May  t,  1893.]  THE  TROPICAL  AGRICULTURIST. 
689 
TEA  AND  SCIENCE.  . _ 
It  is  impossible  to  get  ignorant  critics  like  this 
Mr.  Peter  Keeveney  ot  Manchester — whose  vapour- 
ings,  reproduced  by  the  Home  and  Colonial  Mail, 
will  be  found  on  page  690— to  listen  to  any 
reply  from  Ceylon.  He  maintains  after  the  most 
authoritative  fashion  that  “ the  tea  gardens  in 
Ceylon  have  been  forced  to  a point  of  exhaus- 
tion that  is  now  telling  against  the  quality, 
and  if  we  give  him  a flat  contradiction  and 
seme  of  the  evidence  at  our  oommand,  he 
simply  turns  round  and  deolares  " Oh  you  are 
interested  - you  are  a Ceylon  resident  and  of 
course  desire  to  maintain  the  credit  of  your 
Colony,  &c.”  Now  it  seems  to  us,  that  here 
is  just  a cass  in  whioh  an  agricultural 
and  analytical  authority  from  home,  furnishing  a 
Report  after  some  months  spent  in  our  Tea  Dis- 
tricts, could  be  called  on  to  reply  as  an  impartial 
and  all-sufficient  referee,  to  suoh  slanders.  In 
faot  Mr.  Peter  Keeveney  and  his  tribe  oould  from 
time  to  time,  be  confounded  and  shut  up  with  a 
copy  of  the  Report  itself  probably. 
CINCHONA  REPORT. 
(From  the  Chemist  and  Druggist.) 
London,  March  9th, 
Cinchona.— The  fortnightly  auctions  held  on  Tuesday 
were  unusually  heavy,  no  less  thaD  3,781  tales  of  bark 
being  catalogued,  of  which,  however,  118  bales  were 
withdrawn.  The  remainder  was  composed  as  follows: — 
Ceylon  cinchona 
773  of  which  |758  were  ■ 
East  Indian  cinchona 
2,295 
do 
2,115 
do 
Java  cinchona 
63 
do 
68 
do 
South  American 
cinchona 
527 
do 
527 
do 
3,663 
3,468 
The  quantity  actually  offered  fell  considerably  below 
what  had  been  expected,  as  the  manufactuers  had 
received  samples  of  over  5,000  hales.  The  assortment 
was  a fairly  good  one,  Indian  barbs,  especially  grey  and 
yellow  varieties,  being  very  plentiful,  considering  the 
extent  of  the  sales,  and  the  fact  that  it  is  known  that 
the  next  Amsterdam  auctions  will  again  be  very  large 
ones.  Tuesday’s  sale  was  not  altogether  unfavourable. 
All  the  German  works  competed  very  well,  and  the 
average  unit  was  scarcely  quotably  lower  than  that  of 
the  previous  sale.  It  may  be  put  at  from  15-16ths  d. 
to  Id  per  lb. 
The  following  are  the  approximate  quantities  purchased 
by  the  various  buyers 
Lb . 
Agents  for  the  Auerbach  factory  ...  ...  198.972 
Agents  for  the  Brunswick  ifaotory  ...  ...  174,646 
Agents  for  the  Mannheim  and  Amsterdam  works...  121,347 
Agents  for  the  Frankfort  o/M  and  Stuttgart  works  71,015 
Ageats  for  the  Paris  works  ...  ...  46,910 
Messrs.  Howards  & Sons  ...  ...  ...  34,620 
Mr.  Thos.  Whiffen  ...  ...  15,520 
Agents  for  the  American  and  Italian  works  ...  2,000 
Sundry  druggists..  ...  ...  ...  78,312 
Total  quantity  of  bark  sold  ...  ...  743,342 
Bought  in  or  withdrawn...  ...  ...  81,710 
Total  quantity  offered  ...  ...  825,052 
CEYLON  CINNAMON. 
