June  i,  3893.] 
THE  TROPICAL  AGRICULTURIST. 
773 
PLANTING  IN  THE  CENTRAL  PROVINCE 
OF  CEYLON. 
(Xoies  l>y  “ Wanderer.” 
May  6tli. 
Pkices  of  Ceylon  Tea.— They  fay  any  stick  does 
to  beat  a dog,  so  all  advices  from  London  and  Tea 
Circulars  harp  on  the  same  string  and  try  to  apologise 
for  the  apathy  of  the  Tea  Buyers  at  the  expense  of 
the  Producer.  Formerly  it  was  the  agitation  on  the 
Home  Rule  question  that  prevented  the  Belfast  Tea 
Dealer  from  going  in  for  our  Broken  Pekoe,  now  we 
have  the  dread  that  the  Ohanceller  of  the  Exchequer 
was  to  take  off  the  Tea  Duty,  or  reduce  it  This 
last  question  has  been  settled,  and  still  9d  or  9jd.  con- 
tinue to  be  our  average.  That  the  Tea  is  going  more 
slowly  into  consumption  than  last  year  is  manifest 
for  the  increase  of  duty  paid  tea  in  England  to  end 
of  April  was  only  2 per  cent,  on  Ceylon  and  Indian 
tea  and  a reduction  of  4 per  cent,  on  China.  Java  Tea 
seems  to  be  coming  to  the  front.  I suppose  the 
Bushes  from  Assam  tea  seed  imported  there,  are 
now  coming  into  hearing. 
Tea  Freight  has  certainly  been  low  and  your 
yesterday’s  issue  shows  that  the  usual  reaction  is 
setting  in  and  that  Freights  will  now  go  higher. 
Exchange  and  its  upward  flight  have  surprised  us, 
and  must  worry  the  Banker  and  tea  buyers  in 
Colombo. 
Coffee. — The  blossoms  have  been  a perfect  fiasco 
and  now  green  bug  is  showing  up.  Planters  who 
have  tea  over  two  years  old  are  now  rooting  what 
coffee  they  had  left  interspersed,  as  they  find  that 
the  bug  finds  its  way  from  the  coffee  to  the  tea. 
Weather  was  settled  fine  but  today  it  is  cloudy 
and  rain  is  not  far  away. 
Planters  ought  to  be  much  obliged  to  you  for  lay- 
ing before  them  in  such  a handy  form  the  annual 
tables  of  Messrs  George  White  & Co.,  and  Wilson, 
Smithett  & Co.  What  strikes  the  Planting  reader 
unfavourably  is  the  tumble  down  in  the  price  of 
team  the  last  three  years.  lOdJ.  in  1890, lOJd  in  1891, 
and  only  9jd  in  1892  However,  the  comforting  thought 
comes  to  mind  that  we  never  expected  the  tea  to 
nett  more  tt  an  50  cents  f.  o.  b.,  and  thanks  to  ex- 
change I fancy  we  have  realised  that  figure.  Messrs, 
Wilson  Smithett  & Co,  give  the  following 
reasons  for  poor  prices.  1st  Stock-taking,  but 
one  would  suppose  that  this  occurs  every  vear. 
2nd.  General  election  and  political  anxiety.  3rd 
Quality  was  sometimes  of  a most  undesirable  qua- 
lity. Portswood  tea  is  pilloried  for  its  terrible  fall 
Is  4Jd  to  Is  ljd;  but  this  is  the  result  of  three 
poor  shipments,  for  the  teas,  with  these  exceptions, 
were  during  the  year  as  fine  as  ever.  This  knocks 
on  the  head  the  croaker  who  often  tells  you 
11  Ceylon  tea  is  steadily  becoming  weaker.”  Boga- 
wantalawa  catches  it.  “ The  inferiority  of  the  teas 
from  this  district  was  very  noticeable  towards  the 
close  of  the  year.”  I hope  the  lively  proprietor  of 
Holmwood  did  not  chuckle  over  this  sentence  ! He 
was  quite  right  to  show  the  public  that  the  Agra 
Pataua  tea  is  quite  as  good  as  Bogawantalawa. 
Who  is  responsible  for  this  cutting  in  two  of  the 
Dikoya  district  ? Wilson,  Smithett  & Co.  paraphrase 
the  old  saying  “ with  all  thy  faults  I love  thee 
still”  by  patting  Ceylon  on  the  back  and  con- 
cluding “Ceylon  continues  not  merely  to  hold  its 
own,  but  to  beat  its  rivals  in  these  days  of  keen 
competition.”  Let  us  hope  Ceylon  planters  will  send 
them  large  and  numerous  invoices  of  tea  as  a re- 
ward for  that  last  “ pick  ’em  up.” 
In  looking  over  the  averages  one  is  surprised  that 
Kalutara  beats  Kelany  Valley.  How  is  this.  Is 
there  not  a lot  of  ironstone  in  the  Ka'utara  dis- 
trict as  compared  with  the  latter?  Why  should  the 
fine  old  districts  of  Kelebokka,  Knuckles  and  Ran- 
galla  allow  Dolosbage  and  Yakdessa  to  “ take 
thp  cake.” 
