798 THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. f June !, 1895. 
upon new shares. The total acreage owned by tLe 
Company is 10,376 acres, of which 7,167 acres is under 
mature tea, 1,151 acres under immature tea, and the 
remainder held in reserve. Taking the cultivated area 
of 8,318 acres, the capitalisation works out at about 
£30peracre . but this is really too high, as the Company 
has for years made far more tea than it produces on its 
own estates. Thus, out of 4,966,928 lb. turned out 
in 1803, 3,000,055 lb. was estate tea. 539,615 lb. was 
bought leaf tea, and no less than 1,41k, 25s lb. was 
tea manufactured for others. Such a business implies 
a . plant far larger than the requirements of the 
estates, and a consequent greater outlay of capital. 
Owing to this circumstance, any attempt to work out 
cost of production per lb. and net profit per lb. 
would be an extremely difficult task. The Company 
appears to have done exceedingly well, but the re- 
duction in the selling price of its tea has been very 
rapid, and it must be remembered that tea-growing 
in Ceylon is a much younger industry than in India. 
— The Inventors' Hemeiv for April. 
TANNIN IN INDIAN TEA. 
In the department of "Correspondence" will be 
found an interesting communication from Mr. Blechyn- 
den, Special Commissioner in the United States of 
the Indian Tea Association of Calcutta, relative to 
tannin in Indian tea. It is us impossible to have 
tea without tannin as to have wine without alcohol. 
The question is therefore one of quantity and charac- 
er of the infusion and time of steeping. We believe 
the Chinese method of curing black tea is betler cal- 
culated to lessen the amount of tannin than curing 
by machinery. That eminent authority, Prescott, in 
" Organic Analyses " (page 504), says : " In Mack 
teas the greater extent of fermentation and the shar- 
per 'firing' appear to reduce the quantity of tannin, 
and certainly leave the tannin and the other ex- 
tractive matters in a less readily soluble condition." 
In a series of elaborate analyses made by J. F. Geis- 
ler Ph. C, he gives the following averages of tannin 
found in Indian, Oolong and Congous, calculated 
upon the air-dried teas, as follows : — 
Tannin— Indian. Oolong. Congous. 
Average .. 1487 KV3X 11-54 
Average for tea dried at 
100 oC. .. 15-77 17-39 12-59 
The quantity of tannin extracted from the best 
green tea was unusually large, being 16'79 per cent. 
Then the character of the water has an influence 
upon the quantity of tannin, it having been demon- 
strated that hard waters dissolve less than soft waters 
under the same conditions. In steeping some Oolong 
tea for five minutes in distilled water it gave up 11 "23 
per cent, of tannin, while in Croton water, for the 
same time, 10-18 per cent ; when drawn for ten minutes 
13-46 per cent, in distilled, and 10 - 60 per cent, in 
Croton water. 
This much-vexed question can never be settled, 
because the chemical composition of the tea depends 
upon the fertility of the soil, the climate, the pro- 
cess of curing, and the manipulation of the leaf. 
Uniformity in composition cannot be secured. Those 
who drink tea for flavor or aroma will seek those 
qualities and steep it in a way to give the minimum 
tannin. — American Grocer. 
THE CHERIMOYA. 
Mr. Nock is good enough to write : — 
" The Cherimoya is a plant of very easy culture and 
any one who has a bit of good ground above 2,500 
feet elevation and below 4,500 feet can grow it. It 
delights in a rich free soil, well drained. Under 
favourable conditions it will fruit in four or five 
years. It will grow and flower well up to an elevation 
of 5-6,000 feet, but rarely produces fruit much above 
4,500 feet, and the same may be said about it at 
a low elevation. All the pruning it requires is to 
train it into shape and cut away any weak or crowded 
shoots." 
TEA PLANTING! WITH CONVICT 
LABOUR, 
Tea planting with convict labour i* apparently 
a success in the Andaman*. The experiment i* 
confined at present to three gardens comprising 
in all 613 acre*, the outturn from which last year 
wax 11 1,910 lb. The bulk of the tea manufactured 
was disposed of to the local Madras and Burma 
Commissariat Department*, the balance being sold 
locally, on retail through private linn* in Madra* 
and Rangoon. In Madras the retail sale* were 
unsatisfactory, 950 lb. realising only a net sum 
of KKil. In Burma, on the other hand, the 
*ale* have always been good, 11,3001b. of broken 
tea la*t year netting 112,275. A* the laltour i* 
free, handsome profits on the working of the 
garden were shewn, but if the hi) tour had had 
to he paid for, the gardens would have returned 
a loss in*tead of a profit. That the experiment 
work* with a profit to the jail i*, now ever, 
sufficiently satisfactory. — Madrtu Time*. 
COMMERCIAL I I BRES. 
Dr. D. Morris, m.a., delivered the first of a series of 
Cantor Lectures before the Society of Arts, last even- 
ing, on the subject of Commercial Fibres. He said the 
commerce in vegetable fibres was one of the most 
important of this country. The total turn over during 
the year 1893, including imports and exports, was of 
the value of 119,000,000/ sterling, and of this large 
amount India and the Colonies contributed only 12 
per cent, of the imports. Great expansion was. 
however, possible. Canada, for instance, could grow 
excellent flax, the Phormium fibre of New Zealand, 
directly it should be available to spinners, would have 
a great future before it. Queensland had a superior 
fibre in Sida. and the West India Islands were naturally 
adapted to produce the best sea-island cotton, and 
also ramie, which was pre-eminent amongst textile 
fibres. As showing the antiquity of linen, the lecturer 
referred to some specimens of linen cloth in the Kew 
Museums, taken from the temple of Hawara, in 
Egypt, built B.C. 2,500. In South America the Mataco 
Indian made a singular cuirass, quite arrow-proof, from 
the floss or vegetable silk of a plant called the Yachan, 
felted by simply steeping it in water. — Huu.c paper. 
PLANTING AND PRODUCE. 
The Consumption of Tea and Alcohol. — The most 
striking feature in the purely diagrammatical return 
which has recently been issued and which has been 
ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 
is that while an enormous increase in the consump- 
tion of tea. coffee, <fec, has taken place — the line 
illustrating this extending as a diagonal across the 
diagram till it reaches the top right hand corner 
(1893) — there has been a steady diminution in the 
consumption of both beer and spirits, the lines indi- 
cating the last two being practically parallels, 
not only with one another, but approximately 
with the base of the diagram also. Between Is'til 
and 1862 the total consumption of tea. &c, was 
120,000,0001b.; it then steadily rose, until in 1893 it 
stood at 265,000,000 lb. In the same period the popu- 
lation increased from 28,500,000 to 38,500,000, so that 
while in 1891 the consumption of tea. &c, per head 
was 4-38 lb., in 1853 it was 6-90 lb. In regard to 
wines and spirits, the consumption in 1861 was equal 
to 35,000,000 gallons, with the population at 28,500.000 
and in 1893, with the population at 38,500.000. the 
consumption was 52,000,000 gallons, so that per hea,d 
it was equal to 1-22 gallons in 1S61 and 1893 to P35 
gallons, the highest record being 1\S0 gallons in 1(576, 
since which the consumption has steadily diminished. 
The consumption of beer exhibits a similar rise and 
fall. Commenting on this return, the Lancet says : 
"To sum up, this interesting return shows that there 
is a decided diminution in the demand for intoxi- 
cating stimulants, whilst there is a very consider- 
