September i, 1881.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
APHIS BLIGHT ON PEACH TREES. 
""TO THE EDITOR OF THE "AUSTRALASIAN." 
Sir, — Could you kindly give a remedy for peach 
blight? My trees are covered with aphis, which, I 
believe, prevented them from bearing last year.— N. M. 
Corryong, June 27. 
[Syringe the trees with an infusion of quassia chips. 
A pound of chips, which may be got for a trifle 
of the chemist, wiil serve for a long time. They may 
be infuse! again anfi again. Let the infusion be just 
unpleasantly hitler. In the event of quassia not being 
obtainable, employ soapsuds.— Ed. "Australasian."] 
COST OF MANUFACTURING TEA IN A 
HILL DISTRICT. 
TO THE EDITOR OF 'J'lIE " INDIAN TEA GAZETTE. 
Sir, — In reply to your request for figures showing 
the actual cost of manufacturing tea, I am able to 
supply you with the following as a sample of a Hill 
District. 
The figures include only the cost of (1) Fuel and 
bamboo work; (2) Plucking ; (3) Boiling; (4) Firing; 
(5) Assorting and packing. 
They apply to a garden where labor is cheap, but 
this advantage would be balanced by tho better and 
thicker Hushes and smaller cost of plucking in a 
Regulation District. The pluekiug average here was 
about 3 seers per cooly per diem Inst year, and 5 
seers per cooly per diem this year to 30th June. 
It only remains to add that 1S80 was an unusually 
good one. 
1880— As. P. 
Fuel and Bamboo work ... ... 0 2 '30 
Plucking ... 1 310 
Rolling 0 3-80 
• Firing ... ... ... ... 0 120 
Assorting and packing ... ..0 3'20 
Cost of manufacture per lb. 1S81 — ... 2 1 00 
Fuel and Bamboo work ... ... 0 1 '50 
Plucking 0 10 
Rolling ... 0 3 
Firing ... ... ... ... 0 0 75 
Assorting and packing ... ... 0 1*50 
Cost of manufacture per lb. ... ... 1 4 - 75 
Yours faithfully, 
Twin:' T\u>. 
DUAL SAP. 
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "INDIAN AGRICULTURIST." 
The treatment of coffee is what I will first take 
up. While accompanying a friend in charge of a 
coffee estate on tho Neilgherries, I observed him 
plucking up the young shoots on which thore were 
no flowers ; and was told by him that, by so doing 
the s ip which went to their nourishment would tend 
to increase tho siz 1 of tho berries. This first led me 
to draw the distinction between the fruit and leaf- 
tap. It appears to me that as with the human being 
and .animals so with plants ; Naturo changes its con- 
dition at the time for propagating its specie. The 
■ama nouiishmcnt tonds to support blond ami milk; 
yot no one would, I suppose, be so bold as to sny 
they were synonymous. Cood unf-h e it t !•• will never 
be found to cirry much flesh, honce the inferonce 
that the greater portion of nourishment taken is con. 
verted into mdk instead of blood. Now I hold that 
with the ohango of seasons plants always tako their 
turn, ami that this period to thorn is like the sen- 
•ons for propagation to human life, the same snstenanc* 
undergoes a different process by which fruit-sap ia 
creato I, and so long as it exists, it poi forms its 
70 
3°' 
functions towards supporting the fruit ; but so soon 
as no longer required, ceases to (low as iu the case 
of milk, and changes its nature into leaf-sap as milk 
does to blood. There could not be a better illus- 
traiion than the maugo tree, of a year when the 
pollen is destroyed. On examination, the leaves will 
be found covered with a coating of sugar-sap ejected 
from the (lower. If Naturo could utilise this sap 
in the support of leaf, is it likely that it would 
exhaust itself in the mauuer it does? You remarked 
that if this theory were correct, what would be the 
advantage to tea planters, in their removing the (lower 
of the tea plant ? This can easily be shown, the 
flower being removed which to the plant is like the 
young to the animal, the necessity for its nourish- 
ment ceases, thus the space occupied by the fruit- 
sap is taken up by that of the leaf, and a consider- 
able portion of the time which would be spent in 
the fruit is devoted to producing leaf. 
I have a theory of my own with regard to the 
cultivation of vine, which I should like much to have 
discut-sed. 
E. A. C. 
Hardei, 26th June 1881. 
TEA : HINTS CONCERNING THE INTERESTS 
OF PROPRIETORS AND PLANTERS. 
TO THE EDITOR OF THE " INDIAN TEA GAZETTE. " 
Dear Sir, — I will try to shew proprietors of tea 
gardens, and those men who have not had ;;ny really 
■practical experience in tea manufacture, what fools 
they make of themselves in the ey».-s of planters, by 
giving the said planters strict orders as to how they 
should manufacture their leaf (hoping that I may be 
of service to the said proprietors, and so open their 
eyes to see what a hole they are likely to fall into 
by doing so). I will also give thein a few hints 
about management. 
First, I ask auy reasonable being — How can a 
man, who has never made tea, know wdiat produces 
the various stages, such as colour of in/union, darkness, 
of liquor, thin liquor, flat, sojt, -pungent, good or bad 
flavour, sourness, <0c, ifcc. , except from hearsay, and 
hearsay is what other people with the same inex- 
perience as himself say. Now planters will not be 
astonished, but unpractical men will l>o probably, when 
I say that each of the above stages I have mentioned 
may (ach be produced from as many cause3 nearly. 
Unpractical men will say dark infusion is over-fermenta- 
tion, oracticid men will say — "yes, it may be." 
Unpractical men will say darkness of liquor is again 
over-fermentation, and the same answer will come 
from tho experienced planter ; and so on with thin 
liquor, flatness, soft, pungent, Jlavory Ac, etc 
I now beg to say that dark colour of infusion may 
be produced, as far us I know, from six distinctly 
different causes, and without attending to and counter- 
acting. &c, every one of them, a perfect outturn 
Darkntss of liquor may be produced from 4 distinctly 
different causes. 
Thin liquor ,, ,, ,, ,, 5 ,, 
Flat and soft „ ,, ,, ,, 3 
Pungtncy ,, ,, ,, ,, 5 ,, 
and many les-er and trivial causes. 
Fiavor „ „ ,, „ 2 great cau- 
ses and many trival oucs. 
Then again we have appearance of tea to k« , n in 
mind, And tho following terms are applied : Mttrh 
tip. Mart, irregular, curly, in I 1 twist-d, optn, Jioiri/, 
handsome, Uat'y, chaffy, brown, common, ,(,-., ,(-,-. 
All these can again bo divided iuto as many other 
pari leulars. 
Murh tiji the unpractical man will sny is liuo 
plucking. But planters kuow that this may bo ono 
