March i, 1895.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
TEA-TASTING. 
To the Editor of the "Pall Mall Gazette:' 
Sib, — Will you kindly allow me to answer a para- 
graph appearing in your issue of today's date, under 
the heading of " Occasional Notes," advising parents, 
upon a misleading basis, to educate their boys to 
become tea-tasters. I have spent the whole of my 
commercial career in this particular vocation, and I 
have no hesitation in saying that the incomes which 
you state (namely, £2,000 to £10,000 per annum) it is 
possible for a competent tea-taster to make are quite 
unheard of, either in or out of Mincing-lane. 
By all means let parents place their boys in this 
or any other walk of life for which they are competent 
and out of which they can earn a living ; but as a 
paper of such a considerable circulation as yours may 
influence parents' minds, it is a grave responsibility 
for you to publish incorrect statements which might 
cruelly mislead those who look to you for advice. I 
have taken the trouble to answer the paragraph in 
question, as I am perfectly certain that you are only 
too anxious to have errors of this sort corrected. — I 
remain, yours truly, ARTHUR LAMPARD. 
1, Warriugton-road, Richmond, Jan. 14. 
VALUE OF POULTRY MANURE. 
A horticulturist of great experience in sending 
us the following extract from the Florida Agri- 
culturist, says: — " It just expresses my views on 
its value, audit is a pity that such good manure 
should be wasted as it so often is": — 
VALUE OF POULTRY MANURK. 
In figuring the profits in keeping poultry, when labour 
and every expenditure is made to appear on the debit 
side, the value of the manure is scarcely ever estimated. 
It is considered of so little importance, both in quantity 
anil value as to be hardly worth noticing. 
The object of this article is to shed some light on this 
subject, for we consider it a very important item to be 
considered, and especially in Florida where so much money 
is expended annually for commercial manure', the majority 
of them being of less value, ami costing ¥30 to sin per ton. 
We w ill first estimate the quantity and then I he quality 
as compared with what we buy. I have one pen of 
Wyandotte hens consisting of eight birds. The coop is 
arranged with a wire screen over the board that catches 
the droppings, this was sprinkled with dry plaster and 
the dropping gathered in one week, the fowls occupying 
the coop at night only, which is about twelve hours from 
the time the coop is closed at night until opened in 
the morning. 
The droppings from eight hens weighed 10 pounds 
They could not be called green fo ■ they have been ex- 
posed to a current of air and have remained on the 
board seven days. This is equal to one and one-fourth 
pounds from each hen per week, or Co pounds forayear. 
Then UIO hens would yield 6,500 pounds counting half the 
time, the night only. 
As barn-yard manure is taken as the standard, here is 
wliat the Rural Now Yorker says : The following table 
gives the number of pounds of the three most valuable 
elements in a tone pi hen manure, and a ton of well 
rotted barnyard manure. 
Barn 
.Manure, 
(i pounds 
10 pounds 
11 pounds 
would 
Hen 
Manure. 
4S-(io pounds 
11 pounds 
U7 pounds 
contain as much 
Phosphoric Acid 
Potash 
Nitrogen 
Thus 400 pounds of manun 
potash, phosphoric arid and nitrogen as one ton of barn- 
yard manure, according to the commercial value of these 
elements. 
Nitrogen 117 pounds at IS cts - >' l'JOU 
I'otash 41 pounds at 1\ cts. - 308 
Phos. Acid 4S-00 pounds at 12. J cts - 5 01 
A ton of hen manure is worth - 20'15 
If, as we have demonstrated, Hill fowls produce (J, r )00 
pounds (only counting nights, to be on the safe side), 
then their dropping-, alone have a commercial value ol 
¥70'.">U. It is well known that the manure from birds is 
more valuable than from animals, lor it contains the 
male-, and solid excrements combined. The urine from 
cattle is move valuable than the solids. If our domestic 
fowls are fed upon a meat or fish diet, the manure 
would equal guano, but the analysis of the latter shows 
a much larger per cent of nitrogen and phosphoric acid 
than the former, and therefore is of more value. This 
ace. Hints for the low valuation wo frequently see given 
hen manure, 
The .samples are taken from farms where half the nitro- 
gen is allowed to waste, and the fowls have only what 
they can pick up. 
