April r, 1882.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
877 
TEA IN CEYLON : PROGRESS. 
" The Rakwana Tha Factory " will, we hear, be 
opened by the end of this mouth, and the enter- 
priziDg proprietors will then be ready to cure and 
prepare tea leaf for the market on account of pro- 
prietors, or to buy the green, leaf on delivery, or 
better still to buy the crop on the trees, picking 
and carrying the leaf from the garden leased with 
their own factory coolies. Already two contracts 
under this last-mentioned arrangement have been 
entered into. Mr. Shaw (who had long experience 
in India in tea, before ho went to Sumatra and 
Trincomalee to grow tobacco) is now on Barra plant- 
ation, and has declared he could not wish for a 
better growth or appearance of tea leaf to operate 
on. With the machinery now being erected, Mr. 
Sbaw will no doubt make a name for Rakwana tea, 
and it will be far better with reference to extra- 
insular markets and the prospect of good prices, if all 
the tea grown in the district is bulked. 
The machinery on Windsor Forest and Strathellie 
estates is, we hear, giving the utmost satisfaction, and 
other proprietors in these favoriie tea districts 
(Dolosbage, Yakdcssa and Ambagamuwa) are likely 
to go in for rolling machines which can be attached 
to the water-wheels now used for driving their pulpers. 
Mr. James Blackett (who remembers cutting and 
rooting out about five acres of Llewellyu's finest 
Assam tea, to make room for coffee in days gone 
by) has now an appreciable area of tea on two of 
his Doloebagie places, and the additional extent, 
certain to be planted this season, will be con- 
siderable. All through Ambagamuwa, Dikoya, Mas- 
keliya, Dimbula and Kotmale, the tea plant seems 
to flourish wherever it is put into the ground, and 
with it there is no question of the return for a 
whole year's labour depending on a favourable blos- 
soming season lasting only for six or eight weeks. 
Mr. Cameron, the Assam planter now on Windsor 
Forest, has a very high opinion of Kaudaloya 
(Yakdessa) tea ; aud he has been good enough to 
send us a series of typical samples of Dolosbage aud 
Yakdcssa te is in small packets as follows : — 
Windsor Forest : — Broken Pekoe, Souchong. Pekoe 
Souchong, brokeu mixed. 
Pm-y-lan :— Pekoe ('2), broken Pekoe (2), broken 
mixed, broken mixed. 
Seaforth :— Souchong, Pekoe, broken Pekoe. 
Kelvin :— Pekoe, broken Pekoe, Pekoe Souchong, 
Souchong. 
Oallammlena: — PekoeSouchong, broken Pekoe, broken 
Pekoe. 
Thoso wo shall be glad to shew to merchants, 
brokers and others interested : they will be useful 
for purposes of comparison. We can, from experi- 
ence, speak in high terms of the quality of the tea 
manufactured on Windsor Forest, and we have no 
Rouht that, under skilful and experienced direction, the 
prndilrii turned nut I r. >ni t lie districts uc !i i\ c ivl.Tpd 
to will bo found equal to a high averngo of Indian tea. 
In this connection wo may mention that the 8. 
PTega" carried to Calcutta this time Mr. Jackson, 
the well-known patentee of Tea-preparing Machinery, 
who wai iu charge of a now and very complete 
machine combining — as wo understand— all the oper- 
ations connected with the rolling, drying, sifting, 
and final curing of the leaf. Mr. Jackson intended to 
watch the operation of his new patent on a plant- 
ation for himself, and if it answers his expectations, 
it may be a case of putting the newly-gathered leaf 
in at one end aud receiving the fully-prepared tea 
warm and fit for packing ut the other ! The total cost 
of this very complete and eleborate contrivance, or 
series of contrivances, is said to be £400 ; but, if it 
prove a success, every District Tea Factory at least 
may find it profitable to provide a set. Mr. Jackson, 
who is a hard-headed Aberdonian, and whose brother 
is the tea-planter who has been trying to grow tea 
to advantage iu the Southern States of America 
(which experiment has proved a failure, as we now 
learn) is likely to spend a little time in Ceylon 
on his return voyage, when he will no doubt 
arrange to make his latest patent known to tea- 
planters through his local agents, Messrs. John 
Walker & Co. 
MR. HUGHES, THE AGRICULTURAL CHEM- 
IST, ON COFFEE MANURES. 
The following letter received by a recent mail con- 
tains information of iuteresl to planters: — 
Analytical Laboratory, 79 Mark Lane, 
London E.G., Jan. 20th, 1862. 
G ENTLEMEN, — Many thanks for the original number 
of the Tropical Agriculturist, the receipt of which I 
should have acknowledged long since. Please put my 
name as a subscriber and send all past numbers 
published up to date. 1 presume future issues or the 
work will contain infoimation respecting sugarcane, 
especially after the recent visit of jour tenior to 
Queensland. An old friend of mine, who was one of 
the pioneers of the sugar industry near Port Mackay, 
writes me by a recent mail that they are actually 
importing sulphate of ammonia from England as a 
manure for cane, and that the prospects for next 
crop were excellent. 
I see Mr. Tollputt has written you yet another letter 
respecting the results obtained from the use of potash 
salts for coffee. This gentleman seems to have some 
strong personal animosity against myself, though why he 
should cherish such feelings I really cannot account, as I 
never to my knowledge did anything cither for or 
against him. Mr. Tolputt certainly conveys the idea, 
to the readers of his letters, that potash should be 
the dominant element in his special coffee manures, 
but he does not give any detailed analyses of his 
mixtures, and is scarcely willing to allow that I have 
made, what many would consider, a duo allowance 
of 4 per cent of potash, equal to about 8 per cent 
sulphate of potash, to be present in a complete coffee 
manure. 
Allow me to quote from page 118 of my report :— 
"I should consider 4 per ceut of potash 'the utmost 
that a good coffee manure intended for Ceylon should 
coutain On most estates it is uot potash that is 
required by tho soil, but a cboup source of bulky 
nitiogenous manure (cattle dung, composts of pulp 
with oake) and a moderate supply ol phosphate and 
sulphate of lime." 
These views, formed after careful personal visits 
through the prinoipal coffee districts of the island, 
have been continued by Mr. I.iwis in his letter 
addressed to you sumo lUOnf'M since, and I am quite 
satistiud to leave tho uiattei in tho hands of praotical 
planters, lor tune fights always on tho side of truth. 
Lot me repeat that, iu my opinion, boms, cake, Bah 
