September i, 1881.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
but we are told that 32,440 lb., that is the biggest 
half of the 63,040, only fetched 5i annas gross, and 
the question is put forward as to whether it was 
advisable that this 5J annas tea should or should not 
have been made and sent to market. Your corre- 
spondent maintains that in a financial point of view 
it was decidedly to the interest of the garden to 
make it, since it could only have "cost R.4,211 to 
place in tho market," whilst it "sold for RIO, 732." 
If these figures are reliable, of course it is all right 
enough, — the profit on the transaction is obvious, and 
there is no necessity to waste a word or a moment 
in arguing about it. But I beg the liberty to doubt 
tho possibility of making and placing in the market 
now-a-days anything like saleable tea at 0 pice a lb. 
Wo may try to figure it out and say, 
Cost of gathering leaf sufficient to make 
1 lb. of tea, say ... ... ... 3 pice 
Cost of manufacturing, including charcoal, 
and something for wear and tear of 
machinery ... ... ... 2 ,, 
Cleaning, sorting, and packing ... 2 ,, 
Box and lining ... ... ... 2 ,, 
Total .. 9 pice 
But thcro is no provision for carriage or Agency 
charges, and cultivation and pruning are lefc out 
altogether. These last are neither of them light 
charges, unless tho out turn per acre is very large. 
And there is a proportion of such matters as manage- 
ment, buildings, tools and baskets, Factory-fittings, 
tea-house, stores, carriage, medicines, discount, rent 
and taxes, stamps aud stationery, and othei'3, which, 
ignore them as you may; will not be put altogether 
out of the count, but will make themselves felt in 
the long run, or say "in due course," to those who 
look properly into the state of their affairs. I don't 
think any concern in India can turnout tea and send 
it to market at 9 pice a pound. Even nine annas a 
pound might not be further from the mark I think, 
but if tho " Chiel," from amongst the notes he has 
taken, thinks lie is able to prove that his figure is 
the right one, I shall be glad to be convinced upon 
sufficient proof. — Hec;z>j Baykn. 
\stly, — Would "The Chiel" kindly inform us 
whether it costs more to place a pound of fine tea in 
the market or a pound of coarse 1 By my own cal- 
culations I make out there would be little or no 
difference in the cost. — Vide table. 
1 II). of fine tea requires— 
Plucking. Charcoal. 
Boiling. Sorting, siev 
Firing. 
ing. 
I'acking 
1 lb. of coarse tea requires — 
Plucking. Charcoal. 
Sorting, Bier- 
Rolling, ing. 
Firing. Packing. 
Freightage of Calcutta charges being the same on both. 
Your correspondent gives us, from the report on 
which ho goes, total tea sold in Calcutta, viz., 63,046 
lb. : doducting from this what he terms very low 
tea or trash 32,440 lb., leaves 30,000 lb. of what he 
terms good teas. It costs, he says, 114,211 to place 
this 32,410 1b. of tea or trash iu the market, audit 
sold for 1110,732, which gives a profit of R6.510. 
As I maintain it costs as much to place a pound of 
coarso tea in tho market as one of fine (open to 
correction), it follows that tho 30,000 1b. of good tea 
that remained would cost a littlo less. Going by the 
Wove figures, say K 1,000, tho total cost of placing 
<;.'!,<) 10 lb. in tho Calcutta market is then only 
118,211, which is impossible. I therefore challenge 
tbo statement, 32,440 lb. of tea, or trash that only 
cost 114,211 to place in tho market, and therefore tho 
conclusions drawn from this statement favourable to 
his argument of a quantity aro not trustworthy. Tho 
question at issue is Quality vs. Quantity. Is it fair 
to put down quality at 8 ns. 7 pie. If one only got 
the same for coarse aud lino tew per 11)., thou tho 
question is solved at once, and quantity would rule 
I the day. By going in for quality, I understand fine 
plucking and fine teas, and in arguing the question 
it would not be fair to put fine teas as only realiz- 
ing tho same as coarse ones. 
If a planter, going in for fmo plucking, reduced 
jus outturn by half, but doubled his former prices, 
it would pay him. He would obtain the same amount 
as before for his teas, but his expenses would be de- 
creased to half the former cost of plucking, rolling, 
manufacturing, packing, boxes, freight, etc. But it is 
very unlikely that Hue plucking should menn suck a 
decrease : even J is putting it rather above the 
amount it would be. I myself am no advocate for 
extremes one way or the other, and I think, besides 
the two leaves and bud, a portion of the third might 
be taken whenever it is soft. Is there any reason why 
one who plucks so, should not turn out as fine a 
Pekoe or B. Pekoe as one who only takes two leaves 
and tho bud, labour being ample ? — Dalang. 
While agreeing with your correspondent at to the 
inadvisabihty of plucking too fine, yet I think he 
has argued the case unfairly for the other side, as, 
in the esse he mentions, it can hardly be doubted 
that if the outturn were reduced by 32,000 lb. coarse 
tea, out of a total of G.3,000, the fine tea made would 
not only fetch a higher price (in this case I should 
say 10 annas at least), but there would have been 
more of it made. The same may be said the other 
way. According to your correspondent it cost B.4,211 
to make the rubbish and trash (rather a fine distinction) 
which sold for R10, 732 ; but at what figure does he 
estimate the deterioration of the fine tea? In my opinion 
the only way to obtain both quantity and quality is 
to pluck separately, i e. , to pluck two leaves and a tip, 
and then take separately the fresh Souchong leaves ; 
but to do this a good labor force is required. I would 
like to see the question discussed in your columns. — 
J. A. H. J. Upper Assam, 14th June 1SS1. 
RUBBER AND CACAO IN BRAZIL. 
In Seribntr's Monthly for June 1879 appeared an 
interesting paper on " The Mediterranean of America," 
in which the writer described a trip up the month 
of the Amazons. At the beginning of the paper the 
town of Breves, situated in the midst of deadly swamps, 
but prosperous from its rubber industry, is referred 
to, and the following account is given of the method 
of collecting and treating the milk of the rubber trees : — 
In the early morning, nion and women come with 
baskets of clay cups on their backs, and little hat- 
chets to gash the trees. "Where the white milk drips 
down from the gash they stick their cups on the trunk 
with daubs of clay, molded so as to catch the whole 
flow. If tho tree is a largo one, four or five gasheR 
may be cut in a circle around the trunk. On the 
next day other gashes are made a little below these, and 
so on until the rows reach the ground. By eleven 
o'clock the How of milk has ceased, aud the seringtteiros 
come to collect the contents of the cups in calabash 
jugs. A gill or so is the utmost yield from each 
tree, and a single gatherer may attend to a hundred 
aud twenty trec3 or more, wading always through, 
these dark marshes, and paying dearly for his profit 
in fever and weakness. Our mam'luca hostess has 
brought in her day's gathering— a calabash full of the 
white liquid, in appearance precisely like milk. If 
left in this condition it coagulates after a whilo and 
forms an inferior whitish gum. To make tho black 
rubber of commerce the milk must go through a pecu- 
liar process of manufacture, for which our guide has 
been preparing. Over a smoldering lire, fed with tho 
hard nuts of tho tucumti palm, he places a kind of 
clay chimney, like a wide-mouthed, bottomless jug ; 
through this boitio tho thick ttuoke pours in a constant 
stream. How ho takes his mold,— in this case a 
