September i, 1881.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
313 
THE ACTUAL COST OF MANUFACTURING 
TEA. 
(From the Indian Tea Gazette.) 
Assuming that the garden to be reckoned for is in 
these hills aud of average moderate size— say 200 
acres — yielding say 500 mds. , and that the salary of 
the Manager and his Assistant amount to 11300 a 
month, i.e., Ill -8 per acre, I reckon the charges to be 
as follows for each lb. of tea : — 
a year 
10 Tea makers P84 ) 
4 extra hands for ( 104— monthly, 
sifting, cleaning, ( 1,248— a year 
&C., U20 ) 
Implements, &c., K.'iUO per annum 
(i pice per pound) 
Boxes, Lead, &c. 
Sundries— Including 
allowance, 
Transit chart 
R. 
A. 
p. 
...0 
1 
6 
]o 
r 
) 
g 
...0 
3 
6 
0 
0 
6 
...0 
0 
14 
...0 
0 
6 
..0 
0 
i 
..0 
0 
,6 
..0 
7 
7* 
To the abovo should be added what is, I 
fear, very often overlooked in such culti- 
vation, viz., the value of the fuel used by 
the coolies for cooking purposes. For 
150 coolies I would reckon not less than 
15 mds. per diem, and at the Government 
price this would mean R3-12 per diem, 
which would add auother Iwo pice per 
ft to the cost of Tea ... ... 0 0 6 
0 8 H 
There may be other items omitted in my calcula- 
tions, but if the above are very nearly correct, it 
will be ovideut that Darjeeling tea cannot be landed 
in Calcutta for less than 8 as. per 11) from a small 
garden. It would be interesting to find out whether 
these charges cotdcl be very much more moderate on 
large gardens. — Yours faithfully, PoNDEBM. 
Darjieling, 28th July 18S1. 
l\Ve should say the rate is over estimated, but shall 
bo glad to hear the opinions of other Darjeeling 
planters on the subject. Our correspondent does not 
eoem to have taken into account the economy which 
machinery should effect in manufacture. — Ed., /. T. 
Wtxtte, 1 
SILK PRODUCTION. 
It is curious that for all that is constantly being 
■aid about "new products'' in the local press, there 
is hardly ever any mention of silk exceot in our 
paper. Y> t there is no product for w hich this country 
is better adapted, none that requires a less outlay of 
capital, and none that givis a more speedy return. 
The silkworm eggs obtained from Japan by Father 
Palla did not turn out so well as was expected. The 
silkworms from them were ns healthy us could bo 
wished, but many of the eggs did not hatch, and 
only admit seven ounces <>l (Yylo'i cgg« wviv pio- 
ducid from eaeli ounce of Japan ones. This is per- 
haps nothing to griimhlo about, but it is hoped that 
a much better result will bo obained in the second 
gem ration. The Japan t ugs reached this country in 
the beginning of last December, and they began to 
hatch immediately after their arrival. The firm Cey- 
lon egg» were laid about the mi. Idle of January, and 
these began to hatch in the middle of July, exactly 
six months after they had been laid. A few eggs of 
the second generation have already been obtained, 
and it is confidently expected that there will be some 
for exportation in time for the next European silk 
season. In countries where tilk is an established in- 
dustry, it is not necessary that every silk producer 
should be a mulberry planter. The "education," as 
it is called, of the silkworm and the cultivation of 
the mulberry tree can be — as in France they often 
are — separate employments conducted by different per- 
sons ; but in this country it is, for the present, 
necessary to have a plantation of mulberry trfes before 
the reaiing of silkworms iu sufficient quantity for 
commercial purposes can be successfully attempted. 
Three species of mulberry have already been natural- 
ized in Ceylon, namely, the common sort (Morns 
Indica), the large-leafed Philippine Island variety (M. 
multicauliis), and the white mulberry (M. Alha). Books 
on the culture of silk say that if the leaves of the 
black, red, and white mulberry trees be given to silk- 
worms all at once, they will eat the while first, then 
the red, and lasily the black, but here they seem 
to like the leaves of the 31. Indica, Alba, and Multi- 
caulis all equally well. If there is any difference in 
the quality of the leaves of these three species, those 
of the white mulberry are the best, but this tree 
requires better soil than either of the other two, 
and other things being equal, it will not bear so 
large a crop of leaves as the multicaulis. The com- 
mou sort is the best kind for fruit, but its habit of 
bearing fruit abundantly is not a desirable quality 
in a tree grown for the sake of the leaves. The best 
way to obtain large leaves of good quality is to prune 
the trees into short pollards, as the leaves borne on 
suckers are larger and better than those borne on the 
old branches of high trees. This is the Japanese 
method, as the Japanese do not approve of having 
the trees of a greater height than suffices to keep 
the leaves from being splashed with mud by the rain. 
They do not often make plantations of mulberry alone, 
but usually have the trees planted -in hedges across 
their corn field?, the mulberry being a tree that, 
unlike most others, does not injure plants growing 
near it, either by abstracting nourishment or by the 
shade or dropping of rain from its leaves. The mul- 
berry itself does not, however, grow luxuriantly in 
the shade of other trees, and leaves that have been 
grown in the shade are not so much liked by silk- 
worms as those that have been grown in sunshine — 
probably owing to a deficiency of saccharine matter 
iu the former. In Europe, the mulberry is commonly 
grown as a large tree, a method which besides pro- 
ducing leaves of inferior quality, renders the gather- 
ing of them more troublesome than when the trees 
are pruned in the Japanese way. Oue advantage of 
high trees, however, is that they do not require to 
be fenced, as the leaves are beyond the reach of cattle ; 
but the Japanese do not keep many citile, and con- 
sequently do not care for that advantage. 
Though there is less noise made about silk than 
about several of the other "new product-," yet we 
believe the time will come when it will be a more 
important product than any of them, as it is adapt- 
able to a greater diversity of soil and climate than 
any of the others, and is an article for which the 
demand is practically unlimited. Silk production is 
also a business that can be done by persons who can 
neither do hard work themselves nor afford to p:.y 
much in wages to other*. —Ctylon C. Mt»a<n<jer. 
VANILLA. 
(From the Monthly MagatiM.) 
The genus vanilla, says Mr. tl VV.fSeptimus Pie*>e, 
is indigenous to Pern, Brazil, and Mexico, and some 
of the species have been successfully cultivated in 
