638 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[March 1, 1901. 
some and beat many easily. Cho;i,p plucking 
means wretched quality and it acts in many 
ways. Fifst, the coolie has to work so 
quickly that many mature leaves are missed 
and when the next turn to pluck tliem 
comes these leaves, instead of producing 
broken pekoe and pekoc, are only fit for 
making souchong and congou, if intleed they 
should not have to be discarded altogether ; 
secondly, this cheap plucking means ripping 
the trees when the shoots are young and 
succulent, causing the trees to cease yielding 
much sooner than they would otherwise have 
done had they been more gently ;\n(l care- 
fully plucked ; thiidly, to secure this cheap 
working, continual i)runing at short inter- 
vals is done, adding fuel to the lire in the 
shape of poor thin weak Teas. Then this 
pruning must also be done cheaply, which 
means that the trees are hasheil to pieces 
in the same way as a Sinhalese man cuts 
varitchies with a blunt vettu catiie. 
I have only to add further that for the past 
eight years my prices have kept exactly 2h(l 
above the rate for all Ceylon, with cai-eful 
phicking and pruning once in two years. 
The yield has been over 500 II) jier acre for 
these years and for 1900 i.s 530 Ih. without 
manure. Improved quality means less quan- 
tity ; the tea itself being worth more money 
and a less quantity being i)roduced, our 
position will lie thereby doubly beneHted — 
I am yours faithfully, 
RGBT. C. BOWIE. 
OVERPRODUCTION— AND (UVING TEA 
BUSHES " LEST' ? 
(THKBU.SH MVST AYK BE GROWING AND PRO- 
DUCING FRUIT IV NOT LEAF.) 
Feb 5. 
Sir, — I ilo not believe ill t lie rceiipeiative effect 
of allowing tea bushe.s to remain nnplacked. If 
tliey eea.sed to grow, it iiii;;lit have that effect, 
but as tliey do not, they <lia\v tKunisliMient from 
the i-oil, and as they grow, they hecome fruit 
bearei'P, and require much more iiouri.i-hment, 
and the biirger they v.i'O"', niore fruit do ihey 
produce, and naturally lequiie much more food. 
Just as a cat requires more food lliiui a mouse, 
and a tiger inoie thari a cat, the largera liuit 
bearing-tree is, the more it exhausts the ele- 
ments that sustain it. 
U is the f^eneral opinion amongst tea i)lanters, 
tliat plucking the bushes exhausts them more or 
less ; iliey thitik that, when a hush has been 
plucked continuously f r twelve months or two 
years, iind tiie shoots .t;et clogged and form Avhat 
are called crows' nests, and it almost ceases to 
flu'h, this is a sign of weakness, or ex- 
haustion. I do not think it is anything of the 
kind. It is in my opinion simply a sign that the 
bush wants pruning, if you want it to flusii. 
For when it is pinned, what happens? It grows 
with increased vitality, and tiushes again for an- 
other couple of yeais, wi.en it aaain calls upon 
the planter to piu-ie it, if he •want'' it to flush. 
At one lime, I thought that frequent pruning 
was injurious, but subsequent observation and 
reflection convinced me that it was not so. 
I have seen Cinnamon bushes cut down annually 
for cropping purposes, for lifty years, and they 
(rrew ujj again with increased vitality, and 
thi^se bushes, growri apparently in the poorebt 
soil, had been treated in ilie same way 
for lifty years previou-ly by the Ducch. 
Moreover I liave seen yew, i>rivet, and thorn 
hedges, in Englanil, which had been cut down, 
and trimmed, for hnndieds ot years, without 
shewing any sijjns of being injured by theo|)er.a- 
tion. I think, therefore, iliat an exhaustion of the 
soil, from nourishing the husl!, and old age 
will alone diminish the vitality and flushing 
powers of the tea plant, after it is pruneil. The 
longevity of the tci plant, in suitable soils aim 
climatis, is still undcfinei'. 
As an ijlustration of ils vitality, I may men- 
tion a surprising incident within my own kno»v- 
ledge. In 1S60 the Agent of my lii ni at Chitta 
gong sent a large quantity of tea seed to Ceylon. 
This was planteil in a nui spry amidst coffee plants; 
the field of coll'ee was abandoned in J8G2and with 
it the nuisery of tea. Twenty years afterwards the 
Cheiia — 20 feit high— was felled, and bnrnt oft", 
and a]iparently all vegetation was destroyed. 
With the first rains, wondeiful to say. ihe tea 
shot up most luxuriantly, as if it had only been 
cut down, whilst all the other plants burned 
off were killed ! 
0. S. 
P. S. — I have written the above, because I 
notice that many experienced planters talk of 
giving the plants rest by not jducking them. If 
they could send them to sleep thereby, like Rip 
Van Winkle, it might have that elleci ; but that 
soit of rest mca' s increased exlnustion of the 
soil, by converting a small leif-Lcarer into a 
\aise fnnt-bearer. — C. S. 
TEA : OVER-PRODUCTION AND ITS 
REMEDIES. 
HOW THKY ARE AFFECTED BY CURRENCY. 
Hill Grove Hotel, Coonoor, Nilgiris, Feb. 23. 
Sir,— I have lately visited Bombay, Cal- 
cutta, and Madras, and I am now confident 
from all I have been able to hear that the 
Government must either sacrifice its Indian 
exporting industries or its currency policy ; 
and (I say) exporting industries, because an 
industry like that of coal is not at present 
affected as it is produced and sold iu silver. 
Were there no artificial rate of exchange the 
struggle between India and her indttstrial 
rivals would be detei'mined by the relative 
cost of labour, and India having cheap labour 
would well lie able to hold her own. But the 
Indian Government compels its producers to 
pay Is 4d for a rupee while the competing 
countries can purchase one for lljd. When 
prices were high India could still continue to 
struggle through under a disadvantage of 
about 25 per cent, but with low prices profits 
made either vanish or descend to a very low 
level. Even taking the rupee at 12^d the 
difference between that rate and one of Is 
4d would entail on the Indian producer a 
loss of £.583 cn every £4,000 worth of an 
exported article. But the producer could 
live on £.583 per annum till better times 
came round. Without that sum he must 
starve, or at any rate approach that dis- 
agreeable condition. The ultimate point of 
the struggle between India and her rivals is 
not one of the comparative cost of labour, 
