Nov, 1, 1893-] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICQLTURIST. 
339 
An Industry which has caught on— say the 
Pioneer— with remarkable rapidity in India during 
the last few years is paper-m?.king. Ten yearj 
ago the total outturn from all the Indian paper- 
mills was only 7^ million pounds a year. Last 
year Ilia cine mills now in existence had an 
output of 26i million pounds. 
Tea in Servia. — In Servia, tea which, for 
Customs purposes.used to be claEsed under the hrad 
of j;rooeri9S, is according to the L. and C. Kvprcss, 
placed in the Servian statistics for 1891 under that 
of drugs and cheniioals, owing, perhaps, to the 
extremely high price of the commodity, and to 
the fact that the bulk of the people look upon 
it as a beverage to be used only in times of illness. 
The value of the total amount importcl did not 
exceed £625. 
Tea Cutting Machinery,— if. Parnall, Bristol — 
The cutting rollers are provide! w-iSi s groove at 
one end, into which is dropped a plate cr other 
suitable stop to retain the rollers in position. In 
eonoeotioa with these rollers is or are arranged 
one or more knives, construotcd to move back- 
wards, and kept against a aboulder by means of 
R lever weighted at the end. Working against the 
knives is a special form of ratchet or wheel, arranged 
so that the teeth are not provided with a con- 
tinuoua flange.— No. 10,271. 12lh September, 1892, 
— Industries and Iron, 
" Labour used to rob tho soil is worse 
than labour thrown away," said Mr. Henry C. Carey, 
the American economist. The saying is quoted by 
Dr, Bruno Terne in connection with the fact that 
the sewage of a town is so much chemical wealth 
originally taken from the fields and not returued 
to it. The Chinese, he remarks, are wiser than 
us in carefully lestoring to the soil what can be 
restored, and thus keeping up its fertility. Hence 
it is that so dense a population can be supported 
by it. The refuse of a city of a million inhabi- 
tants amounts, as Liebig showed, to no less than 
4.1,000,000 lb. of fertilising matter in a year. Instead 
of imitating the Chinse and following the advice 
of Liebig, we neglect this source of supply at our 
doors, and import phosphates and nilratts at great 
expense from distant countries. 
Cacao Cultivation in Cbylon. — Mr. Joseph 
Ilolloway, the Wattegama pioneer of new and old 
products, will have to prepare to meet a rush of 
inquirits after "cacao investments" from the city 
of London! For, his letter to us showing forth 
the extreme profitableness of his 1.5-acre field has 
been copied into the London City Leader in large 
type and the rate of profit— £22 per acre !— is 
sure to have such an effect on City men 
with spare oasb, in this time of distrust, that 
cacao more than tea, is likely to become the 
subject of inquiry with would-ba investors. At 
any rate, Mr. Holloway has made an impression 
in " tho city" with his £22 per acre clear profit ! 
DusiCCATED CocaNUTs. — I notice by the Chamber of 
Commerce circular dated the 23r<l iust., that the 
quautity of this stnii exported fiom 1st January to 
23rd October this ycir wa.'t r),oO'),077 lb. against same 
time last year of 2,u62,32U 11'.— or an increoS3 of 
2,712,757 lb. As three nuta on an average go to a 
ponud tho quautity of cxtrn nuts used iu this naa'jU- 
faoluro is 8,228,271. There are elill two mouths fcr 
the, year to run out, and if wo tako auotlior 100,000 
lb. as the aver.iKC quantity that will be tent away 
during Noveiiib t and D^^oembnr, wo Bh.iU get a 
RrniiJ total of 8,52.s,271 nnts used iu tho mauu- 
faotuco of DoBiccated Oocouuts this year, aa oom- 
pared with last jear. Who will say after this that 
the price of cooinuta has not been affected — Coiu, 
Cor., local " Examiner." 
Tea Statistics. — The Louclon correspondent 
of the morning pap-r brings us to task over tea 
statistics and inferences advanced before the com- 
pletion of our " Handbook and Directory." He 
ought to have waited for the bcok itself. In it 
ha will find the figures in detail of the estimate 
wa ventured on for next year — figures which 
generally followed, so far as crops are concerned, 
those adopted by Mr. Rutherford some years ago. 
There is very little practical use in forecasting for 
189G, although our critic seems to have named 
90 million lb. for that year from 280,000 acres 
because 250,000 acres are this year producing about 
80 million lb. Well, if our annual outturn only 
increases by -3 million lb. — a very moderate es- 
timate surely — we ought to have 95 million lb. 
at least in 1896 1 It must be remembered by 
friends who are inclined to insist on low estimates, 
that quite as much harm maybe done by minimising 
as by exaggerating estimates. Nothing will encourage 
the Indian tea planters to extend culture mora 
than to tsll them that Ceylon has nearly reached 
her maximum — not mora than 10 million lb, addi' 
tional to her crops being expected in the next 
three years 1 
The SuRiiEY Lavender Fields. — A correspondent 
of the Daily Chronicle, who has recently paid a. 
visit to Miss Sprules, whose family for over a 
cen'ury has been engaged in the industry of 
lavender distillation at Mitcham, writes : — The 
proc;S3 of distillation is a very interesticg and 
somewhat primitive affair. The lavender is deftly 
cut by men with small saw-like ECjthes, then made 
up into fheaves, and finally rolled into " mats," 
into which they are secured by skewers. These 
mats or sacks of lavender are then brought along 
to the distillery, which consists of a lower fioor, in 
which are the receiving cans for the oil and the 
furauees for heating the stills above, and an upper 
floor, which is a raised platform of wood with a 
thatohod root supported by beams, in which are 
the stills and vats. The big iron coppers or stills 
are filled with the pretty, delicate-looking bloom 
by men naked to their waists, who press it down 
and stamp upon it till the still is tightly packed. 
Water is then added, the head of the still is firmly 
fixed on by means of a crane, and the whole made 
aiitight (to prevent the escape of any steam) by 
layers of whitening. The men then light the firea 
below, and tho vapour passing through a pipe 
technically koown as the " worm," is caught in 
a huge vat nearly full of cold water, where it 
gets condensed, and flows into a receiving. cen below 
as oil and water. The essential oil is thus letained 
whilst the water, which is useless, trickles away. 
Iq the distillation of peppermint the water is 
eolleotad, as it is regarded by the poorer people of 
the district as a potent remedy against certain 
minor ailments. A large portion of the lavender 
oil is sent up by Miss Sprules to the druggist for 
medicinal purposes, the remainder being retained 
for the preparation of her famous lavender water 
the details of which ere her own eeoret. During 
the autumn and winter the hottliug of the lavender 
water, lavender essence, and the aromatic lavender 
eahs, is carried on in tho farm parlour. The 
stranger should not leave this attractive place 
without a btroU through the fields where the lavender 
and mint grow. A huge field of lavender lies a 
little to the cast of the town, skirted on one side 
by a plain of yellow waving oats and on the other 
by a iield of rniu\e-tiutod mint. Near by is a 
fi-ld camomile tho white b'ossoms of which is drioj 
and used in tha composition of various drugs, - 
' ruhlic OpiitiQii, 
