July i, 1893.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
21 
The object to be aimed at in the prepsration is to 
get the largest possible quantity of theine without 
diisipating the aroma, and accompanied by only a 
moderate amonnt of tannin. Y. Kozai gives analyses 
to fhow that this is effected (in the oaee of superior 
teas) by the infusion in water at 120° to 150° F., for 
two or five minutes. By superior t«?a, he understands 
worth five to seven shilliDga a pound in Japan. It 
is probablo, therefore, that the highest class teas 
we ever have to deal with in England comes under 
the medium teas of Y. Kosai, which require infusion 
in boiling wat«r for one minute at least. The 
majority of English people like a good deal of 
chicory with thair coffee, and probably a majority 
also like a good deal of tannin with their 
tea and to them the analyses and recommen- 
dations of the Japanese writer are of amall im- 
portance. 
The paper will be of more use as frodfor reflection to 
the Anglo-Indian plonter than as direct instruction. 
The palate of the Englishman is as yet only very 
rouphlv educated in tea. There can be very few 
Eoglishmen who would greatly prefer the superior 
teas of Japan and Chir^a to the ordinary Kumaon 
or Oeylon tea ; most persons used to drinking the latter 
woul*' probably prefer it- to the most expensive tea made, 
nay China tea worth 40a per pound in China. The 
English planter in Bengal has a tea garden of 200 
acres (possibly still larger). Hia object is, by the 
aid of a steam-engine or other coarse help, to put 
his tea through, to keep his factory clear when he has 
a strong flash on. He has to carry the daily make 
through by the aid of uncivilized labourers and over- 
seers. He mnst reduce every step of his manufacture 
to a routine, he must have no fpecial tea separately 
and differently manufactured, and no current experi- 
nients. Few planters have made much profit Ijy pekoe, 
and the green tea hardly exists commercially in India. 
There are no doubt many Englishmen who, having 
not a plantation, but (literally) a garden with some 
tea in it in India, have manufactured, nut unsuccesp- 
fully 80 far as the flavour of the tea is oonceroed, 
green tea, pekoe, etc., but this has been a fancy 
article for their own drinking or for presents, and 
has never been put in any quantity on the market. To 
plant successfully in India, the EnglishmRn has to 
proceed on a broad scale, his large cost and high ex. 
pected profit cannot be got out of the close of super- 
intendence of elaborate handmannfacture. Or, at 
least, it will be a long time before the public tea 
taste at home is sufficiently elevated to be willing 
to pay so large a price for such teas as would re- 
munerate the English planter. For the present the 
object of the planter must be to produce the maximum 
quantity of tea that the English grcoar can sell at Is 
6.-1 to 29 6d per pound. Hence to planters the utility 
of the paper of Y. Kozai must be mainly future. — 
Nature p. 12190. June .5, 18 
_ ^ 
HORTICULTURAL NOTES. 
Bone dust and wood ashes will supply everjthing 
lacking for strawberries as a fertilizer. 
Seed may be tested by putting them on a flannel 
cloth, covering them with another cloth tnd keeping 
ibem moist 
Pull herbs when dry and in their first blossom, 
hang in bundles, head downwards in a dry attic. If 
snn dried they lose some flavour. When yon have 
spare time, strip the leaves from the stallr, powder 
finely, put in labelled tin boxes or glass jars with 
close-fitting covers. 
Sodium prolongs the period of plant growth, not 
in the sense of lengthening the seaBon of growth for 
the plant, but it naakes the maturity of the plant 
lens rapid. 
Iron is essential to the healthy growth of plants. 
Without it the leaves lose their greenness even in the 
sun, and death ensues. 
Sulphur is a neoesaary constituent in the formation 
of albuminoids, without which no plants can grow. 
isQive the obildron each a fruit tree and get them 
interested in horticulture. Let each one attend to 
hia own tree and have the fruit it yielda. 
FEUIT TREES AND POCLTKT. 
There should always be fruit trees in the poultry 
run. They provide shade and shelter from rain for 
the fowl, and the fowl pay for it by enrichine the soil, 
by keeping down the gra's and weeds and by des- 
troving insects. It is abont the only place where 
plums can be grown, but it is al"o favourablo to the 
pear or quince tree, if not shaded by buildings or 
larger trees. 
SULPHATE OF IHON AND PLANTS. 
Professor Sach«, of Wurzbnrg, asserted, and the 
Royal Institute for fruit and vine cnlturfi at Giesed- 
b eim has trfed experiments and is apparently satipfipd 
that sulphate of iron is a valuable stimulant to plants 
that are fnffering from eblorsi?, or absence of the 
Drrper grefu colour. Thev cave smnll trees 2 
I Sth lb of copperas, and large trees 4 and 
2-5th lb. The results, it is said, -were most gratifying. 
Straree to "ay, in some ca.ses where the trees were 
snffering from the attack of aphides as well as defi- 
ciency of colour in the leave", the aphides disappeared, 
and frequently the leaves became healthy within a 
few days after the treatment. The sulphate of iron 
wag dissolved in water and applied near the roots. 
Early spring is the best time to try the experiment. 
Some soils do not require the addition of snlphate of 
iron. 
POTASH AND B NE. 
The usefulness of nitrogren and phosphoric acid in 
slowly available firms, as they exist in bone, has been 
amplv prrved in practice, especially for slow- 
growing crops, in orchards, meadows, and in 
such other cases where a gradual increase in general 
fertility is regarded as important. A mixture of fine 
ground bone and muriate of potash, in the proportion 
of three parts of bone to one of potash, i' used quite 
largely, and has proved a very effective and profitable 
manure for general use in grain farming. It furnishes 
all the essential ingredients, it costs less per ton 
than the average complete fertilizers, and it contains 
quite as much nitrogen and very much more phos- 
phoric acid and potash. Under the present conditon 
of the fertilizer trade and for purposes indjoat^d, the 
substitution of ground bone, in part at least, for the 
more expensive though more available complete 
fertilizers, is in the line of wise economy. — Morticul- 
tural Times. 
On the West Australlw? Fan Pai.m.— Baron von 
Mueller, in the Victorian Naturalist, November, 1892. 
says : — " It has been known since the discovery of 
the Hammersley Ranges, fnlly thirty years ago, that 
a Livistona Palm occurs on the Mill' Stream there, 
isolated from any other species of that genus ; hut 
incomplete specimens led to the surmise that this 
Palm might be identical with Livistona Marise, a 
species restricted to the Palm Glen and several 
valleys of the Macdonnell Ranges in Central Australia. 
The last-mentioned Palm we know now through 
Mr. J. Edgar, of the Rockhanipton Botanic Garden, 
to be while, in a young state of cultivation, 
much more robust and upright in foliage than L. 
Australis, besides the leaves at the early age of the 
plant being of a ' rich bronzy colour." I have always 
found transmitted fruitlets considerably larger than 
those of the genuine L. Marife, and further some 
minor differences exist also in the flowers of the two 
species, as recently ascertained. The West Aus- 
tralian Fan Palm has, therefore, now been named 
L. Alfredi, in honour of H.R.H. the Duke of 
Edinburgh, at whose nuptial festival the Central 
Australian Palm was dedicated to the Princes Marie 
of Russia. What applies to many other Palms 
holds good also for L. Alfredi, namely, that the 
leaves are more strongly spinous in the young than 
in the aged plant. Mr. Beresford records this Palm 
now also from the Fortescue River and its tribut- 
aries, from the sources of the Robe River, and 
from Cave's Creek." — Gardeners' Chronicle. 
