668 
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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[Ai'KiL i, 1895. 
available. We cordially >vfchomu the now industry 
as a means of affording employment to several 
hundreds of natives, and equally cordially wish it 
every success. Messrs. Murray and Oatrs who 
came out here as representing the concessionaires 
left for England this morning by the V. & 0. (58. 
" Coroinandel,"' extremely well pleased in 
■with their visit to the island and of course 
its result. Tbey spoke very highly of the 
courtesy they had received from all the Gov- 
ernment officials, eveiy facility being af- 
forded them for obtaining information regard- 
ing the most suitable locality for the business 
which they are to establish here. It appear- 
that the idea of their coming out to Ceylon was 
suggested to them by Mr. Koyle of the Imperial 
Institute and Mr. F. H. M. Gorbct as the 
Ceylon Commissioner. It was the intention of 
the Company to start operations in the West 
Indies, but the gentlemen named, suggested that 
Ceylon should be given a trial and interested them- 
selves a very great deal in the matter and for this 
very great credit is due to them. Communica- 
tion was entered into with the Government here who 
secured reports on the subject from the Govern- 
ment Agents and officers of the Forest Depart- 
ment, and the result of the negotiations was 
that it was agreed that on the concession being 
granted the Company should pay a certain 
royalty per ton of the article manufactured. 
Messrs. Murray and Oatts came out here for 
the purpose as we have said of selecting the \nmi 
suitable district. At first it was thought that 
they might choose the land lying between Ne- 
gon'ibo and Bentota but after visiting the Trincp- 
malee district they decided that they should 
commence operations there, and Government accor- 
dingly gave them the monopoly in accord- 
ance with the conditions they had publWie I. 
The practical part of the business will be 
Under the management of Mr Mearns who 
arrived in the island from Scotland a short 
time ago, and Messrs. Finlay, Mhir & Co. 
Will act as agents. 
THE FUTURE OF INDIAN TEA, 
The coming struggle in the Indian and Ceylon 
Tea trades, which over-production is fast rendering 
imminent, is a subject which demands the immediate 
attention of planters. In a lecture recently deli- 
vered by Mi\ A. U-. Stanton, himself no mean au- 
thority, before the Society of Arts, official tables are 
quoted showing the progress made of late years by 
Indian and Ceylon teas, and the corresponding 
decline which has taken plare in the consumption 
in the United Kingdom of China tea. In 1881 the 
United Kingdom took forty-eight million lb. of Indian 
tea at one shilling and rive pence per ib. as against 
a hundred and twenty million lb., of China 
tea. In 1883 the consumption of Ceylon tea previously 
trifling, was one million lb. and the price one shilling 
and three pence farthing. By this time the con- 
sumption ot Indian tea had increased to titty-eight 
million lb. and the price had fallen to fourteen pence 
halfpenny. The returns for 1894 show a consump- 
tion of Indian tea totalling a hundred and seventeen 
million lb. at an average price of nine-pence-farth- 
ing, while the consumption of the Ceylon article had 
reached seventy-oue million lb. at eight-pence-half- 
penny pei - lb., the total consumption at home of 
China tea having fallen to • twenty-six million lb. 
Now if it has cost the Indian planter eight 
pence per pound to reduce to twenty-six million 
pounds the consumption of China tea from the 
tigure at which it stood in 1881, what further 
sacrifice, asks Mr. Stanton, will be entailed 
upon biiu in displacing the remaining t wen ty - 
6ix million pouuds, and when this has been dis- 
placed, what is to. be the next move ? Reduce 
the outturn, is the obvious answer to the second 
question : but that is precisely what the planter 1- Least 
likely to do, until at any rate over-production i>..ug« 
him face to face with rain. The only alternate 
is, of course, the opening up of new markets, and 
here the Indian and Ceylou planter* huvs practi- 
cally puu China in front of tlieni. Even at the 
present comparatively model ate 1 ate of inc«ea>,c it 
will take lea; than five yen*— it mat p »s,iu)\ only 
take three — to supply the United Kingdom with all 
the tea she want*, and then the problem of new 
markets will confront the planters in dead e.irnesl. 
Up to the present moment the highest amount of 
Indian and Ceylon teas consumed in the world out- 
side the United Kingdom is only thirty million 
lb. ; the total consumption of China tea being about 
two hundred and twenty million lb. America 
and Australasia are the most hopeful mirkHs for 
Indian Ceylon teas, but in 189H the export to the 
former country was only about two million lbs., 
while the latter country t >ok alone fourteen millions, 
having doubled its consumption in four year.-.. But 
the adv.i nee in the foreign tia.la has b-jen very slow, 
though no doubt it has been steady : r,nd Mr. btius- 
t'm's point is that the Indian and C.vlon planter* 
should spend some of their money in tne systematic 
opening of new markets instead of the opening up 
of some such new land for cultivation. Canada mid 
Russia both offer markets which might well be worked, 
while the whole of South America is still almost 
untouched. It ought at any rate on the latter 
continent to bo easy for Indian tea to replace 
the chief beverage in use there, " Paraguay Tea," 
which suffers from the initial disadvantage that it ia 
not tea at all. — 'I'imetoJ ItuJui. 
THE WHITE T Hit FA Id FUNGI'S. 
REMOVABLE BY HAND. 
{S/iceiul for tlir. " liaitfci:") 
In the Darjecling District the white thread fungus 
has been prese.it to some extent for the past eleven 
years. It is found on solitary bushes here and 
there at any elevation beiow 3,.">U0 feet. If lelt 
alone, however, it spreads in course of lime to con- 
siderable plots. The season it makes its giowth 
seems to lie only at the end of the rains, ana when 
pruning time comes they an- easily distinguishable 
from some distance by the withered appearance of 
the leaves of the bush attacked, or, if tar gone, by 
its complete nakedness. 
The fungus begins 0:1 the stems or branches, and 
grows upwards until it leaches the leaves, when the 
character of the growth changes, and from the single 
thread there spreads out innumerable tiny branches 
which completely cover the under sides of the leaves, 
giving them the appearance of being encased in a 
white film. The fungus extracts all the moisture 
from the leaves attacked, which soon die, and the 
bush itself succumbs in course of time if neglected. 
The question of drainage has nothing to do with the 
appearance of the fungus, as it sometimes appears on 
the dryest plots of a dry garden where the annual 
rainfall does not exceed 7. r > inches. 
This fungus doef, not attack tea only ; the writer 
has observed it in large patches of jungle where it 
attacks shrubs and undergrowth in the same man- 
ner, and he first saw it in the jungle the same year 
that it made its appearance in the tea. 
This blight docs not spread rapidly, and so can 
eiSily be dealt with. Heavy pruning has been re- 
commended for the same reason, probably, that blood 
letting was tho recognised rule of surgery^ in bar- 
barous times for all the ills which flesh is heir to. 
Heavy pruning is not necessary, and is objectionable 
for several reasons. A complete cure can be effected 
by scraping off the white thread from the stems and 
branches, which is done by children with little 
knives made of dry bamboo; tnese remove the fungus, 
and do not injure the hark. The bush recovers its 
vigour with the return of spring.— The Want a; 