It  will  have  been  seen  from  the  information  which 
we  published  in  last  Tuesday’s  issue,  that  only  a 
vory  small  quantity  of  cinnamon  was  offered  at 
the  last  quarterly  sales  held  in  London  on  the  27th 
ultimo.  The  falling  off  in  the  quantity  of  the  spice 
catalogued— itself  explained  by  the  failure  of  the 
South-West  and  North-East  rains  and  the  conse- 
quent difficulty  of  harvesting  the  two  crops — is  suffi- 
cieut  to  explain  the  rise  in  prices.  Only  967  bales 
were  brought  under  the  hammer,  as  compared  with 
2,495  bales  at  the  previous  auction  in  November, 
and  with  1,487  bales  at  the  corresponding  February 
sales  of  1892.  Naturally,  competition  was  keen  for 
this  reduced  quantity,  and  specially  so  for  fine  sorts, 
in  which  only  three  marks  were  represented.  The 
coarser  sorts  advanced  only  Jd  to  Id  per  lb. — some 
marks  made  no  advance  at  all  while  fine  quills 
fetched  from  |d  to  2d  per  lb.  more.  This  difference 
affords  gratifying  evidence  to  the  leading  Marks 
that  there  is  a demand  yet  for  fine  spice;  and  that 
the  apprehensions  felt  and  expressed  in  London,  and 
re-echoed  here  last  year,  that  the  day  for  fine  spice 
had  passed,  were  not  well-founded.  True,  the  cata- 
logues contained  an  exceptionally  small  quantity  of 
fine  spice ; but  the  fact  of  a demand  remains.  The 
lesson  to  be  learnt  seems  to  be  that  it  is  not  over- 
production generally  which  alone  has  had  a disturb- 
ing effect,  but  over-production  of  the  finer  sorts  as 
well.  As  usual,  A.  S.  G.  P. — the  Mark  of  the  Golua 
Pokuna  spice  which  is  maintaining  its  reputation 
under  its  new  Superintendent,  Mr,  Gerald  Nicholas — 
topped  the  list  with  Is  7d  for  its  firsts,  and  corres- 
pondingly high  prices  for  the  other  qualities.  J.  D 
S.  R.  and  F.  B.  Franklands  followed  with  small  quan- 
tities ; but  the  Wester  Seaton  and  Kimbulapitiya 
Marks  were  not  represented.  Not  the  least  interesting 
feature  in  the  sale  was  the  large  quantity  of  un- 
worked Cinnamon  whioh  obanged  hands — that  is,  spice 
which  had  not  incurred  the  heavy  cost  of  unpacking, 
brushing  aud  repacking  in  the  Dock  Warehouses. 
Nearly  one-half  of  the  quantity  offered  was  “ un- 
worked ” ; and  that  about  300  Bales  of  it  were 
cleared  at  from  6J4.  to  8d.  per  lb.  is  a hopeful 
sigu.  If  buyers  find  that  there  has  been  no  adul- 
taration,  and  that  the  Bales  as  landed  oontuined 
what  they  purported  to  contain,  there  may  be  a 
chance  for  the  demand  put  forward  often  from  this 
side,  that  shipments  be  sold  on  average  samples  drawn 
from  the  various  qualities,  without  any  superfluous  and 
expensive  manipulation  in  LondoD,  If  the  trade  once 
accepts  this  reasonable  request ; for  it  is  absurd  to 
suppose,  either  that  the  leading  Marks  will  expose 
themselves  to  the  loss  inevitable  from  the  certain 
detection  of  attempts  at  deception,  or  that  the  epice 
can  improve  by  unpacking  and  exposure  in  the  damp 
and  unsavoury  atmosphere  of  the  London  Doeks— the 
small  profits  which  Cinnamon  yields  to  the  grower  need 
not  be  reduced  by  a needless  addition  to  the  big 
London  charges. 
Since  the  Sales,  we  are  glad  to  note  prices  have 
been  maintained  and  have  even  advanced.  The  rains 
we  have  had  since  the  middle  of  February  have 
favoured  harvesting  operations,  and  a good  deal 
of  spice  whioh  would  have  coarsened  against  the  big 
crop,  has  been  harvested  within  the  last  few  weeks. 
Still,  the  quantity  cannot  be  very  large  ; and  although 
the  May  Bales  might  show  a inller  Catalogue  than 
the  February  one,  the  falling  off  in  the  Exports  of 
last  year  cannot  be  made  good  at  once.  Indeed  the 
shipments  up  to  date  aro  less  than  those  for  the  cor- 
responding period  of  the  last  three  years,  so  that 
there  is  every  prospect  of  the  advanoe  in  prices 
already  reoorded  beiug  maintained,  at  the  next  Sales. 
— Local  “Examiner.” 
SCIENTIFIC  NOTES. 
More  than  a quarter  of  a century  ago  a remark- 
able book  was  written  by  Mr.  Marsh,  United 
States  Consul  at  Florence,  entitled  Physical 
Geography  as  Influenced  by  Human  Action.  It 
gave  a long  list  of  instances  in  which  the  in- 
discriminate cutting  down  of  forests  had  affected 
the  rainfall  of  countries.  Climate  is  an  exceedingly, 
sensitive  thing,  and  every  leaf  on  every  tree, 
shrub,  and  plant  influence  it.  Vegetation  is  a 
marvellous  regulator  of  climatic  conditions — - 
particulary  of  rainfall.  Cut  down  the  forests  of 
a country,  and  the  rainfall  becomes  irregular  ; 
so,  of  course,  does  the  volume  and  velocity  of 
rivers,  floods,  and  torrents.  Such  altered  con- 
ditions bring  about  extremes  of  dryness  and  wetness. 
Let  all  the  vegetation  be  cleared  away,  and 
perhaps  general  aridity,  and  therefore  sterility, 
are  the  results.  It  is  within  the  province  of  man 
thus  so  to  influence  the  dryness  of  the  country  for 
