Jan.  2,  1893.] 
THE  TROPICAL  AGRICULTURIST. 
481 
TEA  AND  ITS  ENEMIES, 
The  Need  fok  Young  Planters  Studying  the  T.A. 
The  following  is  a diequietiDg  paragraph  from 
the  Pioneer  of  Djc.  3rd — . m 
A bitter  cry  comes  from  the  Darjeeling  Terai  tea- 
gardens,  where  mosquito  blight  is  said  to  have  been 
doing  so  much  injury  that  the  abandonment  of  gar- 
dens in  which  large  sums  of  money  have  been  sunk, 
begins  to  be  talked  about  as  by  no.  means  a far-away 
contingency.  None  of  the  insecticide  washes  that 
have  hitherto  been  tried  seem  to  have  been  tor  any 
practical  use,  and  the  general,  opinion  at  present 
appears  t j be  that  there  is  nothing  for  it  but  to  hold 
on  and  wait  for  better  times  Very  little  is  yet 
known  of  the  habits  of  the  insect,  beyond  the  fact  that 
it  multiplies  very  quickly  and  passes  the  whole  of  its 
existence,  from  egg  to  winged  imago,  upon  the  tea 
shoots.  In  view  of  the  failure  of  other  measures,  it 
may  be  worth  while  to  call  attention  to  the  gas  treat- 
ment, which  does  not  seem  to  have  yet  been  tried  on 
any  considerable  scale  in  Indian  tea-gardens,  though, 
according  to  the  account  published  in  a recent  num- 
ber of  Indian  Museum  Notes , it  has  been  widely 
adopted  against  insects  which  attack  orange  trees  in 
What  about  helopeltis  on  Ceylon  tea  ? That  it  is 
present  to  some  extent  in  oertain  districts  is 
undoubted.  Mr.  J.  M.  Boustead  mentioned  to  us 
only  the  other  day  how,  on  one  of  his  rounds,  he  saw 
the  obnoxious  inseot  freely  at  work  on  a 
plantation  he  passed  through,  though  the 
superintendent  in  charge  seemed  not  to  b» 
aware  of  its  identity.  Now  this  brings  us  to 
another  question  as  to  how  many,  of  the 
present  generation  of  planters  take  an  intelligent 
eager  interest  in  their  work  and  really  read  about 
tea,  its  proper  cultivation  and  preparation  and 
especially  about  its  enemies?  We  have  not  a- 
word  to  say  against  orioket,  tennis,  and  sport 
generally— holidays  and  athletic  exercises  are  most 
important  in  their  own  plaoe  ; but  we  trust  it  is  Dot 
the  oase  that  young  tea  planters,  in  some  oases,  are 
beginning  to  trust  to  conductors  in  the  field  and 
to  teamakers  in  the  factory?  Ceylon  planters 
will  soon  lose  their  reputation  as  leading  the  world, 
if  the  habits  of  observation,  study  and  reflection, 
whioh  have  hitherto  distinguished  them,  are  given 
up.  We  were  shooked  the  other  day  to  hear  a 
proprietor,  who  has  graduated  as  Sinna  Durai  and 
Manager,  say,  that  he  did  not  think  one  planter  in 
ten  of  the  present  day  ever  read  articles  on  Manuring, 
Cultivation  or  Enemies  of  Tea,  and  that  the  Tropi- 
cal Agriculturist  is  by  no  means  studied 
as  it  used  to  be.  Well,  all  we  can  say  is  that 
on  the  Proprietors  and  Companies,  or  their 
Agents,  who  give  plantations  in  charge  of  planters 
of  this  modern  type  (who  care  more  for  sport  than 
for  a proper  maBtery  of  their  work),  will  rest  the 
responsibility  of  consequences,  should  troubles 
appear  through  ignorance  or  neglect.  If  a man 
is  not  up  in  the  Manuals  bearing  on  his  profession, 
or  in  the  best  recent  information  respecting  his 
every-day  work,  well,  he  can  only  deserve  to  remain 
a Sinna  Durai  all  his  life  I 
We  have  been  collecting  some  valuable  information 
in  respeot  of  manuring  tea,  which  will  shortly  be 
published  ; and  in  a letter  just  reoeived  from  Mr. 
John  Loudon  Shand,  he  says  “ I wish  you  oould 
“ stir  up  the  planting  community  to  the  importance 
“ of  BtudyiDg  ‘ The  Chemistry  of  Tea.'  I believe 
“ £5,000  spent  upon  seouring  the  services  for  five 
“ years  of  a first-olass  chemist  would  do  more 
“ r ermanent  good  than  Chicago  Exhibition.”  We 
reoommend  the  employment  of  an  Analytical 
Chemist  to  study  our  teas  on  the  spot,  as  the  next  big 
operation  for  the  Committee  of  theCey  on  Tea  Fund  : 
and  feel  sure,  if  the  right  man  were  got,  a good 
deal  ol  advantage  would  be  derived  ns  the  result 
of  his  labours, 
DRUGS  FROM  CAPE  COLONY. 
