Dec. i, 1 894. J THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
The Produce on hand at 31st August 1894 has 
all since been realised, and the actual amount received 
is entered as the value in the Balance-Sheet. 
Mortgaged held in Ceylon by the CbnXpariy, — The 
Loans have been reduced during the year by the 
sum of £2,500, but a sum of £752 has been added to 
an existing Loan, to make up a sum secured by a 
first Terminable Debenture Bond on the same and 
adjoining Estates. The amount of Loans has there- 
fore been decreased by £1,748. There are no arrears 
of interest. 
Debenture Debt. — The Balance outstanding has been 
reduced by £3,000, and the Directors are at present 
arranging to further reduce the debt at Martinmas 
and to renew a portion then falling due at a reduced 
rate. 
Accounts. — The Balance at the credit of 
Profit and Loss Account is . . £3509 17 2 
And the Directors propose — 
To pay a Dividend of 5 per cent, per 
annum, free of Income-Tax, . . £2250 0 0 
Note. — Two-and-a-half per cent, of this 
was paid as an Interim Dividend at 
Whitsunday 1894. 
Thus leaving .. £1259 17 2 
to be carried forward to next Account. 
Mr. Richard Kidston retires from the Directorate 
at this meeting. 
The Auditor for the current year falls to be 
appointed. 
By order of the Board, 
FRANCIS A. BRINGLOE, 
Edinburgh, Oct. 22nd, 1894. Secretary. 
PLANTING AND PRODUCE. 
The Need for Reform in the Tea Trade. — Mr. A. 
J. Slaney, writing from 10, 11, 12, and 13 Colonial 
Avenue, E.G., calls attention to the need for reform 
in the tea trade. He says : " Our once active Lon- 
don Wholesale Teadealers' Association appears to 
have gone out of existence. As a past subscriber, 1 
have, in common with others, to acknowledge its 
services; and in particular the improvement in condi- 
tions of sale whereby teas are now supposed to be 
ready for delivery within three working days of date 
of purchase; a reform, I believe, principally due 
to the exertions of Mr. Benjamin Densham. After 
the experience of quicker deliveries than obtained 
a few years back, I feel sure that wholesale dealers, 
generally, would be prepared to go a step farther 
by bringing pressure to bear in the proper quarters, 
so that the condition as to delivery should be Weight 
notes and documents available on the day of sale, 
or the following morning ' after sale. As at present 
conducted, dealers ( e.r/.J can but seldom get delivery 
of their Monday's purchases until the following 
Friday, thus practically meaning that the goods are 
not available for use until the week following their 
purchase. For some time Messrs. Lloyd, Matheson, 
and Carritt advertised their teas offered in public sale 
with the headline on catalogues. ' Weight notes ready 
on day of sale.' Owing, I presume, to lack of sup- 
port in their innovation, this firm have discontinued 
the notice. In these go-ahead times the tea trade 
would appear to be somewhat out of date in not 
making a determined effort to remedy the annoy- 
ances arising from delays in delivery after goods are 
purchased. A word as to cedar wood and cheesy 
packages. It is now getting quite a common prac- 
tice for estates to pack their produce in chests or 
half-chests of woocf possessing a peculiar ' cedary ' 
or ' drug-like' odour, which speedily permeates the 
tea, and causes rapid deterioration to set in, 
particularly after the operation of bulking in 
the bonded warehouses. Many of your subscribers 
have doubtless experiences of tea which has 
acquired this 'cedary' or 1 foreign' smell and 
imparted the same disagreeable character to their 
blends. It is an exceedingly difficult matter, 
and buyers on this market must, indeed, possess 
' keen noses ' to effectually guard themselves against 
being occasionally landed with a parcel packed in 
this objectionable wood. The tasting drawn from 
the package ' 011 show ' may not develop the taint 
but it always invariably manifests itself in the 
samples drawn from bulk after purchase. I may, 
perhaps, state that I have made a point of setting 
my face strongly against the practice of packing 
teas in this wood, and succeeded in influencing 
several producers, through their brokers, to remedy 
the evil. The trade do not appear to take 
over kindly to metal packages, I suppose mainly 
because the ' over-weights ' are invariably very poor, 
and the cases difficult to re-cooper after blending 
and refilling. If your readers who buy original teas 
made a point of sending the marks to your journal 
where teas are put up in cedary packages, the 
effect would be to place the trade on their guard 
and lead to a discontinuance of use of this objection- 
able wood. Another evil calling for reform is the 
increasing quantity of foreign matter which comes 
over in Indian and Ceylon teas, especially Indian. 
I allude to the small pieces of earthy matter 
usually larger than shot, a small particle of which 
will spoil a teapot full of tea b5 r imparting a pecu- 
liar opium smell or bitter taste to the tea under 
infusion. The trade may, in its desire not to be con- 
sidered fastidious, omit taking exception to an occa- 
sional trees of woolly hair from the head of a Cin- 
galese beauty, the finger or toe parings of an Indian 
coolie, and even a few relics of insect life, such as 
high-dried beetles, spiders, frogs, and other interes- 
ting specimens which find their way into tea, but 
the earthy matter, from its frequent appearance in 
comparison with the other trifles, appears the most 
objecfcknible.'' — H. & C Mail, Nov. 2. - 
COFFEE AND LEAF DISEASE IN GERMAN 
' AFRICA. 
ASSISTANTS FROM CEYLON NOT DOING \VELI„ 
Zanzibar, Nov. 1, 
The prospects before the coffee planters of Usambara 
in German East Africa have unfortunately assumed 
an aspect anything but encouraging. Leaf disease has 
undoubtedly made its appearance and has already 
put a different complexion on the condition of some of 
the fields. News of this disastrous occurrence was 
reported at Bombay, and the trees were said to 
have been denuded of leaves which turned black 
and dropped. From further inquiry I am led to 
believe this to be an exaggeration unless it was in 
the case of very young plants. Inquiry at Tunga, the 
German sea-port for Usambara and the coast terminus 
to the railway now under construction, elicited an 
evasive answer only, but subsequent confirmation of 
the bad news reached Zanzibar by a Ceylon man 
who had seen one of the superintendents lately sent 
from Ceylon to Usambara. 
On one property, men were set to strip off the 
infected leaves, (such of them at any rate as could 
be detected) and burn them, whilst other remedies 
were also applied. In addition to to this the tender 
fruit was also stripped off to prevent weakening of 
the plants. Whilst some of the seed coffee was ob- 
tained from Mexico and other places, some was ob- 
tained, I am told, from, Ceylon and hence, probably, 
the introduction of the disease. 
The two assistants sent from Ceylon by Messrs. 
Freudenberg early in the year do not appear to have 
proved a success, since one of them is committed to 
jail for theft, and the other (Linton) told to go. 
The latter is at present in the employ of the Sultan 
of Zanzibar awaiting a copy of his contract for which 
he has written to Messrs. Loos & Van Cuylenberg, 
He has hopes of being able to recover from his 
German employers at any rate his return passage 
money. If his story be true, he should surely be 
able to do this with the help of the British Consulate 
at Zanzibar to which he has appealed as a British 
subject. — E. W. 
4 
Travaxcore Tea in America. — Up to the present 
time the Peennaad Branch of Travancore Planters' 
Association has contributed R879'6'0 to the American 
Market Fund. With one sole exception every 
planter connected with the Association has now cou* 
.ributed. to the Fund,— Madras Tilftts, Nov. 17, 
