantitt : tea 
is no exception to the law established bj universal 
experience, that cultivation, manuring and pruning 
judiciously done— promotes production. 
3. This is not a matter of opinion, at all, but a 
matter of fact easily solved by the Kule of Three. 
Iota. 
XIV: — From a Shrewd Old Hand. 
New and Old Districts. 
1. I am not aware that Mr. Armstrong has 
committed himself to any such opinion. Quality ge- 
nerally speaking is gauged by the price, which again 
depends in a great measure on the caprice of the mar- 
ket, or of the buyer. At one time a bright outturn 
with weaker liquor is in request ; a month after, a 
darker outturn with strength is demanded. Within 
the last month I saw a report from a leading tea 
taster and expert on two such teas, sent him at the 
same time. He gave the preference with great he- 
sitation to the former, but added the strength of the 
latter was " very attractive." I think the conclusion 
arrived at by most planters is, that from this stan- 
dard (one, by the way, which experts treat with scorn), 
the best liquoring teas are not made when the bushes 
are " running away" after the April rains set in. 
2. No. Perhaps Mariawatte is the only estate 
where manuring has been carried for several years on 
the same field. The results in quantity we know. But 
it would probably be difficult even for the careful and 
experienced manager to give the results as regards 
quality ; as large quantities of high grown and there- 
fore flavouring teas made from the purchased leaf, get 
mixed with the homegrown tea. It would be interest- 
ing if Mr. Jamieson could give a definite answer to this 
question. But "facts" in a matter of this kind, un- 
less perfectly accurate, are misleading and mischievous. 
3. " Let each be convinced in his own mind," 
and work his garden as it pays him best. Men with 
plenty of water power and large reserves of firewood 
may make quantity, more profitably than their neigh- 
bours with engines, for which they have to purchase 
fuel. There can be no doubt which is the be6t thing 
to do, if your practical enquirer is correct in his con- 
cluding senteuce, when he asserts : " These (the men 
who combine quantity and quality)" are the people 
who " are making money, and not those who study 
quality only." The truth about this question of alleged 
falliag-off in quality is, that the teas, as a rule, are equal 
to those made one, lb two, or three years ago. 
But with a glutted market and trembling prices, 
buyers are getting more exacting, and harder to please. 
They want a better Pekoe at 8d than they bought 
3 years ago at Is Id, and that seems to be admitted, 
in the following involved and illogical sentence 
contained in a recent report from London, published 
in our local papers : — " Though prices for all grades 
of Oeylon teas are not much quotably lower, yet 
better value seems to be obtained for each sale." In 
tea reports the language, as a rule, is made to con- 
ceal the thought ; but if there be any meaning at 
all in the above extract, it must be that buyers 
get better value for their money at each sale. 
X 
XV. 
Bogawantalawa, 6th May 1889. 
1. I think, other things equal, the quality of the leaf 
is best when the bushes flush most freely ; but the 
quality of the tea is best when the atmospheric condi- 
tions at the time of withering and making are most 
favourable. What these conditions are I don't know, 
except that the best tea is made when the weather is 
fine with sufficient occasional showers to keep the air 
moist, i.e. hot and rather moist weather appears the 
