July 2, 1894.] 
THE TROPICAL ARICULTURIST. 
53 
Our daily endeavour is now to obtain fresh markets. | 
But, Binoe produotion has already outrun the j 
growth of population throughout the world, these 
oan only be obtained by restricting the ohanoe at 
present erijoyed by the tea-producers of other 
nationalities. The question is now and again 
asked, whether the Chinese and Japanese will ba 
long oontent to take a subordinate place in re=pect 
of products which have long erijoyed pre eminence ? 
It is when endeavouring to seek a reply to that 
question that the dicta of experts come into play. 
No doubt it is to the use of machinery that the 
planters of India and Oeylon largely owe their ' 
successful rivalry with the pioneering oountries in 
tea-growing. Bat there are experts who think 
even now, that the day must surely come when 
both China and Japan will avail themselves of thi3 
powerful aid, and that the competition o£ the future 
will exceed that of the present and of the past. 
Where would our own position in a parallel com- 
petition have been, had we to rely on the primitive 
methods that have hitherto supplied the producers 
of those countries ! As yet we have achieved success. 
Could it have been attained, but for that very sgent 
now deolared to be the prime oause of the evils 
apparent all the world over? The answer to this 
question i3 too apparent to neod demonstration. 
Therefore it is, that oertain London experts call 
upon us, seriously to consider how far it may 
be for our future interests to extend the area 
now under the cultivation of tea. They say that 
if we push this muoh beyond the present area, and 
eventually deprive our Far East neighbours of the 
Amerioan and Russian markets, the chanaes 
are we shall foroe the natives of China and 
Japan into the adoption of those mechanical aids 
that have proved so useful to ourselves, and 
instead of mitigating, we shell thus increase the 
difficulties that we have at present to contend 
against. 
For such reasons aB these it may be satis- 
factory to know that the prospects of our 
outturn of tea for the present year are not 
largely in excess of the quantity harvested 
during 1893. All the world over — our men- 
tors inform us — " there is now a demand for a res- 
triction of output. Economic reasons are said to 
impose this. The difficulty as to restraining this 
output is the annually increasing area of land 
under colonial settlement brought under cultiva- 
tion. Perhaps in the distant future, increase 
of population may overtake produotion. But it 
must be a long time before it can do so. Machin- 
ery, which has hitherto been looked upon as an 
unmixed blessing, has not, it is evident, altogether 
maintained that attribute. It is no use haviDg 
oheap food if the wage-earning power of normal 
labour diminishes in a larger ratio than the re- 
duction in it3 prioe, Ceylon teas may yet hold 
their place as the ' best the world produces,' 
but a limit in their quantity mu3t be reached if 
you are not to overdo the capacity for thoir 
consumption." 
Such is the g : st of representations made to us 
by absent proprietors and others interested in the 
prosperity of our " tea industry" ; but there is 
one factor which they have overlooked in respeot of 
our competition with China, namely, the readiness 
with which the Chinese turn their tea-gardens 
into cereal or vegetable fields. When they found, 
in oertain distriots, that the demand for their 
tea among foreigners had fallen off, we have 
been assured on good authority, that thiB 
industrious and self-contained people simply made 
up their minds to grow that which served 
them as well, for their own sustenance, as 
the money of the foreigner. Our latest testimony 
to this effect came from a veteran Churh 
Missionary resident many years in China, who said, 
in his district, the process of superseding tea by 
other culture, had gone very far. We see no 
reason why it should not go much farther— and 
therefore ic is that we have a good deal of faith in the 
program put forth by Sir John Muir's Company, to the 
effeot, that Indian and Ceylon tea planters have 
yet_ altogether to supersede the mBny million lb. 
of inferior China-Japan teas still used by English- 
speaking people. Surely, it stands to reason that 
the people of North America, Australasia and 
the Mother Country should drink the superior teas 
of India and Ceylon ? That result alone, if 
achieved, would give us a demand for about 160 
additional million of lb. of Indo-Csylon teas ; 
while for the 70 to 80 million lb. required 
in Russia and 20 million more lb. for the rest 
of Europe, all we ask, in competition with the 
Chinese and Japanese, is a fair field and no 
favour ! 

A NOVEL IDEA FOll PLANTERS' 
ASSOCIATIONS. 
Each Planters' Association tj have an 
Experimental Estate. 
In a lato issue of a planting coufempora-y pub- 
lished in Caloutta, a writer from Southern India 
advocates some rather covel ideas in the planting 
Ime. In the main they are sound enough, and we 
agree with them more or less thoroughly, but we 
doubt whether the Associations of South India would 
care to go to the expense or trouble to carry out the 
miithcds he advocates. Briefly pnt, Ue suggests that 
each Association should subscribe enough money to 
start and keep a sort of experimental estate, haviri" 
for its ba-:is the staple cultivation of the district tea 
or coffee, a? the case might be. The 'staple' would 
in a few years, be [probably able to make the whole 
estate self-sustaining, bus until then of bourse 
the Association would have to make a small 
monthly grant for the up-keep. The remain 
der of the estate would be [to try, as the writer 
puts it, the " various fads and new products 
recommended from time to time." Of course 
such things should be taken up very cirefnily at 
first and extended on a commercial scale only when 
the soundness of the new venture has been proven. 
Otherwise the strain on the funds of the Asso- 
ciation would be too severe and the whole thing 
" chucked up " in disgust. Apart however from trying 
new adjuncts, the succesi of which must necessarily 
be extremely problematical, a great deal of excellent 
work might be do: e in testing and comparing different 
methods of prnfciog, cultivating, etc, "the staple pro- 
ducts, i.e., tea or coffee. A grave objection and aprima- 
facie ODe, is, granted the actual expenses for labour 
and so on are within the means of the Association, 
whois to direct the working aid what is the director 
to be paid for his troub'e? An able man would 
require a good salary, say some R300 to ±1400, aud 
what body of p'au'ers could afford to pay this sum 9 
The only way it could be done would be to ask 
Government to subscribe say 50 per ceut of the funds 
raised by the planters tbemeelves ! then for the first 
few years devote the major part of the funds to 
planting up about half or more of the land in coffee 
or tea, utilizing the services of neighbouring planters 
t-iJ-n WOrlt cf su P erv!sio ' J . 01 ' payiDg a monthly fee 
of KoO to a competent masi to inspect account and 
generally direct the estate work. But we will not go 
much fur' her into the subject at preseut till the idea 
has been a little more ventilated. We will content 
ourselves with remarking, that in tho lieu of a Gov. 
enrment experimental garden— not of course of the 
faroicil mnan-i- which pa^es under that name on the 
Nilgiria— such a one ns sketched above, would bo able 
to carry out a vast auiouut of good work.— South of 
India Observer. 
