THE lEOPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[Kov. 1, 1900. 
strength thau the colour indicates. The severe cold 
weather of last winter appears to have conclusively 
tested tea culcure in South Carolina, so far as climate 
is concerned. The unusually cold weather did not 
materially diminish the crop, the percentage of planta 
apparently injured was small, and of those killed still 
smaller The production is necessarily dear, owing to 
the comparatively high price of labour, and this difh- 
culty must be met by greater productiveness, substitu- 
tion of machinery for hand labour in the factory, and 
by the cultivation and manufacture o those qualities 
of tea which, from inhsreut chemical causes, cannot 
be transported from the East without losing their 
delicacy of flavour. One essential to greater product- 
iveness is abundance of the richest plant food, natural 
or artificial. High-class teas in the East are dried at 
low temperatures in order to preserve those volatile 
principles that give them delicacy and flavour, i-hey 
So not retain their best qualities for any length of time 
and cannot for this reason be advantageously shipped 
abroad. Herein may be foand the most profitable Held 
for tea experiment in America, as there can be no 
competition from abroad in the higher gradea " can 
be demonstrated that their successful cultivation is 
possible. It has been suggested that probably the best 
chance for success in this direction will lie in the 
development of selections oi long Pekoe tips foi the 
manufacture of Mandarin tea such as is made in Ohina. 
— London Times, Sept. 3. 
PUMPKINS AS A FODDER. 
at times when the tea was carelessly fed into the 
hopper, that moie dust v/as made than was 
desirable, and moreover, foreign substances, such 
as nails, pieces of haiiiboo, &c., wliicli in tlie best 
regulateil lea-houses do sometimes manage to tind 
tlieir way into the tea bulk, were not easily de- 
tected. The rocking tray, above alluded to, pre- 
sents a large surface, on which a whole basketful 
of tea may be emptied, and spread out, the tea 
being gradually moved towards the " iSreaker " 
by the vibration of the tray, and any foreign 
substances can be easily detected and removed. 
Moreover, no possible breakage, or rubbing, of 
the lea can take place, until it comes ij contact 
with the knives, or cutting teeth, in the interior 
of the machine. 
This tray is moved by a small eccentric on 
each bide of the projecting driving spindle, and 
is balanced by weights; it works noiselessly, and 
a iiio-it satisfactory report upou it has been re- 
ceived from A.-isaiu, where the new attachment 
has been thoroughly tested,— 7/. and C. Mail, 
Sei>t. li. 
Writing to the AucUancl News, a farmer says : 
experience with the pumpkin is, all the animals that 
My 
hat 
cooked or un- 
I fiaVe, including the cats, relish it 
cooked, erery part, seeds and all, disappear quickly. 
For a number of years I have used various foods for 
rtairv nurposes— potatoes, turnips of several kinds, 
Solds,^also green maize. The root crops are 
Mstly to produce; too great a percentage of water 
in them. The mangold gives v! ell-flavoured milk and 
butter when used or fed with good grass hay. The 
best results I obtaioed was from the pumpkin with 
crass hay and prairie-grass. Whatever the experi- 
fnce of others may be, my opinion is that the three 
tbove-mentioned foods are superior to all others for 
dakyini or fattening purposes. The pumpkin is 
highly nutritious, the prairie grass is far superior to 
*nv of the other grasses as hay, or used m the green 
ttate The pumpkin is easy of cultivation, clean 
to handle, no cost of digging as m root crops. Should 
anyone elect to use the three foods, and after fa r 
trial they tind thorn more suitable aud profitable 
foods their advice and knowledge would be very 
irrentable. The most convenient method to prodace 
Jbe^u^^lin and prairie-grass would be to grow both 
in one Suitable paddock-say three acres-one acre 
oumpkins, and two acres grass When pumpkins are 
t^kea off prepare for grass ; break up one acre of 
ItS and u.e for pumpkins or, in other words use 
in rotation. A stack of good meadow hay as a stand- 
by h very desirable. The result will be, with a good 
Bhelter shed, good milk aud butter, and rich manure. 
LEAF 
KEID'S BREAKER OR TEA 
EQUALISING MACHINE. 
AN IMPORTANT IMfROVKMENT. 
A machine that has been before the public for 
ft number of years, and one that has proved its 
merits and usefulness by the large number of sales. 
il iho Self-Feeding Tea Breaking Maclune, intro- 
duced by Mr! GeW K^id, of theMeleng Tea 
'^Tn^'improvement lias recently been made in 
this machine. The hopper arrangement and the 
roller have been done away with, and a 
■fluted 
'large 
rocUing tray is substituted. ' It was found 
Boous Tea. — During the past year 226 samples of 
tea, representing 3,322 packages when tested at the 
Government laboratories, were found to contain ex- 
hausted leaves, or to bs mixed with sand or other ille« 
gal substances aud were consequently refused admie- 
sion for home consumption. Of these 3,322 packages 
2,274 were exported, presumably as being good enough 
for f 01 eiguers, aud 1,018 packages were destroyed. It 
would be interesting to learn more about this tea, aud 
to discover where it comes from and where it goes to, 
that is the 2,274 exported packages. We trust they 
are not described by the name of Indian or Ceylon in 
some foreign country where the knowledge of tea is 
very limited. 
When China Wakes Up. — Indian and Ceylon plant- 
ers are often told that one of these days China will 
rouse herself aud become a formidable competitor in 
the attempt to control the tea markets of the world. In 
this connection it may be noted that in the Geographi- 
cal Section of the British Association an address was 
delivered on Tuesday by Mr. G. Ghisholai, upon some 
consequences that may be anticipated from the 
development of thd resources of the Chinese 
Empire by modern methods. He assumed that its 
development was about to progress. Referring to tea 
and silk he said that : " In the silk trade China had 
felt constrained, by the example of Japan, to discard 
primitive hand methods of manufacture, while in the 
tea trade the severe as well as continuously progres- 
sive competition of Ceylon aud India had taught the 
Chinese a salutary lesson, aud induced them to make 
experiments with leaf-rolling machinery, the product 
of which was found to yield high prices in London." 
Mr. Chisholm claims that the development of China 
was bound to have world-wide effects, on a scale of 
extraordinary magnitude. Among the consequences 
that might be anticipated from this opening up were : 
—(I) A rise in prices in China, especially in the 
industrial regions ; (2) the creation of a demand for 
food stuffs not likely to be supplied by China 
itself, a demand which in itself would be one 
of the most povferful causes contributing to 
maintain the rise in prices ; (3) the imparting 
of a great stimulus to the food-producing regions 
most favourably situated for meeting this demand, 
more particularly Manchuria, Siberia and Western 
America and probably the Pacific States of North 
America to a greater extent than Canada ; (4) 
perhaps the most important of all would be the 
creation of a tendency to a gradual but prolonged 
rise in wheat and other grain prices all the 
world over, reversing the process that has been going 
on since about 1870,— /i. and C, Mail, Sept. li, 
