April 1, 1901.1 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
.691 
THE MAZAWATTE TEA COMPANY : 
HOW TEA PAYS THE BlG DISTRIBUTO*ES. 
By the mail we have received a circular 
inviting applica.tions for 26,000 five per-cent. 
cumulative preference shares in this Company, 
of £5 each (all the unissued preference shares), 
at a premium of 5/- per share. Applicants may, 
on allotment, pay up the whole balance in 
advance, and will be allowed interest at the 
rate of £4 per cent, per annum on the amount 
so paid in advance. Dividends will be pay- 
able in the months of July and January for 
the half-years ending 31st June and 31st 
December. The first payment will be cal- 
culated from the dates fixed for payment of 
the respectiye instalments iip to 2lst June, 
1901. The minimum subscription on which 
the directors may proceed to allotment is 
£100,000. It is added :— During the past year 
the process of consolidating the Company's 
business premises has been proceeding; the 
building of the new factory at New Cross has 
been pressed on : the tea department is now 
established there ; the necessary new build- 
ings to enable the Company to commence 
business in cocoa and its allied trades have 
also been proceeded with and are in course 
of rapid completion. The registered office 
and sale rooms have been removed from 
Eastcheap to the Tower Hill Warehouses, 
which have been converted and altered for 
the purpose, and when finished will form a 
complete business establishment in a fine 
position. Owing to the very much greater 
volume of trade, the rise in the tea duties, 
and the extension of the basis of the Com- 
pany's operations, a larger aaiount of work- 
ing capital is required. The Company's 
capital iias been increased accordingly by 
20,000 five per cent, cumulative preference 
shares of £5 each, and 50,000 ordinary 
shares of £1 each, making the total 
capital of the Company £400,000 in pre- 
ference and £400,000 in ordinary shares. 
All the un-issued preference shares (26,000 
in number) are now offered at the price of 
£5 5s per share. The 50,000 further ordinary 
shares are kept in reserve to provide for 
future capital requirements, and may be issiaed 
as and when the directors thinlc fit, but at 
a premium of not less than 10s per share. 
The directors do not contemplate issuing any 
debentures, and the articles of Association 
provide that no issue of debentures or deben- 
ture stock shall be made without the author- 
ity of an extraordinary resolution duly 
passed by the Company in general meeting. 
The hist annual report and accounts show 
£75,000 has been placed to reserve in the live 
years of the Company's trading : 
The dividends paid by the Company on its ordi- 
nary shares have been as follows :— 
1896.. ... 8 per cent 
1897.. ... .. 8 per cent 
1898.. ... .. 8 per cent 
1899. ..8 per cent witii a bonus of 
1 percent = 9 per cent 
1900. ..8 per cent with a bonus of 
1 per cent = 9 p^r cent 
The preference shares at the price of issue 
will return to the investor £4 15s 3d per cent. 
It will be seen from the profits of the past 
eight years that the dividend is very amply 
secured. The amount required to pay the 
dividend on the whole 80,000 preference shares 
is only £20,000. 
<S>— ■ 
"MANURES" REQUIRED TO IMPROVE 
THE QUALITY OF TEA: 
MR. MANN INSTANCES THE PAEALLEI. CASE OF 
VIRGINIAN TOBACCO 
One of the most interesting speeches made 
at the Calcutta- meeting of the Indian Tea 
Association was by the Scientific Expert, 
Mr. Mann. We quote the remarks in full as 
of special interest to Ceylon producers at 
this time : — 
Mr. Mann said : The Chairman has asked me 
to s.iy something about the tour recently made by 
me in tlie tea districts and in the course of »vhicli 
I visited almost every section in Assam, There was 
nothing which struck me more during the whole of 
that tour tlian the fact that during the past few 
years tliere has been a continual expansion of tea, 
and really without any effort or very little being 
made to keep np tlie production of the area ah-eady 
under tea ; in f 'ct one or two gardens which I savv 
gave litr'ires that seem to show that witli tlie area 
doubled the product of tea was precisely the same 
as it had been l)efore. I cannot help the convicti«u 
that the whole of that decreased reduction per acre 
under tea cannot be explained by any method of 
finer phicking. What we need is a concentration 
of attention to the area already under tea. To say 
the least, it is a bail thing to go on extending the 
tea area without giving time, attention or money to 
keeping up the productioii of the area already 
under tea. At the present moment it does not seem 
the idea of the Jonnnittee or of the tea industry to 
increase production at all. The idea is more that 
we should devote our attention to improving the 
quality, or nther keeping up the quality we have 
already attained to. There seems to be no doubt 
that during the past ten years the quality of the 
tea from a very large number of the Assam gartlens 
has deteriorated ; that is more especially the case 
01! those districts which have up to the present 
been famed for a Idgh quality of tea. I am at 
present devoting more attention to this point 
than to any other. My investigations at present 
are directed to finding what constituents in the 
soil render it capable of producing high quality 
tea and what con^itituents are present in those 
gardens vidiich are or have been famed for the 
quality of the tea they have produced. This im- 
urovement of retentive quality may be dealt with 
in iliflerent ways ; one is fine plucking. Here I 
shuuld like to make a di.etinction which is not 
always made between fine and close pluckinc. 
Fine plucking I don't think will improve the 
quality of the tea to any great extent; on the oilier 
hand, close plucking will undoubtedly do so, but 
at the expense of the tea bush. Therefore one 
will have to balance the gain by an increased pro- 
duct with the injury to the tea bush caused by 
close plucking. Another way of dealing with the 
subject is to ascertain what measures are likely to 
improve the quality. This has been the litie wliirii 
has been followed in Anierica in relation toother 
industries with great success. I might instance 
tobacco i;i Maryland and Massachusetts where the 
quality has been improved to a very appreciable 
extent, and on similar lines I think we may im- 
