46a THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [Tan. i, 1895. 
ago, though resented in some quarters, have had 
a good effect ; and the generally sound position of 
our Tea Companies and the satisfactory dividends 
they are declaring, are proof of it, and they have 
helped to place the tea enterprise on a firm footing 
and to attract really wealthy capitalists to it. May 
that advantage never be lost I 
Is there not the same danger now in connection 
with 
COCONUT PROPERTIES? 
I must confess to a feeling of uneasiness when I 
read of some of the prices paid for estates. It may 
be my ignorance of the present value or the capa- 
bilities of properties whose sales are now and again 
proclaimed in the newspapers, that excites my 
apprehensions. I hope it is so ; and that for the 
sake of an old and well-established industry, every 
urchaser, whether individual or associated, is guided 
y trustworthy information and opinion. In explana- 
tion of my fears I may say that I heard of a brother 
who had negotiated a recent sale, whose reply to 
the inquiry, " Do you really think the property worth so 
much " — was, " "What do I care about the value, so long 
as I get my commission ? " 
Surely that is not the proper conception of the 
duties of a brother ? Or is it his role function 
to arrange the price with reference to the valua- 
tion of the vendor on the one hand and the pur- 
chaser on the other, without any knowledge what- 
ever of the subject matter of Bale 1 If so, I should 
prefer to buy through the agency of one who can 
advise me as an expert ; and happily there are many 
safe men in our midst. 
Mr. Lushington's letter on the bearing capacities of 
COCONUT TREES IN THE GODAVERI 
district is calculated to take a Ceylon man's breath 
away. Though you have suggested, Mr. Editor, that 
the 200 to 300 nuts per tree, mentioned in the letter, 
might refer to exceptionally treated trees, the letter 
scarcely supports that suggestion ; for 500 nuts are 
mentioned as the yield of trees in back yards I — and 
why not in front yards ? 
I was vacillating between a breach of the 9th 
commandment — classing Mr. Lushington and (? or) 
his polysyllabic informant among the votaries of the 
long bow— and of the 10th by coveting my Godaveri 
neighbour's trees, when L. D. came to my relief. 
If he is right, and the heavy bearers are trees 
whose nuts are about one-fourth the size of the 
average Ceylon nut, the explanation is easy. The 
nuts are a particular variety. I remember having 
been shown some years ago a tree in a garden 
hot far from the General Cemetery in Colombo, 
in which there could not have been less than 200 
to 300 nuts in closely packed bunches. They were 
small enough with their husk ; but husked they 
could scarcely be larger than a Jaffna mango. 
Now, could it be that large tracts are planted 
with this variety 1 Or is it that there is something in 
the soil which leads to degeneracy of the nuts ? I 
have noticed in Ceylon that districts far removed 
from the sea produce smaller nuts than those on the 
gea-borde. In the Kandy and Matale Districts, for 
instance, I have noticed splendid specimens of co- 
conut palms bearing heavy crops ; but the nuts are 
decidedly smaller than those in districts bordering on, 
©r not far from, the sea. 
I have not a very intimate acquaintance with the 
Kurunegala district, but a large Sinhalese proprietor 
once told me that, whereas 900 of his Chilaw estate 
nuts yielded a candy of copra, 1,500 of his Kurunegala 
nuts were necessary for a candy I Hence, I sup- 
pose, the preference, which puzzled a correspondent 
of yours a few weeks ago, shown by planters, for dearer 
seed nuts from districts within the influence of the 
sea pver the cheaper nuts available in inland districts. 
■ • ' " RAMBJ.JER. 
SELANGOR FOREST LAND. 
We have to call special attention to the advertise- 
ment inourtlaily issue, from the Nelangor authorities 
■ — sent to us by Mr. Gerald Browne as Acting Secretary 
to Government- — of an important sale of Crown forest 
land to take place at the district office, Klang, 
on the 11th February next. No lew than 12 
blocks ranging from 260 to 370 acres each are 
to be offered, and as they adjoin blocks already 
successfully utilised for Liberian coffee, there 
on^'lit to be ample competition. — We have re- 
ceived some copies of the sketch plan of the 
lands which we shall be glad to hand to planters 
and others interested. 
CAFFEINE IN CEYLON TEA. 
Mr. Thomas Christy writing under date, 
London, Nov 30th, reports to us: — 
The experiments made this week upon tea cut- 
tings have not given satisfactory results as far as 
Caffeine is concerned. The Ceylon Tea clippings 
only yielded 0 5 per cent of Caffeine, and the small 
fragments sent home by you by post yielded as 
follows :— 2 4 per cent of Caffeine from the leaves, 
and - 8 per cent from the twigs. We are this week 
testing the quantity of Caffeine contained in the 
fluff. \Ve have had to resort to the purchase of 
large quantities of tea dust in the market, and as 
we have to test every parcel for Caffeine, this enables 
us to fix the quantity of Caffeine in the tea from 
each Estate. I intend to keep a record of this, 
and I think it will be very useful, aE sooner or 
later, tea will be quoted as containing certain quanti- 
ties of Caffeine, because, after all, most pople drink 
tea for the benefit they obtain in the Caffeine from 
the tea, and the Estates that can show a higher 
yield of Caffeine will certainly command for their 
tea a higher price in the market. 
THE TEA-TABLOID BUSINESS. 
In response to an invitation by Mr. S. M. Bur- 
roughs," writes one of our representatives, "I visited 
the Dartford Factory the other day to inspect the 
tea-tabloid department, which has now grown to 
such demensions that the sixth machines actually 
at work have been found insufficient to keep pace 
with the demand for these popular pellets. Mr. J. 
Rogers, an ex-Ceylon tea planter, who first suggested 
the idea of the tea-tabloid to the firm, and who 
takes an active part in the purchasing and blending 
of the material employed, was of the party, and 
insisted that, before ascending to that portion of the 
works where the tabloids were compressed and put 
up for sale, I should inspect the miniature tea- 
plantation which he has reared with watchful care 
in the hothouse of the factoi-y garden. Mr. Roger's 
tea-garden is probably the most extensive planta- 
tion of its kind in the Kingdom. It contains some 
200 living specimens of the Thca chenensis, all care- 
fully potted and tended. The entire first crop of 
this plantation amounting in the dried state to 
3,500 grains of unfermented green tea, has been pre- 
sented to H.R.H. the Princess Louise, Marchioness 
of Lorne, who has been the first lady to drink a 
cup of English-grown tea. At present, however, the 
prospects of tea-raising as a remedy for the agri- 
cultural distress in Britain are still uncertain, and Mr. 
Rogers therefore buys the tea required for the 
tabloid business in the ordinary wholesale way in 
Mincing Lane. 
" The tea-tabloid machine used at Dartford are 
built on the same model as those used by the firm 
for the preparation of other compressed drugs. The 
exact quantity of tea required for the tabloid drops 
from the feeder into a receptacle where it is punched 
into shape by great pressure from above and below 
more force being required to compress tea into a 
tabloid of the requisite hardness than is necessary 
for any other drug handled by the firm. The portion 
of the machine containing the feeder moves back- 
wards and forwards, so that, while one tabloid js 