The  enormous  changes  which  have  been  wrought 
in  international  commerce  during  the  present  gener- 
ation by  improved  means  of  communication  and  the 
rapid  spread  of  commercial  news,  have  tended  to 
diminish  the  importance  of  those  ports  which 
depended  mainly  00  their  favour  ble  position  as 
distributing  centres.  They  have  also  resulted  in 
cheapening  nearly  all  staple  crops.  That  cheapening, 
in  its  turn,  has  had  the  effect  of  rendering  the 
haphazard  collection  of  natural  products  of  the  soil 
absolutely  unremunerative.  and  unskilled  or  careless 
cultivation  nearly  so.  Hence,  general  despair  among 
jog-trot  agriculturists  all  over  the  world,  followed 
by  the  appointment,  in  every  direction,  of  Govern- 
ment commissions  to  find  out  how  to  help  them. 
The  people  of  Cape  Colony  have  not  hitherto 
had  the  reputation  either  of  paying  much  attention 
to  the  propagation  of  new  products  upon  their  soil, 
or  even  of  making  the  most  of  what  it  brings  forth  at 
present.  Want  of  suitable  communications  accounts 
to  some  extent  for  their  backwardness,  but,  never 
an  all-sufficient  excuse,  its  force  is  lessened  from 
year  to  year;  and  now,  the  Cape  Government,  fol- 
lowing in  the  wake  of  other  authorities,  has  appointed 
a ‘‘Commission  on  Colonial  Industries,”  which  is 
gathering  expert  evidence  for  the  purpose  of  finding 
out  to  what  new  profitable  ends  the  soil  of  Cape 
Colony  may  be  turned. 
At  the  last  sitting  of  this  Commission  Professor 
MacOwan,  Director  of  the  Cape  Town  Botanical 
Gardens,  gave  evidence  on  Cape  vegetable  products. 
His  testimony,  as  reproduced  in  a lengthy  report  in 
the  Cape  Argus,  has  not  by  any  means  a cheerful 
or  confident  ring  about  it.  Possibly  the  stingy  treat- 
ment by  the  ' ape  Legislature  of  its  botanical  gardens 
and  museum  affected  Professor  MacOwan's  spirits. 
If  the  Cape  people  are  really  in  earnest  about  the 
growth  of  new  products,  they  should  prove  their 
sincerity  by  providing  the  funds  required  to  make 
their  botanical  gardens  as  useful  to  South  Africa  as 
those  of  Kew  are  to  this  country,  of  Buitenzorg  to 
the  Dutch  East  Indies,  and  of  Peradeniya  to 
Ceylon. 
There  appears  to  be  a feeling  among  the  Cape 
Colony  agriculturists  that  olive-growing  would  prove 
a paying  investment.  There  are  plenty  of  wild  olive- 
trees  at  the  Cape,  and  the  idea  seems  to  be  that  the 
best  varieties  of  French  and  Italian  plants  might 
be  grafted  upon  these.  Professor  MacOwan  appears 
inclined  to  throw  cold  water  upon  this  scheme,  and 
not  without  reason.  "We  doubt  if  olive-farming  is  a 
paying  industry  anywhere  at  present.  Cotton-seed 
and  other  oils  have  replaced  olive  oil  to  a large  ex- 
tent, not  only  for  manufacturing  but  also  for  eating 
purposes.  In  common  or  technical  oils,  the  Cape 
farmer  could  scarcely  expect  to  compete  successfully 
with  his  fellow-agriculturists  in  Morocco,  Tunis,  and 
the  Levant  generally,  and  to  attempt  to  drive  out 
the  fine  French  and  Italian  table-oils  woull  be  an 
altogether  hopeless  task.  A suitable  soil,  a good 
climate,  and  cheap  unskilled  labour  are  excellent 
things  in  their  way,  but  they  are,  fortunately,  not 
everything.  Dexterous  workmanship  and  plodding 
watchfulness  also  count  for  much,  and  nowhere  more 
than  in  industries  in  which  the  French  excel.  Just 
as  the  Americans  find  that  they  cannot  make  tin- 
plates or  fine  cutlery  unless  they  import  British 
workmen  to  teach  them  the  way,  so  the  Cape  people 
would  discover  that  any  natural  advantages  tney 
might  possess  would  avail  nothing  without  the  aid 
of  French  workmen  excelling  in  gifts  acquired  by 
training  as  much  as  in  those  inherited  from  gener- 
ations of  predecessors  in  the  same  industries.  The 
same  obstacles  to  success  apply  to  the  distillation 
of  essential  oils.  Professor  MacOwan  mentions  that 
some  twenty  years  ago  a London  firm  of  perfumers 
sent  out  a small  distilling  and  enfleurage  plant  for 
experimental  purposes  to  a Mr.  Kennedy,  of  Humana- 
dorp,  in  Cape  Colony.  Unfortunately,  the  consignee 
died  before  the  plant  could  be  put  to  work,  and 
since  then  no  other  efforts  at  essential-oil  distillation 
1 have  been  heard  of.  We  doubt  whether,  if  initiated, 
' they  could  be  successful  now.  To  say  that  there  are 
