Oct 2, 1893.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
237 
CEYLOJSr TEA IN RUSSIA, AMEEICA &C. 
Undoubtedly pionaera who endeavour to introduoe 
our teas into foreign countries have to battle 
against many adverse iufluenoes. It has not as 
yet been shown that any of those who have thu3 
endeavoured to secure Ceylon interests, have found 
the results to themselves financially satiefaotory. 
Very recently, it has been made plain how dis- 
couraging to the parties concerned has been such 
an attempt with regard to America, where 
eSorts have been made by pioneers who certainly 
deserved, although they have not obtained, a full 
measure of success. In France, Germany, and 
other Continental countries but little has been 
effected up to the present date, at all events not 
to the extent which can have repaid the time 
and labour expended by individuals. The opening 
of new markets for our teas is, however, a necessity 
of the time, and one that in our flanting interests 
must be encouraged in as liberal a spirit, as is 
possible. 
None of the enterprising persons who have 
set thempelves to the accomplishment of this 
object on the Continent of Europe, have rivalled in 
success the Tea Fund's ncognizea agent infiussia. 
And jet the field M. Rogivue attacked was, perhaps, 
one of the most unpromising that could have been 
selected. True it is that throughout that Empire the 
population is essentially a tea-drinking one, The 
infusion is in every Russian household the 
established drink, and on every sideboard there 
stands the samodvar in readiness to supply the 
craving of every visitor. But then custom of 
centuries of growth has led to the formation of 
certain tastes and of prejudices which could not 
easily be overcome. The trade in tea was in 
the hands of a few firms of long establishment and of 
ample financial meanEi, These seem to have set their 
faces strongly against any new introduction that might 
disturb the commercial relations they had formed, 
and M. Rogivue soon found, when he first ap- 
plied to these firms, that they were determined 
to oppose him in tvery possible way. They had 
established a strong influence in high political 
quarters, and brought that to bear with great 
tflect in opposition to the efforts made by M. 
Rogivue. With but very limited means at his 
command, that gentleman found that unless he 
could commence work as a retailer he had no 
chance of inducing a demand in Russia for Ceylon 
teas. Foiled in his attempts to do this in St. 
Petersburg, ha transferrea his exertions to the 
ancient capital of Moscow, and radiating thence 
as from a centre ha has now succeeded in 
establisbii g a large number of agencies, and 
has carried his warfare into the very heart 
of the enemy's country at Nijni-Novgorod. All 
this has not, been done without a great amount of 
personal labour and of financial risk, and M, Bogivue 
now cjmpliiins to our London Correspondent— whose 
report will be found on page 229 — that he has 
not lor this as yet reaped at, y leward for himself, and 
that his prospects of ultimately doing so are 
cramj.ei by the Larrowness of his resources and 
by tlie want of adequaie help from Ceylon tea 
planters who are, with himself, interestea in the 
development of his business. It may readily be 
undersiood that heei'.anoy is felt ouc here as to 
granting direct financial assistance to a business 
which ID the fitst piaec is certainly one of private 
iiime. But Ihera is a side-iesuo which in fairness to 
M. liut^ivuu we thiuk cannot and should not 
be overlooked. Quite independently of the 
amount of Ceylon tea now sold through his 
ageucy in his establisbmenta throughout Bueeia 
— and this is no incoaBidctable cxuautity — be has 
succeeded in making Uejlon tea a folt w^nt ' 
in many a Russian household. His sucoesa 
in this respect has stirred up the Russian 
tea merchants to the conacioueness that they 
must endeavour to meet the consequent de- 
mands, and accordingly, we are assured that month 
by month the exports of Ceylon tea from 
London to Russia have shown a steady 
increase. 
We are not quite clear that the whole 
credit of this result should be given to M. Rogivue s 
Agency. Undoubtedly some part at least of this 
result is due to other, though we admit, much 
more limited and temporary agencies. For instance, 
the visit of Sir Graeme Elphinstone to Russia 
did some good in making the name and quality 
of Ceylon tea known. Then again, we our- 
selves had communications with the St. Petersburg 
Correspondent of a well-known London journal, 
whose friendship we made at Vichy so far back 
as 1887 and both in St. Petersburg and Moscow 
we are aware that the said Correspondent did 
some service for Ceylon tea by distributing 
samples among his friends and causing an in- 
quiry to be made for it at the stores. 
Then again as to M. Popoff'a visit to Abbots- 
ford, BO far back as 1890-91 and his interest in 
Ceylou tea, that oould soaroely be due to extra- 
neous infiuenoe. 
Nevertheless, we are quite prepared to ad- 
mit that each and all of these efforts and 
agencies are not to be compared in impor- 
tance with the work done by M. Rogivue 
and for this reasouj that his own figures of 
his sales last year, and estimate for the current 
season, show the large and increasing business 
developed solely by himself. It is the impor- 
tance of this business in itself that has caused 
some leading Ceyloa planters to indicate that 
surely M. Rogivue has got aid and start enough, 
— that he has now only to go on and win a fortune 
out of an established, ever-growing trade ? Be it re- 
membered too, that all the Tea Fund Committee pro- 
mised, or that M. Rogivue, originally asked in the 
way of aid, has been scrupulously fulfilled. What 
then has caused the fresh demands— pref>.rred too 
almost by way of complaint ? We canoot help 
thinking that — as London teamen think — the lavish 
way in which planting money has been devoted 
to Chicago, is responsible for these and other 
demands specially urged on the Tea Fund. And 
with some show of reason we are bound to 
say. For, M. Rogivue and other claimants 
lor aid, may well argue, — 'If the Ceyloa tea 
planters are able to spend £20,000— £25,000— 
£30,000? (albeit, a goodly portion of this comes 
out of the general revenue) on au Exhibition in 
a coffee drinking country, sureiy ihey may well 
spend a comparatively, paltry .£500 or £1,000 more 
on such a grand field as tea-driokitg Ruseia, 
and in aid of olo who has already given of his 
tims and expenditure of private means, so freely ?' 
We most firmly agree in the logic of such an 
argument, and if we saw the means available — 
and had the power to grant it — M. Rogivue 
would have £500 twice over to do further 
justice to his tea crusade in Russia, while a 
similar amount would also at once be de- 
voted to still further develope the uemund for 
our teas in the baok-couutry of the Aus- 
tralian Colonies, — a more promising field even 
than Russia— assured as we should leel, in both 
cases, of an immediate return in an increased 
demand for our teas. 
But then tbe financial position of the Tea 
Fund in Ceylon and the meaLs of the planters to 
lurther supplement it, must be taken into consi- 
deration. With the (all of late years iu the average 
