732 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[Mav i, 1895. 
is probably the highest recorded rainfall in any 
settled portion of B. G. A. and we should h ive been ' 
almost inclined to think there might possibly hive 
been so.ue error in the registration, but that Mr. 
Aloir is an old and experienced observer. 
ODDS AND ENDS. 
THE UBIQUITOUS PLANTER. 
Since the crack-up of coffee, in the beginning 
of the eighties Ceylon planters have been scattered 
all over the globe, and they have carried estate 
expressions with them, so that one hardly takes 
up a colonial paper of any sort now-a -days 
without coming across some expression, used in 
the way of slang, which bears the flavour of 
the old tnttnm with it. I have before ine a 
New Zealand paper in which a description of an 
unsuccessful concert is reported, which had taken 
pla'je in an upcountry township, when thirteen 
of the small attendance had been admitted as 
' dead heads/ and who refused to pay on the 
grounds of taking part in the entertainment. 
The reporter goes on to say of them, "some 
men are mean enough to skin a 'pooehta,' for 
the head and tallow." Fancy the familiar old word 
'poociiic' becoming fashionable in New Zealand. 
bola \. 
Have planters, who are always on the outlook 
or new economic plants, never heard the name 
f the new discovery made in the forests of 
Surinam? It is a substitute for the rapidly dis- 
appearing india-rubber; and gutta-percha.. I have 
ilever seen it mentioned in your columns. 
TEA IJLKNDING. 
I am surprized that more, notice has not 
been taken of the letter, which was addressed 
to Lord Stanmore, on this subject, and 
which was as you justly remarked, pro- 
bably written by some dismissed employe. 
I have no doubt whatever that teas are skip- 
ped home, branded in the name of estates that 
never grew them, for I have myself purchased 
tea, on different occasions, with the same estate 
brand on the chests-, but which tasted as diff- 
erently as any two teas grown on this earth 
could possibly taste, ft is quite true that, in 
the days when coffee was king, curers forwarded 
all sorts and conditions of coffee under their 
own special brand. I always considered this 
unfair, and, in the case of teas I think it even 
more unjusti If I buy a chest of tea branded 
Ports\Vood, I naturally expect to find inside it 
a tea, such as Sir John would be proud to sell 
as grown on his high estate ; but, if I was to 
find that it tasted like a blend of clover and 
Willow leaves, I would naturally be disappointed 
and it 'would be but poor consolation to 111c to 
hi told that some firms in Colombo had bought 
a large break of Portswood tea, in the local 
market, and had repacked it, along with a lot 
of the celebrated chetty brand tea, which is 
baing so largely shipped to the Australian 
m irkels. Every one has read the advertise- 
in jnt, "When you ask for Clenfield patent 
starch see that you get it," so I would recom- 
mend buyers of Ceylon tea when they ask for 
any special brand, to see that they get it, in 
case that some curer has been buying some of 
that estate's boxes, in the local market, and re- 
tilling them with a blend made in their own 
compound. I have specially used the name 
I'ortswood as an example because I never see 
the brand mentioned in the Colombo sale list, 
and so 1 conclude that it is shipped straight 
home to save all risk of manipulation. 
BE- A It It Wo KM K NT OF PLAtfTIVC Ols I I's. 
I sincerely trust that rt:» sued thing will be 
attempted. The Directory arrangement is all that 
could be dedred by any oae who know* the Island, 
and those at home, who do not know it, had 
better learn the divisions, just as f ireigners have 
to learn the name- of the various c mnties in 
Britain. Fancy the new district names, a- sug- 
gested by one Loudo:i c »rresp.ciile:it. being adopted, 
and a home buyer parcUairinj a Tel leniya 
brand of tea, believing it to bo grown in 
Dumbera, and discovering that it ha I been 
manufactured in the Nitre Cave. 
LOW TF.Mi'F.KAlCHK AT Xftt'AltA BUT A. 
I see that this subject has got the length of lead- 
ing articles, and it appears that your Sanatorium 
has established a record this year, ju»t as the old 
country has done. In the Ea«t of Si-otland we 
have been existing for wee 'is past in a tempera- 
ture ranging from 33 s to 37' below freezing, and, 
at Balmoral, the cold has got so low a* 4'2' 
of frost. Capt. Bayley mentions that he con- 
siders it very unusual for the temperature to 
fall below 33 in Nuwara Eliya; but I retueuibcr 
spending the Christmas week of lN(i"> at Barnes 
Hall, and the water in the bedrooms was fio/.en 
night after night. I wonder if hake G reg ory 
has had any effect on the climate of Nuwara 
Eliya. COSMOPOLITES. 
PLANTNCJ AM) PRODUCE. 
Pcshino Japan Tba. — The Japanese havo recently 
become impressed with a keen desire to extend tin ir 
tea trade. In Russia they are 111 iking strenuous 
efforts to open up business, and it is said they con* 
template a raid on the French and English markets, 
where they will find a few difficulties in the way. 
There is nothing particularly fascinating about Japan 
tea to palates accustomed to better tilings. 
Fhikndly Competition. — The latest development of 
the friendly rivalry in tea between India and Ceylon 
is the discovery by a Colombo gentleman that there is 
a good, market for Geylon tea in some parts of India, 
According to Air. Dadabhai (who himself shipped 
450,000 lb. last year) the people of Central India pre- 
fer Ceylon tea to the produce of their own country, and 
frequently ask for it, but in vain. Perhaps the people 
in Ceylon are yearning after Indian tea. 
BonbTea in PAitiaiAMKNT. — IntheHouse of Commons, 
on Tuesday, Mr. F. Frye asked the Home Secretary 
whether his attention had been called to the con- 
victions of one Rasmus Jansen at Nottingham and 
Birmingham, for carrying on trade in bond tea as 
Nelson & Co. ; whether the same person was con- 
victed in London on December 17th 1894, -and in 
Manchester on January 7th, 1895, but, in spite of 
these convictions, was continuing the business in 
London and Manchester without interference by the 
police ; that in Hull and Portsmouth the police had 
declined to take proceedings against the same person, 
although repeatedly appealed to; and that in Bmniiig- 
ham the police had withdrawn summonses against 
certain bond tea traders who had been carrying on 
the trade for twelve months, on the latter giving an 
undertaking to discontinue it, although they were 
still continuing the trade in London and district 
without interference ; and whether he proposed to 
take any action in the matter. The Home Secretary 
in reply said the matter was engaging the attention 
of the Public Prosecutor and of the Commissioner of 
Metropolitan Police. 
Tea, Coffee, and Suoar a Centuby Hence. — Pro- 
fessor Berthelot, a French chemist, and one of the 
most distinguished scientists in the world, recently 
published in a French journal a most instructive ar- 
ticle on "What People Will Eat a Century Hence." 
He states that in that period the present use of coal 
will be replaced by new sources of mechanical energy, 
and a large portion of the staple foods, which we now ob- 