The Rural New Yorker says : " We had eight bar- 
rels of hen manures saved from 40 hens. It was 
used on three-quarters of an acre of corn, applied 
to the hill. On the rest of the field a light dressing 
of cow manure was used, and a handful of high grade 
commercial fertilizer dropped at each hill. The corn, on the 
part where the hen manure was applied, was perceptibly 
taller and greener than the other. 
Peter Henderson srys : — "Three tons of hen manure is 
equal to one ton of guano, and that is worth 865 per ton." 
The Poultry Keeper says: " If the value of the hen manure 
from a single bird is 15 cents, which we think very low- 
even at this rate, the total value of the manure from all 
the poultry in the country would amount to £19,000, 000 
annually." To show that I have not over-estimated the 
value of hen manure, I quote from Johnson on practical 
poultry keeping; "A Mr. Lewis made this statement before 
the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture. He never 
used the hen manure on the corn crop without having it 
benefited more than all the hens ate." The American 
Agriculturist 1S73, page 327, says ; Hen manure is almost 
identical in quality and efFect with guano, and may be 
used in like manner. Its value if dry and free from 
foreign matter, is S50 per ton." The Poultry World esti- 
mates it to be almost equal to guano. The Live Stock 
Journal estimates that a hen will produce one bushel of 
manure a year, and that it is worth si a bushel. 
Prof. S. W. Johnson estimates the nitrogen in poultry 
manure to be worth 30 cents, potash 7 cents and phos- 
phoric acid l(j cents per pound, which would give it a 
value of $30 instead of S20.15 as we have it. The value 
of all the commercial fertilizer manufactured and sold 
during the year 1887 was $23,050,705. In Dana's Muck 
Manual, page 177 he says : " The dung of domestic fowls 
and birds in general contains salts similar to those of 
guano, and for mulberries, vines, peaches and other plants 
the droppings of barn-yard fowls, one part to from 4 to 
10 of water ,"have been found to produce excellent results 
The trees have, at the end of two years, the most healthy 
and luxurious appearance imaginable. The poultry yard 
is to a careful farmer a rich source of vegetable food." 
From the above we see that our only source of profit 
is not in eggs and dressed poultry, but, if properly cared 
for, the value of the manure will equal the value of the 
food, and we shall have the eggs and carcasses for our 
trouble and profit. To realize the full value of the manure, 
have a dry house, and plenty of good absorbent on the 
shelves or dropping boards. Gather twice a week and 
mix with twice the quantity of good woods earth or dry 
muck, and keep in barrels in a dry place, or compost 
them as soon as gathered with twice or three times their 
bulk of dry material, and if you keep 100 hens you will 
not have to buy fertilizer for your family garden". 
E. W. Amsden. 
OIL ENGINES EOR TEA MANUFACTURE. 
We hear that the Calcutta firm, who recently ex- 
hibited the Davidson-Maguire Tea Packing Machine 
driven by one of the Oil Engines for which they 
are the Indian agents, have despatched, or are about 
to do so, a couple of this class oi engines to the Tea 
districts of Assam, to the order of an admiring and 
go-ahead manager. We have often wondered when 
in Cachar and Sylhet, wdiy it was that a more 
suitable type of engines and boilers were not intro- 
duced into tea work. It did not appear to us that 
local requirements were studied in the right direction 
by the makers of these necessary accessories to the 
economic production of tea. Wherever we went, it 
was the same, a heavy, cumbrous type of boiler, and 
the engine much the same, though we must admit 
that those of recent date are much better. We 
have been given to understand that the fault is not 
so much with the engine-builders as with the con- 
servative ideas of planters. These gentlemen have 
a knack of following a lead, and what one planter 
has found successful, his brother planter of a 
garden miles away, in a totally different loca- 
lity, and with entirely different surroundings, will 
also have. Hence we hear it said that any new 
departure in tea machinery, processes, or culture is 
looked askance at by planters, and inventors iu 
these lines do not jump into fortunes as a rule. 
To our thinking motors, such as gas engines, are 
in every way suited to industries as tea-making and 
Indigo, where the work is not continuous during the 
year, and is also intermittent during the manufac- 
turing season.. We hope to go more fully into this 
