September t, 1881.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
prejudice for teas of tho appearance of B. P. The 
advantage of thin to the dealers in being able to 
buy our dust so cheap, as they have been able to of 
late, is obvious. Above all things don't send home 
to friends a white elephant in the shape of Aesain 
Oranga Pekoe : even Pekoe is too strong. You wouldn't 
drink Ll yourselves with your taste already accustomed 
to Indian teas; how do you expect your friends to ? 
As regards difficulty in separating fine leaf from 
coarse without injury before manufacture, has he ever 
tried a cylindrical sieve of large mesh (different for 
China aud Assam leaf) say 9 feet long by 3', 6" in 
diameter, and working round on an axle placed at 
an angle of about 8° to 10°, through which to sieve 
his withered leaf ? mesh nearly 1 inch. This some- 
times requires Ihe "Pekoe Souchong" leaf to be 
plucked like the "Souchong," separately from the 
Pekoe stem. This allows the old leaf to be rolled, 
fermented, and lired separately from the fine tea, — 
a great advantage to tin* latter, quite compensated 
for by tho little extra trouble in plucking. This leads 
me to join issue with your correspondent "J. A. II. J." 
when he says that by making less, the line tea would 
fetch more than it did when quantity was made. 
The tea, i. e., withered leaf, being sieved as above, 
and the tea-house accommodation being ir> proper 
proportion to the outturn, I do not see why the fine 
teas should have had any better chance had they 
been plucked without the coarse, as they never came 
in contact with the latter after being sieved before 
rolling. 
I will accept for the sake of argument your 
correspondent "Twice Two's" figures as given in your 
last issue. He mentions two experiences, viz., 2 
annas 1-G0 pie per lb. and 1 anna 475 pie per lb. 
as the cost of plucking and manufacture. Let us 
take nearly the mean of these two, say 1 anna 9 pie 
as a fair guide Then the 10.V; maunds "trash" 
would have cost 
R, 3,.")4S say for pinching and manufacture. 
,, 2,000 boxes and charcoal (pluckings) 
811 freight 
200 Calcutta charges. 
Say totalR6,559 
and these teas Fetched R10, 732. ! 
This profit of over GO per cent between leaving 
the tea on the bushes and taking it off, plus the 
fact that the next flush in a healthy Assam Garden 
would be benefitted, and the further fact that the 
general average cost price per 11). of the factory's 
outturn would be reduced, all taken together might 
be used as arguments in favor of quantity with quality, 
but I think n»y case is strong enough on other grounds 
not to require support from these, though I mention 
thoui in passing, for what they are worth. 
" THE ClIIBL AMANG YE." 
[We agree that if none but line qualities were sent 
home we should be ruined ; but making fine, good, 
and good medium, is very different from Hooding the 
market in too great quantity with weal; liquory kinds 
which cannot compete, to pay, with China Congous. 
On this subject wo cannot do better than conclude 
with the following extract from Messrs. Gow aud 
Wilson's Circular : — ■' Fine" plucking means a consider- 
able percentage oil tho crop, and we trust those who 
have adopted this system have thoroughly satisfied 
themstdves that better returns will be shown from 
higher prioea for diminished production. The question 
arises whether the simultaneously adopted policy of 
production of Fine. Teas will not adversely affect the 
prices of high-class descriptions. Owners "will really 
dj consulting their interests by striving to understand 
th • requirements of the trade, and every endeavour 
should be mule to get tho largest possible field out 
of a garden : the " sorting," to show a proportion 
Fine, a proportion Good Medium, and the remainder 
good useful Pekoe Souchong, and Souchong, and a 
small percentage broken Tea. Last year's results all 
tend to prove that the British public have decidedly 
shown taste for Indian Teas, and it now remains 
for the grower to meet the trade demands.— Ed. Indian 
Tea Gazette,] 
Camphor.— The Journal of Applied Science, in a note 
on the Camphor Forests of Sumatra, states that the 
trees yielding Borneo or Sumatra camphor (Dryobalanops 
aromalica) in large quantity are now becoming rare. 
Owing to the great demand fjr the sulphur by the 
Chinese, who use it to embalm their dead, the 
Battaks cut down the trees recklessly and without 
planting young ones. The camphor is said to fetch 
10,000 guilders per picul ( 135 lb. ) in the Singapore 
market. The gutta-percha trees in the Sumatra forests 
are being treated in the same way. It is remarkable, 
however, that the Battaks take great care that fresh 
benzoin trees replace those they cut down, by scatter- 
ing the seed on the ground. The camphor and gutta- 
percha trees require more care and trouble in plant- 
ing, hence this is neglected. 
Seeds.— In a note in Nature ( May 20, p. 80 ), com- 
municated by Mr. W. Carter, an account is giveu of 
the effect of pressure on the germination of seeds. He 
found that under a pressure of two and-a-half atmo- 
spheres mustard seed germinated twenty- five hours 
earlier than when under the ordinary jjressure of the 
atmosphere, but that the early development became 
permanently arrested during the eight days of the 
experiment, and the cotyledons of one that had es- 
caped entirely from the seed coat remained as etiol- 
ated as if grown in absolute darkness, while those 
under ordinary pressure grew rapidly and their coty- 
ledons became of a deep green colour. The etiolated 
plants, when removed from the pressure, rapidly grew 
into vigorous young plants. An increased pressure 
would therefore seem to stimulate germination and 
prevent the formation of chlorophyll. The pressure 
was obtained by the use of a column of mercury. The 
seeds were sown on moist cotton wool, placed in a 
small bottle, which was then secured to the curved 
extremity of a gla=s tube, into the long arm of which 
mercury wa3 poured until it reached a height of 
forty-live inches above the level ef the metal in the 
shorter arm. 
Peach Pruning.— In the majority of cases thi3 work 
is left till the winter or spring, but 1 see that Mr. 
Wallis, of Orwell Bark, like a few others of the best 
cultivators, thius his trees in the houses directly the 
fruit is off ; thus fully exposing the whole of the voung 
wood well to the light, and giving it every chance 
of ripening off early, which shoots cannot do when 
buried up under their foliage. Not ouly does the 
thinning gieatly aid the ripening process, but it 
assists tho trees materially in plumping up aud perfecting 
their buds, without which the flowers must of necessi- 
ty be small, aud their setting uncertain. With ^ood 
fat buds that result in big bold blooms, the organs 
are sure to be right, and when that is the case a 
I crop of fruit ;l nd its safe Btoriing is almost certain to 
follow, for the success of uext jear, as regards Peaches 
| and Nectarines, depends iu a very great measure on 
the doings of this. Even more important perhaps than 
the thinning of i ho wood, is the keeping of the foliage 
clean and free from red-spider, which can only be 
dono during such hot weather as we have recently 
had by the aid of a good garden engine or syringe, 
and a thorough soaking of water at tho roots, as 
dryness, either in the air or bonier, brings ou languor, 
insects, and weakness sooner than anything else. — F. 
S. —Hardeners' Ch rankle. 
