124 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [Aug. 1, 1900, 
To the Editor. 
OVER-PRODUCTION OF INDIAN AND 
CEYLON TEA AND THE REMEDIES. 
London, E C, July 5. 
Dear Sir,— I do not know whether your 
attention has already been directed to the 
letter of Mr. William Mackenzie, which ap- 
peared in the Home and Colonial Mail, of 
June 22nd ; but, if not, I should like to do so 
now, and <at the same time to add that I 
sent a criticism of the same by myself which 
appeared in the issue of the 29th. 
Curiously enough, the paper containing my 
communication contains also a full report of 
the speech of Mr. James Sinclair, the Chair- 
man of the Dimbula Valley Tea Company, 
on the occasion of the 4th annual meeting, 
of the speeches made at which I was quite 
ignorant. Yon will see that Mr. Sinclair 
recognises that for estates whose present 
average outturn does not exceed .300 lb. tea 
per annum, manuring is necessary in order 
to make such estates produce remunerative 
results at the present low prices, and that 
if such estates cannot afford the cost of 
manuring woe l)etide such gardens. 
As pointed out in my letter our most ex- 
perienced agriculturists fully recognise the 
necessity of some kind of manuring for all 
crops, and provided that the climate and 
rainfall are suitable, the poverty of the 
soil need be no bar to successful cropping 
under the influence of Judicious manuring. 
Of course, economy and suitability must be 
studied in the selection of the particular 
manures, and these manures should further 
be adapted to the soil and elevation of the 
estate, for the higher the elevation the more 
nitrogen is required. 
Certainly there are estates the soil of which 
is of so coarse a character, and so poor in 
quality, that it would be better to allow 
such land to go out of cultivation and to 
concentrate attention upon the cultivation 
and manuring of land better adapted to tea. 
It is to points such as these that proprie- 
tors and shareholders should direct energetic 
action, for in these times of low prices, it is 
essential that personal attention should be 
fiven to the management.— Yours faith- 
uUy, JOHN HUGHES. 
THE CULTIVATION AND MANURING 
OP TEA : 
REFERENCE TO SIR JOHN LAWES, 
BART. 
Binfield Manor, Bracknell. July 6. 
Sir, — Mr. Talbot, under date the 2nd instant, 
lia^s favored nie with a copy of (he letter sent 
you by last mail. He does not in so many words 
say so, and I have had no opportunity of seeing 
liiin on tiie subject; but I take it he is under the 
iinprcKsion, from the quotation he f^ives you from 
Sir John Lawes' lei ter of tlie 28th June, that he 
did not misunderstand that gentleman as I stated 
lie did in the reference to it in my speech to the 
Piinbula Valley abareholdcrs, 
At the risk of appearing to labour the ])oint, 
whether he did or not, whilst I ain willing to 
leave my letter to Sir John Lawes, (copy of which 
I enclose) and the quot.ition from his rf'idy read 
at the annual meeting of tiie Dimbula Valley 
Company to spe^ik tor themselves, 1 must dwell 
on the fact in order that planters may licve the 
fullest information on the points at issue. With 
regard to tlie further opinion which he 
obtained in writinfj; from Sir John, so that there 
should be no " niiscoiiception on tlie point ", I am 
afraid Mr. Talbot himself hardlv grasps it. In his 
.speech at the C.T.P. Co. meeting he was depre- 
cating the use of forcing luamires and referred to 
sulpli.-vte of anihionia as one he deprecated the 
u^e of, and intimated that he was backed up iu 
this by Sir John Lawes. Sir Jotin, however, in 
his letter to me expie~ses surprise that Mr. 
Talbot .should have misunderstood hini, vide 
quotation frniii Sir John Lawes's letter to me. 
'llie further opinion, although to some extent a 
quaiiiif'ation of what he wrwte to me and for a 
reason I shall explai'i, bears out my conSention 
that he does, not thi-ik that sul|diate of ammonia 
is too forcing, in ordinary doses of course. He 
says : " My objection to sulphate of ammonia 
does not arise bemuse it is a hi<jhly nitrogenous' 
manure (the italics aie mine) but because it 
removes lime from the soil and I find that the 
Ceyloii soils are rather poor in lime" — that is, he 
does not object to it! because it is a forcing manure 
but because it exhausts the soil of lime. Except- 
ing that he would not disapprove of its use unless 
on the score that he does not think it the most 
economical medium of giving a continuous supply 
of nitrogen to the plants, this is entirely differ- 
ent from saying it is too forcing or dangerous to 
the life of the tea plant. 
At the date Sir John expressed surprise at being 
niisuderstood by Mr. Talbot he was not aware 
that our soils were deficient in lime, and only came 
to know of it when he perused the soil ani.lysis 
giyen in Messrs. Bamber's last pamphlet, which 
I presented him with, after the Dimbula Valley 
meeting; and in talking the subject over with 
him, he told me that his conversation on the 
subject of ammonia salts with Mr. Talbot was 
quite in a casual way; he thus had not the data 
at that time to enable him to arrive at the some- 
what modified opinion he now gives. No one who 
knows Mr. Talbot would ascribe to him a desire 
to mislead his fellow planters ; but in studying 
the Rothamsted experiments whi;di he clearly 
does not fully comprehend and in making his 
deduction public ire is not only doing so, but 
himself as well. For instance, his personal 
opinion is " seeing that where sulphate of amino- 
nia has been applied for a series of years on 
permanent pastures patches of grass are dying 
out,'' he is " more than ever convinced that the 
use of this manure is attended with risk to the 
tea plant." Now in the first place he is in error 
in calling the experiment one on "permanent 
pasture." It is on permanent grass land produc- 
ing hay which has been mowed and carried off the 
field, every pound of it, twice each year for a series 
of years, and not pasture for grazing purposes. 
In one case the ammonia, and that fertiliser only , 
let it be noticed, has been applied for a series 
of years. If it had been grazed upon, and only 
the nitrogen and phosphates removed in the process 
of cattle-feeding on the field, Sir John would 
tell liim even sulphate of ammonia used by itself 
would not have had the effect he describes. But 
where can Mr, Talbot point to a, single instancy 
