May I, 1894.') 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
Mr. H. C. Begg eeoonded this resolution. 
The Obairman aske 1 whether any of the gontlemen 
presfiitit ha i aiy rjm rkj to offor. Thero being no 
re-ponse the reaolatioa was pub to tha me3ting End 
passed, 
COMBINING WITH CEVpCON. 
The Chairman then said that a special meetiug ha 1 
been held at which Sir J. Mnir and Mr. Buchanan were 
preient. Oopies of the prooeeiings hsd been priated 
aud oironlated and the objacc of tha meeting was to 
nonsidsr a proposal of Sir John Mair to combine with 
Ceylon foe the purpose of more effeofuilly securing 
the American and Canadian markets. Thongh 
no definite resolutioii wa^ pat to that me^ti ig it was 
agraed that Mr. Bach i,nan, who was goiag to Ceylon, 
ahonld iotorm the plintars there of the views ex- 
pressed a' tlie mestio^, and he believed that th^t 
gentleman and feir JuhnMuir, who was also visitiog 
CeyloD, were doing so; It wag necessary, however, 
that some definite steps sbouid be t^ken, and though 
he did not wish that they should commit themselves 10 
any positive scheme in conntetiou with th'"s proposal, 
ha_ thought it would be as well if they exprasse i an 
opinion in tha form of a resolution in general t^rms. 
He would therefore propose : — 
"That this meeting of the InlianTea Association 
is of opinion that it is in the ii tereets of both Indian 
Rnd Caylon planters that tbose interested in the Tet 
Trade yf both counttiaa should combine in endeavonr- 
ii.g to introduce thi Briti«h-grown tea into Amerioi 
and Oanad« and invite ibe co operation of all con- 
uee ed with the TLa Industry in promoting such a 
rotDbinatioD." 
How far the sobetne would be worked remained to 
be seen. Praoticslly it was a question of British- 
grown 1 388 against China andJepaa, Where Ceylon 
gets a footing we shill get a footiag and the opinion 
seemei to be that it did not matter whether Ceylon 
or Indi% was first. 
The resolution wa« aeooaded by Mr. C. L&Wbib 
Johnstone. 
The Chairman asked whether any g»n*leram had 
anything to say 00 tb.9 subject. 
There being no response, on a show of hinds the 
resolution was dec'ared to be carried unanimously. 
With a vote of thanks to the Chair, proposed by 
Mr. A. G. Watson, the meeting separated. 
TEA IN TRAVANCORE. 
We (Madras Mail) are glad to Uaro fromfigu'es 
that have baen kindly pluoed at our di?piEal by 
Mr. H. M, Knig'it, Pfsident of the Travancore 
Planters' AssooiatijD, that the tea industry io 
those districts is making steady progress. Th9 
total yield of Travancore tea for 1893 was 
2,386.800 lb., divided as follows; P.jermaad 
1.033,0f0 lb.; Ceitrjl DiBtriot 1,020,000 lb.; 
Ashamboo 237,000 lb. ; K^nnan Dovan 96,800 lb. 
Travacoore has not yet reached here three millionB 
lb. of tea, but she is rapidly advanc'ng that way. 
No mentio!! is made of the favourableoess or 
otrherwise of last feison for the cultivation of tea 
so we may take it that 1893 was on the whole a 
fair averag3 year, and estates gave teither an 
exceptionally large nor an «\oeptionally small 
yield. la another column we publiih a summary 
of Travancore tea sold at public auulioii in 
London during 1893. It will le notijed that the 
total shows a dieorepanoy of, say, 400.000 lb., as 
compared with the total yir>ld, which is due to 
the fact that the tea from some estataa is dis- 
posed of otherwise than by public auction in 
the Mincing Line Sales-room. The average 
price of Travancore tta, it will bs seen, viried 
irom 6d to ovor SJ i per lb ; Seatield Estate 
with 59,850 lb. obiaioed the highest average, over 
8Jd, though Venture Estate with a yic-1 i of 
188,'2G0 lb, and an average price of Si appears 
to bs the most BatiBfaclory. No very definite 
eoaelusioDi osq be drawn from these figures linoe 
the acreage in bearing is not given,* but they 
bear on the face of them evidonoe that the tea 
industry in Travinoore is flourishing. During the 
jear 1893 and previous to it Travancore planters 
endeavoured to come to some arrangement with 
Ceyloa for their tea to be imported frea from 
duty, but without Euooess. As we mentioned the 
other day Ceylon levies an import duty of four 
annas per lb. on tsa which means, in the case 
of tea realising 8d, a duty of over 65 per cent. 
And what are Travancore's 2^ millions oorapared 
with Cojlon's 80 millions ? Hardly a drop in the 
ocean in so far as the world's consumption is 
concerned. We still hope that Ceylou may see 
her way to allow Travancore teas to be imported 
into Co'ombo free of duty. It ojnnot possibly 
do the Island any harm but rather should help 
to stimulate its trade. 
PLANTING IN BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA : 
(By an ex-Ceylon Planter.) 
It did my heart good when in Blantyre in July 
last to see the 
COFFEE CBOPS 
cherry ripe (gladdening the heart of an old planter) 
without the withering and drying-np of naif the 
crop at the end of the branches as of days of old, 
tbe result of coffee leaf- disease in Ceylon. Coffee 
three years old has this year given 5 cwt. per acre 
and looks none the worse. Our blossoming season 
just ended has been very favourable — two gooi large 
blossoms — and some sprinklings which always help 
have set well. We have Orange coffee here which 
I never remember seeing in Ceylon and which 
looks as if it will stand leaf-disease. It is dark 
brown in flower and leaf, but the berries are th-e 
same as Arabica. 
Oua EAINY SEASON 
has begun and the order of the day on estates is 
stipplying and planting — an awful lot of vacancies 
occur (owing to having to plant three to six months' 
seedlings instead of nine to 12 months' plants) from 
grub, crickets, locusts and other enemies. I have 
seen as much as 50 to 60 per cent on some fields. 
One cause of failures is bad seed obtained 
from diseased trees, black beans, black rot, as it is 
commonly called which is very prevalent in Blantyre, 
due, I presume, to the stiff clayey subsoil they have ; 
for none has appeared here amongst our maidem 
crop coffee although from diseased seed, the only 
obtainable in Nyassaland. No one can import coffee 
seed as it is prohibited. It strikes me we shall get 
an equally bad disease if we go on extending from 
the mother tree brought from K6w some 13 years ago 
although soil and climate, which varies a great deal 
in this part of Africa, have much to do with quality 
and quantity of Coffee Arabica, the same as your 
wet and dry high and low districts. 
I was really sorry to see the way 
COFFEE IS CUBED 
by African planters, half of their crop being chawed 
up, bruised, chipped and passing through with the 
pulp. Wasting of labour in stores (if those build- 
ings can be called stores) is distressing to a Ceylon 
trained planter, to look at 20 to -10 boxes per day 
of cherry requiring as many hands to cure, where 
4 or 6 good men would sulfice. I jumped into a cistern 
and washed out a lot of coffae for a planter in a few 
mijmtes which would probably, as he said, take all day 
to clean. 
• The latest figures for acreage are those given 
in the "Ceylon Handbook and Directory" up to 
1892 and they show tea of two years and over to 
equal 6,895 acres in the four divisions of Travan- 
core. This would give au average of a little oyer 
300 lb. per acre ; but Peermado division with 2,600 
acres over two years gives au average of 400 lb, 
which is very good. The Central and otb«r divitioQs 
do not give so ^ood • ksuU.^Ep. T.4 
