S38 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [Feb. i, 1894. 
Buoh inferior u^et!" My answer to tbee is in tbe Un- 
guagre of the arti6cer in Isaiah. My answer to Ibee is 
Aha! Thou ark a man and my brother — herfafter, it 
may be, (o be preferred before me 'i Tboa shalt go 
the faster now. 
There i^ beautiful tea to be seeo in Udapuscelawa, 
■ ni K«galla particularly is a place which promises 
great things, I aaw tbe Galaba factory four years 
a|;o and it seemed a very big place there. It is now 
doubled in sizo. The Turbine develops 40 or 50 H P. 
and works so well and so quietly that a Yankee would 
cill it a high toned power. A largo engine has just 
been erected which will work up to 100 H.P. I hhw 
eight KoUers of the largest fize, thr-'C Viotori* A 
Driers and a Yiotoria B withal. At this factory tbey 
sometimes take in 25,000 lb and evpu more in one day. 
If my one w ints to have the reality of our tea in- 
dustry bortie in upon his mind, if he wo'^ld renlise 
it as a big going concern, he can scarcely do bitter 
tbon obtain permission to visit this magoifioent Factory. 
Tbe beat and mosquitoes of Colombo are LOt 
favourable to a new-camer who attempts to scribble, 
and these must be my excuses for the rough way 
in which these notes are put together. What I have 
set down iu%y be of some lillln interest to ray old 
friends and acqnaintauces io Ceylon The number of 
tbem uubappily gets fewer and fewer. 
THE FIEE AT NEW I'ERADENIYA 
FACTORY : 
DAMAGE R:»,000. 
Peradsmia, Jan. lu. 
The damage to the New Petadeniya factory was 
BUiveyed today by Messrs. L^mont, Gibbon, Edwards 
and Anderson. The loss will exoBed K30,000 
inaluding tbe tea destroyed. The maobinery will 
mostly repair. Tbe rollers and dryers are Utile 
worse and the engiae and water wheel are 
uatouohed. Exp'i<oted to resume work ntxt week, 
and in two months the factory should be straiKht.' 
The fire muat have occurred thtuugh a spark 
getting in at the top floor. Things were dry, and a 
hi«h wind blowing the whole went in forty minutes. 
The lo6s is fully covered through tbe Economic 
OfQoe and will be settled shortly. 
♦ 
CEYLON TEA IN NEW SOUTH WALES. 
A tea dealer wriiiag unier d ite 23ril DdOdmber, 
reports that " Sydney murkat is glutted with 
ordinary Oeylon teas. I have over C,000 lb. of 
and other teas in store waiting a better market. 
Just now my oustomera can buy fair Broken 
Pekoes (lowcountry) cheaper in Sydney then 1 can 
buy the same in Colombo ! Some in Ceylon must be 
losing heavily by the present state of our tea market. 
For high class teas there is a fairly good market 
Btill." 
TROUT OVA FOR NUWAKA ELIYA. 
The B.I. S3, "Goloonda" has duly brought the 
oonsignment of trout ova for Nuwara Eliya and 
Mr. Tringham took delivery this morning and is 
off with the same by afternoon train. But there 
are soma doubts as to success, becauee Burgess 
has sent this consignment in a closed case, while 
Andrews always left the top open so that ice oould 
be dropp d into it. Two other oonsignmants for 
Madras were on b3ard made up after the old fashion. 
It is only when Burgess's case is ope'^ed that the 
result can be kdown. We hcpe all msj turn 
out well. 

baJjANgoda district. 
h, onrrespondaut wri:e8 : — " I btlieve the SyJbat 
Tea Company has only as yet acquired the one 
block (Hopewell), 640 aorea or so, from the trustees 
of Mrs. Geo. Armitage ; but tbey are understood 
to be regotiaticg some more of the big blocks — 
of which there are a good many in the district 
— of foreet-land with the cative and European 
proprietors. We wish tbem all Bnocese ; for so 
influential and go-ahead a propiietary is likely to 
put a new face altogether on the hiiherto ' deg- 
pitcd Balaogoda ' dieiriot. ' 
♦ 
NEWS KKOM TUb, CENTRAL PROVINCE. 
rLANTlNG AND CTHERWISE. 
l-Votfcs hy U'aiidrrei-.j 
Ckvlon Tea.— The circulars of the Mincing Lane 
Br. kers, which came to band by last mail, clearly 
show that the trade is willing to take our tea freely 
so long aa they get it cheap. Fortanately the low 
rates of exchange made it possible for us to do no, 
but I fear the circulars, published in tli« first wt-ek 
of .January, will not be pleasant reading, for both 
Kcuter and Messrs. Forbes iSc Walker's late telegrams 
report an easy market. No wonder with a total 
export o' over 64,000,0' 0 lb. in l^i*3 I The cold hard 
dry weather is now stopping fiu^ihing, and by tt^fc end 
of .January our home friends will see that there is no 
cause for alarm that we are to overdo our produc- 
tion in 1894. Russia seems to be now really a ive 
to tbe virtues of Oeylon tea, thanks to Rogivue, 
It will be a nrck and neci" 'are for a Kaigbtiiood 
between our American and our liae&ian Com- 
missioners. The tea stock (Ceylon) in end of De- 
cember is lower than it was on November 30th. 
GovKRSMKsr Rkbkbves. — Ceylon ula' ters depre- 
cate these being sold to the Indian Companies that 
have recently commenced business here. By all 
means lei them buy opened land, or reserves, if there 
are any. iu private baud . They ought not to be en- 
couraged by tbe Government to earn dividends at the 
expense of old Colonists, who turned unproductive coffee 
and tea estates into paying tea gardens, that have en- 
abled the Government to abolish the padily tax, and to 
carry out expensive Irrrigation Works, and exten- 
sions of railway, that will in a short time bring in 
handsome revenue to the Colony. [There is no 
truth whatever in tbe statement that Indian Com- 
panies or their representatives have applied to 
Government for " concessions,' or large blocks of 
Crown land ; we have this on host authority. \\Tiat 
the Companies iu question are doing is bringing 
capital in for the benefit of the planters, who sell 
to them, and of the Colony —Ed. T.A.I 
Railway to thl Kelani Vallet is I am glad 
to see, being energetically pres-ed on the at ention 
of Government. A deputation will soon wait on 
the Governor who will doubtless give the matter 
the consideration it deserves. Very little has been 
doLe for the lowcountry planter, and it is time 
he got a share in the benefit of railway travelling. 
There have been more accidents to travellers on the 
Awisawella and Ratnapura coaches than on the 
whole of tne railways of the island in the la^t 
three years. 
BRBAKF.4.ST Rain Weather Gavges. — It is reported 
that a lazy S. D. on being taken to task by his 
more active P. D., for not following his tea plackers 
sbarp to the field, gave tbe excuse that he had 
been endeavouring to find out for bim;elf the truth 
of the extract from L'hamler's Jovmal yon published 
in the Twju'cal Agricultunst. After watcbmg care- 
frdly the bubbles in his cup of coffee for an hour, 
he came to the conclusion that it would soon rair, 
aud he thuught that a little delay might save him 
the trouble of visiting the pluckers whom tne ex- 
pected rain would drive to the lines. Has any 
P. D. stopped the T. A. lately ? 
Mu. HoLLOWAY has made the discovery that 
plants have a language of their own, and they 
speak through their •' bark." Probably it is 
in Dog Latin. This discovery of Mr. Holloway'a 
appears to be the missing link between the 
" Anim»l ' and the " Vegetable " world. We 
have oit3n heard of dogs having a hard harsh 
