Dec. 1, 1900,] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
409 
The first of these in spite of what has been 
.said lately to discount the value of expert advice 
is to raise a greater outturn from the same area 
or to keep the outturn stationary on a smaller 
area. This the experience of Ceylon shows to 
be possible by the employment of manures, but, 
indeed, that object lesson was hardly needed 
to pro\e Die already known value of scientific 
plant ftv lina;. It is arguable that with manures 
twice the number of plants could be profitably 
planted in an acre of land than the 2,000 odd 
wliich seems to be the present allowance. 
What is wanted now is not a large quantity of 
big leaf, but a numerous progeny of tips. What 
serves the large Souchong leaf that the market 
says must hereafter be left on the bushes? The 
saving of labour in hoeing and weeding and the 
increased outturn of better quality per acre would 
very materially affect the general position. 
It is also \vorth while to ask whether the 
system of pruning now followed will not have 
soon to be abandoned as radically wi-ong in 
px'inciple. I would have tea planted in solidly 
hedges as in the old days and allowed to grow 
as such. The flat tabular form is, I think, the 
most unsuited that can be devised, having re- 
gard to the physiology of plants. Nature points 
out the pyramidal form as the proper one. 
Pruning then should become a process for elimi- 
nation of decadent or inferior growth only, very 
different from what it is now, and plucking 
might have to be done on stepladder*-'. Planters 
who talk of "plucking surface " forget that that 
surface is never full, and, moreover, the bush 
would necessarily become just as broad in a 
pyramidal as in a tabular form, and plucking 
surface so far as that determines anything would 
not suffer. 
On improvement of quality I hardly think 
many planters set much store. Quality is a 
relative term, and all tea said to possess quality 
only holds that distinction in reference to some 
other not so good. It follows therefore that in 
a general improvement the position would not 
be bettered ; nevertheless quality is a fad with 
many people v\fhom we cannot afford to ignore. 
It is very doubtful whether better quality all 
round would hasten the annual increase in the 
consumption of tea, and better quality all 
round would certainly not of itself bring better 
prices without increased demand at the same 
time. I am not of those who believe that all the 
improvements and care of the last 20 years 
have resulted in deterioration of quality. Most 
certainly quality has gradually bettered, yet 
prices liave gone down, and the man who says 
they have gone down relatively as quality has 
gone backward is not worth arguing with. 
Much of the China crop is made in the same 
way it was ever made and under the same con- 
ditions exactly, yet there also prices have gone 
down. 
But for progress' sake quality ought to— and 
I believe does — steadily go forward and upward 
by slow degrees. The policy of •' direct fi'om 
tea-garden to tea-pot" has much to answer for 
in keeping down quality. Tea requires time 
. and a great deal of it to mature, and instead of 
"direct" being a recommendation, it is the re- 
. verse. Who that has tasted well-kept tea three 
years old would give it for tea three months 
old, or doubt the wisdom of hurrying it "direct 
from tea-garden to tea-pot." Yet the phrase is 
a catchy one and for its sake the planter has 
suffered much in pocket and reputation. Doubt- 
less the planter can improve quality, but only 
at the expense of a decent volume of crop. 
With closer planting and forced growth much 
may, however, be accomplished, and it is in 
this direction rather than in manipulation in 
the factory that his efforts will be best rewarded. 
All this so far as the tea plant is concerned 
is striving in an artificial direction, which Dr. 
Watt tells us involves blight and disease. To 
combat these by medicaments and decoctions 
of sorts is futile ; when tea can otdy survive by 
virtue of sulphur and black soap, we shall be in 
a bad way indeed. In China 1,500 years of 
artificial treatment has not hurt the tea plant 
and can it be said that India has not the moans 
of perpetuating her industry on similar lines? 
A disease-resisting hybrid is quite possible, and 
until that is forthcoming we have the old China 
jdt itself. The present wants of the tea plant- 
ting world seem to point to a revival of the 
China jdt or its near relatives. Immune from 
most blights it grows like privet, well nigh 
impossible to kill above ground ; it may be 
slaughtered, but adventitious buds on the roots 
rejuvenate the whole plant in a few months. 
It is an early yielding plant. Hail might be 
laughed at by the owner of China jdt ; you never 
come amiss to China, it always has a crop of 
silver downy tips during the growing season. 
With China, the planter may at will relax his 
field supervision, for in no oper'ation can the bush 
be permanently damaged. The want of size in 
the bush is made up for by number. Until 
therefore a hybrid is produced combining the 
best proved qualities of the indigenous with 
those of the China, here lies the salvation of tea. 
In the day which is surely coming when only 
the extreme tip of shoots will be plucked, the 
China will be the heaviest cropper, and its leaf 
weight for weight with indigenous under the 
conditions, will, when manufactured, bring in 
more money than the other.— X. 
—Indian Gm-dening and Planting, Oct. 18th. 
^t, 
A MONSTROUS BLACK COBRA. 
{From a Correspondent.) 
Travancore, Nov. 2nd.— It was a revelation 
to me to hear in the course of last week from a 
Mahomedan officer ot the Government Telegraphs 
that he saw, one noon, on the public road from 
Quilon to Shencottah, ,31st milestone, a black cobra 
{Krishna Sarpom or Kari Nagam as he called it) 
30 feet long, 15 inches in breadth, and having a 
hood which he rouglily estimated at 18 inclies 
broad. He and his coolies, who numbered about 
60, were working in the juns;le when the monster 
appeared and the men were scared, as they took 
it to be a mountain-snake which they were afraid 
would devour them ; but when they pelted at it, 
it could scarcely move, it was so dull and slug- 
gish, due to the fact, as my informant believes, 
that it had had a heavy meal. But every time 
that the coolies pelted, it raised its hood and 
showed that it was a cobra. It v*-as for some time 
nmving forwards and backwards on the road 
while pelted, not being able to (ind out a way to 
escape, but at last discovering a crevice in the 
parapet wall on the road side descended into the 
ravine below and dashed oft' at an enormous speed, 
which my informant tells me was incredibly fast. 
He measured the trail of the snake with a tape 
and satisfied himself that it was 15 inches in 
breadih. The length he ascertained also with the 
tape trying to remember, as well as he could, 
the points on the ground where the snake's head 
and tail were. This can only be approximately 
correct, as also the estimate of the 18 inclies 
breadth at the hood. Will your readers enlighten 
me through your colnmns, whether they can be- 
lieve this story ? There are specialists on the 
subject of snakes in Travancore, one of whom is 
