246 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST [Oct. 2, 1893. 
ME. JOHN HUGHES AND TEA ANALYSES, 
The delay that has attended any decision by tbe 
Planters' Aeeooiation about eecuring tbe servicee of a 
Chemical Expert (or tbe purpose of locally analyeing 
teas, reporting on fermentation, &c. will not have to 
be regretted ehould it result in a full prior under- 
Btanding of the nature and scope of tbe services 
be would be expected to render. For there is no 
doubt that what would be required must necessi- 
tate a stay in tbe island of considerable length 
and of consequent costliness. If examination into 
all the questions to which anewers are required 
is to be made at all, it must be made with a 
thoroughnees which alone could give value to tbe 
results sought to be attained. It appears from 
what our London Correepoudent writes us on this 
topic by tho present mail that inquiries have been 
addressed by our local Association to Mr. Hughes 
by which it is sought to ascertain details as to tbe 
course that gentleman would recommend. To these 
queries the well-known Analyst finds it dilKcuU (o 
Buooinotly reply. It is, be declares, impossible 
to wholly foresee how far it might prove desirable 
to carry on the experiments to be made ; and in 
many respects he thinks tbe questions put can best 
he solved here by experienced planters rather 
than by himself. He has suggested, however, 
that a safe preliminary step might be for himself 
to personally make some fifty analyses of samples 
of tea to be selected and forwarded to him by tbe 
Association. These eamplss, Mr, Hughes presumes, 
would include teas from estates of varying ele- 
vations and of differing oondiuons of manufacture. 
With the results to the analyses of these, carefully 
tabulated, the Association Committee would have 
before it a tolerably good index to the work which 
in the future should be carried on locally. Mr, 
Hughes has given a price for this preliminary 
work, and we think it should be undertaken with 
as little dulay as may be possible. For although 
many among us differ as to the mode of proce- 
dure to be followed, all, we conceive, unanimously 
agree in attaobing value to a more intimate know- 
ledge of the chemistry of tea than is at present 
posseesed by us. Earlier communications of Mr. 
Hutches to the Planters' Association having led 
to no results, he communicated tbe data of his 
last experiments — made voluntarily and gratuitously 
— to ourselves rather than run a further chance 
of their being ignored by the body most concerned 
with them. Such a course, however complimentary 
it may have been to this journal, we hope will not 
in the future have to be followed. As Mr. Hughes 
observed, he had no personal interest to serve in 
making the analyses he favoured us with. But he 
deemed that in ignoring the subject as it had done, 
the Association shewed itself hardly alive to the 
importance of the investigation he suggested, and 
therefore, he took it up con amore in the hope of 
awakening general interest in tbe subject. That 
he has been Euocestful in doing this is evident 
from the wide comments upon the articles we 
have published made by tbe Indian newspapersi 
More especially ba» the subject of "stalk In tea," to 
which Mr. Hughes prominently directed attention, 
attracted tbe notice of our confrerls on the other 
Bide of the water, and no doubt his oommuni- 
oations generally will prove to be fruitful of 
results. 
During tht course of recent conversation 
with Mr. Hughes by our London corres- 
pondent, the latter touched upon a point which 
we believe to have an important bearing upon the 
question of the permanence of tea and the ne- 
cessity or otherwise for returning to the soil the 
constituents of which it is deprived by the growth 
of tbe plant. It will be reooUeoted that Mr, John ^ 
Bobertc, while assigning a high valae to the 
experiments detailed by us, declined to accept 
them BS conclusive unlets he could be informed ae 
to the character of tbe tamplea of soils upoa which 
they were conducted. Were the»e " he hsked," 
"taken from the turfaof ," which had been greatly 
exhausted by prior coffee cultivation, or from tbe 
depth at which the tea-tuth teeke its nulrimetit." 
This question Mr. Hughes confesses himself to be 
unable to answer. He has in his poseeeeioD at 
large number cf such tamplee sent to him at 
different times, but without that full classifica- 
tion and description that would < uatle him to 
satisfj' Mr. Roberts' objection. It is precisely 
such a cause for doubtfulness that we should 
desire to see removed by those whom we hope to 
see entrusted with the duty of selecting samples, both 
of soils and te»e, for Mr. Hughes' further jro 
posed experiments. As we have said, Mr. Hughes, 
expert as he is, has hitherto been working voluntaiily 
on our behalf, and could only make uee of euch 
material as he bad at hand. If commisBioued 
for further investigations by our Planters' Asso- 
ciation, the above difficulty— one that undoubtedly 
reduces tbe value of his previous wcrk-must no 
longer be allowed to operate. A further maittr 
that received mention by Mr. Hughes was a 
suspicion exprf»sed by the Assooistion tb»t the 
samples of tea analysed by him m'ght not have 
been of pure Ceylon t'a: that indeed he might 
have been supplied with blecded teas. Mr. 
Hughej gives us the ssburance that the methed 
he adopted for eeouring these left little or no 
chance that so fundnmenlal an error could have 
been made, and we think, therefore, that it may 
b« assumed that be worked upon data that were 
fully correct. At tbe same time, all future ex- 
periments should certainly be made upon teas 
epecially selected and eent to him under tbe cegis 
and seal of the Planters' Association of Ceylon. 
(From a Correspondent.) 
London, Aug 18. 
My recent efforts to see 
Mb. John Hughes. 
were uneuccessful until the present week I was 
anxious to learn from him whether he could give 
me tbe information desiiei by Mr. John Koberts 
as to whether the Ceylon estate soils on which be 
had experimented had been taken from the suriace 
or from the depth at which the tea tree feeds. 
Unfortunately this was a point on which Mr. Hughes 
could not satisfy me. He is in po£ session of very 
many samples of soil, but without knowledge of 
the depth from which they were derived. Under 
these conditions, certainly the objection taken by 
Mr. Eoberts as to forming definite oonclucions on 
Mr, Hughes' analyses must be held to stand. 
What is now wanted is that these experiments should 
ba repeated on data that would be authoritative, 
and which should, some of them represent the 
Btraium in which the deep lap root of the tea 
tree seeks nutriment. On my asking Mr. Hughes 
whether he had heard anything from your Pkntors' 
Association, he replied that he had done so in the 
forms of queries as to what he thought should be 
done in the wny of further investigation on the 
spot by an imported chemical expert. He had 
replied, he told me, in the .sense that he cculd not 
formulate advice on the insuflSoient data at present 
possessed. He had made the experiments he had 
done to satiffy his own views and to awaken the 
Association to the importance of results that might 
be obtained. The letter of the Association, be 
further said, oast some doubt upon the genuineness 
ol tbe teas with which he had experimented. 