Let  us  now  see  what  Messrs.  George  White  & Co. 
sav: — Unfavourable  climatic  influences,  (good  sounding 
sentence  that)  and  moderate  plucking  prevented 
our  getting  worse  prices  than  at  one  time  were 
pprehended.  These  worthy  brokers  go  on  the  tack 
of  making  us  thankful  for  small  mercies.  Oh  George 
White!  George  White!  what  is  this  I see  you  write 
about  Ceylon.  “ After  the  turn  of  the  year,  how- 
ever business  slackened”  (no  objection  to  that  re. 
mark)  “ owing  partly  to  many  of  the  teas  lacking 
strength  and  fulness”— the  same  old  whine,  and  from 
thee  Tu  Brute  ! ! Did  the  recording  Angel  of  George 
White’s  publishing  department  drop  a tear  when  he 
wrote  that  1,000,000  lb.  of  tea  found  a good  market 
in  the  Hoogly  ? This  excellent  firm  tell  us  that 
75.000. 000  lb.  of  Ceylon  tea  are  wanted  in  London. 
If  therefore  we  ship  5,000,000  lb.  tea  to  Australia, 
Ceylon  will  thus  accommodate  him  if  we  export 
80.000. 000  lb.  this  season.  Let  us  devoutly  hope  that 
the  banking  trouble  will  not  affect  for  long  the  trade 
direct  with  the  Colonies. 
Mr.  Hughes  has  done  the  Planting  community  good 
service  by  his  careful  attention  being  given  to  our 
Tea  Agriculture.  His  latest  talk  with  your  London 
Correspondent  re  tea  leaf  stalk  being  so  much  to  the 
front  in  Ceylon  teas,  is  interesting.  Is  not  the  whole 
leaf  plucking  responsible  for  this  state  of  matters  ? 
The  coolies  have  a much  easier  task  in  plucking  on 
the  whole  leaf  system,  but  no  doubt  we  get  more 
stalk  thereby.  Mr.  Hughes  has  found  out  in  theory 
what  some  of  us  found  out  in  practice  that  fine 
plucking  punished  our  bushes  more  than  medium 
plucking.  It  is  time  we  went  in  for  finding  out  what 
manure  will  keep  up  our  trees.  Cattle  manure  is  out 
of  the  question,  except  to  a very  limited  extent, 
and  it  is  ridiculous  to  expect  that  our  tea,  mostly 
grown  on  old  coffee  soils,  can  go  on  yielding  300 
to  400  lb  of  tea  yearly  without  any  return  to  the 
soil  of  what  is  taken  out  of  it. 
Our  Exports  of  Tea  to  Date.— Two  millions  ahead 
of  same  date  last  year  means  6,000,000  lb.  of  an  in- 
crease to  our  last  year’s  exports.  That  can  be  taken 
off  easily. 
THE  COCONUT  OIL  SITUATION  IN 
AMERICA. 
In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  large  break  in  the  price 
of  tallow  has  caused  a stoppage  of  the  demand  for  all 
competing  materials,  including  coconut  oil,  the  posi- 
tion of  the  last  named  commodity  is  a peculiarly 
strong  one.  The  predictions,  made  in  the  article  in 
our  issue  of  January  23rd,  have  been  closely  fulfilled^ 
and  many  of  the  conditions  which  then  prevailed,  are 
still  to  be  numbered  among  the  influences  controlling 
the  market  for  Ceylon  coconut  oil  today.  We  referred 
then  to  the  scarcity  of  supplies  in  the  primary  market 
and  to  the  fact  that  no  considerable  quantity  of  the  oil 
would  be  available  for  shipment  until  the  end  of 
March.  This  is  proved  by  the  very  small  shipments 
made  of  late,  the  vessels  that  have  recently'  sailed 
bringing  only  from  50  to  200  tons  each.  The  largest 
shipment  so  far  reported  is  some  hundred  tons  on  the 
Glen  Morag,  which  cannot  get  here  much  before  the 
middle  of  July.  There  is  very  little  available  stock 
here  at  present,  and  as  no  additions,  and  then  only 
very  small  ones,  are  expected  for  the  next  tninetydays, 
and  improvement  in  the  demand  is  very  likely  to 
cause  a material  advance  in  prices,  and  this  is 
the  more  probable  because  of  the  very  strong  cable 
advices  received  of  late  from  the  primary  Bource  of 
supply.  According  to  these  reports  there  is  very  little 
stock,  and  that  little  is  being  constantly  drawn  upon 
to  ratisfy  a demand  from  India,  where  the  use  of  this 
oil  appears  to  be  rapidly  extending.  The  effect  of  these 
conditions  is  shown  by  the  advancing  prices  in  Co- 
lombo, the  last  quotation  from  there  being  fully  equal 
to  the  iuside  quotation  for  Bpot  stock.  But  for  the 
slump  in  tallow,  tl  ere  is  no  doubt  that  the  spot  market 
for  Ceylon  coconut  oil  would  have  promptly  responded 
to  the  advance  on  the  other  side.  As  it  is,  buyers,  who 
are  still  pretty  well  supp'ied  by  deliveries  made  earlier 
in  the  yea-,  are  holding  off,  awaitmg  further  develop- 
ments in  the  tallow  market  and  any  improvement  in 
prices,  is  consequently  out  of  the  question  at  pres- 
ent. However,  the  outlook  is  highly  encouraging  to 
sellers  of  the  oil.  The  present  indifference  of  buyers 
cannot  long  continue,  and  when  they  are  foroed  into 
the  market  by  actual  necessity  the  present  strong 
