]an. 1, 1894.3 THE TROPtCAL 
AGRICULTURlSt. 
489 
Special attention was also given to the two Estates 
— Owella and Strathisla — which had almost entirely 
gone out of cultivation, the result being that about 
40 acres of the former are in process of being planted, 
the prinsipal product being Cooonnts ; whilst about 
90 acres of the latter property will be planted with 
Ooooa and Ooffee. The Directors expres-s a hope that 
theeflforts made in this direction will meet with buceesi'. 
The Directors are pleased to note tliat jour Chair- 
man also reports that the Company's Tea Estates 
loolt remarkably well. 
The following Statement shews the acreage of the 
Company's Properties at date:— 
Kama of Estate, 
-J 
13 
C . 
« g 
.2 3 sll 
Allooniharie and Dickeiia... 16 
Andangodde... ... 130 
Fetteraeso ... .. 325 
New Peradeniya ... 371i 
North Mtttale ... 280 
Owella ... ... — — 
Rickarton ... ..500 — 
Strathisla .. ... — 4 
Forest Land ... .. — — 
w ^ a _ 
® O £ ja m 
too Coo 
,9 o ° 
o el( 'a 
373 247 
— 43 
764 471 
o „ 
35 670 
— 130 
70 438 
— 446 
— 1515 
40 165 
— 596 
90 164 
— 430 
162l| llB8i 1539i 235 4554i 
The Mortgage Account, which originally stood at 
£15,000, has now been reduced to £6,000, and on the 
8th inst. it will be further reduced to £5,000. 
INDIAN TEA INTEEESTS AND THE 
CHICAGO EXHIBITION. 
Mr. Blechyndenmay not be a combination of Barnum, 
Jay Gould, and Artemus "Ward's showman; but judg. 
ing from what he was done at the exhibition, 
his most determined antagonists at Darjeeling must 
recognise that he has not been a failure. That he 
might have done better would have been possible, 
had the Indian Tea Association had a larger grant 
at its dispota',--for the Government grant of R40,000 
was ridiculously small — and had the Government of 
India taken a real interest in the representation, which 
nnfortunately they did not. AVhatever the reason, Mr. 
Blechynden was snubbed at the outset by B r Henry 
Trueman Wood, the Secretary of the Royal Commis- 
aion, and treated as a bagman or hic-.i-iwallah. He 
had to meet a continued contemptuous opposition 
from this oflBcial and the Royal Commission clique, as 
well as a hundred silent influences, which were 
exerted from head-quarters at home. And it was 
certainly not advertised that he received the same 
hearty support from his constituents in India that Mr. 
Orinlinton obtained from Ceylon. And here we are 
asked to pause at the onnniug arrangement whereby 
Mr. Blechynden got the better of his Ceylon rival. 
The teas were given a poetic name- One was the 
" Light of Asia,'' another the " Star of India," and 
the third " Lalla Rookh," and, served by the gaudily- 
dressed Kbitmagar, each matt have ta^tod like 
neotai to the sentimental American demoiselle. 
Having " mashed " the American public through the 
Kbitmagar, Mr. Blechjuden next proceeded to get 
Indian tea planted on the trade. He has acted on 
quite a different system to Mr, Griulinton of Ceylon 
who believes in advertising and running against the 
trade. Mr. Blechynden is working in with some 
wholesale bousei, thereby, says the correspondent from 
whom we have already quoted, being enabled " to 
work with 8, very small outlay, spending nothing 
whatever for advertisaments." We do not believe in 
cheese-paring or doing the mean in pushing any 
business and as advertising is the soul of suo- 
oeas we cannot commend any cheap and nasty 
method, such as that conveyed in the t xpresaion 
" spending nothing whatever for advortisementp." 
We trust that Mr. Blechjudeu has been successful 
io ohoQaing hia te(i.-m«diamg, for aQoocding to (he 
system he has been permitted to adopt, a deal depends 
on them; but so shrewd a man is not likely to fall 
into any error on this head, at least we hope not. 
There is so little publicity given the doings of those 
o£Bcially interested in pushing Indian tea in America, 
that the outsider cannot prononnce an opinion as to 
the scheme which it is thought advicable to adopt 
for pushing our teas in the States. If Mr. Blechynden 
has justified the confidence reposed in him, he should 
be undoubtedly supported by the whole tea confrater- 
nity of India, and considering the interests at s'ake, 
we must confess we are rather surprised that no 
movement has been made pro or con in this respect, 
while the whole of Ceylon has been in a state of 
excitement for the last month or two as to how to 
follow up the success of the Ceylon Court in pushing 
the Colony's teas. Fussy, flashy work is not required 
and perhaps is to be deprecated but we should like 
to see some outward and visible signs of enterprise 
in the matter of backing up the position that haa 
been attained in America by Indian teas. Hononr 
to him who takes the initiative for this end. — Indian 
Planters' Gazette, 
ASSAM EUBBER, 
The extension and development of any of the 
sources of rubber supply are matters of vast impor- 
tance. All persons connected with the rubber industry 
are directly concerned in the question, and cannot but 
take a warm interest in anything that relates to it. 
We learn with great satisfaction that Assam Rubber 
is going ahead. The new rules introduced daring the 
jear, with the sanction of the Government of India, 
by which the old system of farming the collection of 
rubber was abandoned, and replaced by the imposition 
of a duty ofR12por mannd, on all rubber imported 
from beyond the border, or collected from trees 
growing on Government forest land, have worked 
very successfully from a fioancial point of view. The 
receipts from the duty collected during the past 
season have amounted to over R50,000, as compared 
with B25,585 received from the contractors in the 
previous year, 1891-92. These rules only came into 
force on November Ist 1892, and there was naturally 
some little delay in getting them nnderstood by 
merchants and others interested in the rubber trade. 
But when this was accomplished, the new arrsnge* 
ments seemed to have worked fairly well, and to 
have given no cause of complaint to either hill-man 
or trader. And, although the exports of rubber were 
1,800 maunds less than usual up to 31st of last 
March, the retoroa of the following three months, 
ending June 30lh, 1893, prove that the trade haa 
pulled up its leeway, and even exceeded figures of 
recent years. Continuously increasing augmentations 
may confidently be expected. — India liubber Journal, 
NOTES ON PEODUCE AND FINANCE. 
The Sale of Indian Tea. — There is a letter signed 
" F. Peek" in last week's Grocec, in which the writer 
points out that a great deal of misapprehension 
seems to exist in regard to the proposal recently 
made to, and considered by, the Indian Tea Districts 
Association, to regulate the quantities of Indian tea 
to be put up weekly for sale by public auction. 
The writer says the facts of the case are simply 
these ; — The whole trade of the country, and chiefly 
the importers, have from time to time suffered from 
excessive quantities of tea being suddenly forced upon 
the market by public sale, producing a feeling of 
panic amongst buyers, who were not only anable 
to understand the reason for such urgency, but also 
unable to value properly such excessive quantities 
in the short time allowed. The proposal made to 
the Indian Tea Growers' Association was that at 
the ond of each month the quantities to be put up 
for sale during the month following should bo roga- 
lated and published, the quantities each week being 
as nearly equal as possible. Tho effect of this would 
have been to 6'^© confidence tg tbe bpyers, to cua])!; 
