758 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [May 1, 190L 
is left with the iiroj^ressive horticulturists aud 
farmers of the South." 
So long as South Carolinians are rearly to 
pay a dollar (4s Qd) a pound for a novelty, 
good and well ; but thev must soon know 
that quite as good Oeylon or Indian tea 
can be supplied on the spot, duty paid, for 
23 a lb. or at most 2s (W, leaving a fair 
profit to dealers. And that being the case 
it is impossible to treat Dr. Shnphard's as 
other than an interesting amateur experi- 
ment, worthy of support ft)r the employ- 
ment it gives to coloured children, but by no 
means able to compete, in a commercial point 
of view, witli tea-growing in the orient. 
THE DECAY OF COPSE CUI.TURB. 
Not the least hard-hit branch of the fanner's 
industry is the cultivation of the copae-wood that 
fornisa conspicuousfeature inthelandscape of many 
of the Southern counties. Consi.^tinpr of hazel, ash, 
alder, and otlier saplings clustering thickly from a 
close-cropped stump, the wood of the-e copses 
furnished till late years a considerable revenue. The 
trimming was done on the spot during the cut- 
tin<' of the copses, which were then left to them- 
selves for a terTu of years till tney had grown 
again ; and the trimmed sticks were largely 
used to supply the wooden bands which formed 
the binding oi the small rough casks in which 
sugar and other foreign produce was distributed 
about the country. Now, however, merchants 
have largely ceased to import their sugar in 
quantities too bulky for retail distribution ; and 
with this improvement the need for repacking 
into smaller receptacles has disappeared, and 
with it one of the chief markets for the copse- 
wood. Add to this the increasing rarity of 
labourers skilleil in trimming it, and the fact 
that, though this operation only comes once in 
several years, it is a lengthy and expensive Imsi- 
ness, anil we have the reasons why at the present 
day the copses are being left more and more to run 
wild, and their produce used when eventually cut 
down chieliy as pea-sticks and firewood, which 
is all it is often fib for. if not cut at the right 
period. — G^o&e, March 16. 
LARGEST TROUT IN CAPE WATERS. 
Some few years ago Messrs Halse Bros, oblfained, 
through the "late Mr .r D Elli^^, a number of trout 
fry taken from the Hatcheries, Pirie Forest. 
These were carefully placed in a magnificent dam- 
one of several on tlie estate— and for some time 
nothing was heard of the result of the experiment. 
Suddenly the hearts of Messrs Halse Bros. 
aTid three enthusiastic gentlemen in King were 
gladdened by the capture of three.year-old trout, 
weighing respectively 7ilb, S^-lb, and 81b. 207.. 
Now, again, " Carnarvon" has toppeil the record. 
On the 20th instant a magniiicent trout (four- 
year-old) WMS caught in the dam, weighing 141b. 
before cleaning, and a trifle over 12ib. after, the 
length being 3lin. Of this Messrs Jakins Bvo«. 
hav'e turned out a splendid photograph,— iVata^ 
Mercury, March 16. 
« 
TEA BROKERS' CIRCULARS AND 
OTHERS. 
I notice your conteiuporaiy is exercised over the 
diverKity of opinion shown in the various tea, circulars. 
This is surely rather a naive way of looking at things. 
Those who write the circulars are men of flesh aud 
blood like the rest of us and their views are tinged not 
onl by their dispositions, which may be eii.her optimis- 
tic or pessimistic, but also by their interests. It may not 
be geuerally known in Ceylon that mauy of the sellmg 
brokers have '' bnjing-over " departments. Far be it 
from me to suggest that this operates against the 
interests of the owner of the tea. In some 
inst;ances the reverse may be the case, for 
the manager of the buying-over department may 
be able to give an order above the m-irket price. 
Still if the writer of the circnlar knows that his firm 
has a large stockof, say, low-pri^.t-d Ceylons, he is not 
very likely to crab common Ceylon tea. As res-'ards 
China tea, many of the people in Mincing Line 
worked iu this for years and some of them m4,de 
foi tunes out of it. It is not surprising, therefore, if 
some of them have a hankering i'>r the good old limes 
when a cargo of tea could sometimes be sold at a'l all- 
round profir, of a shilling a pound. I thiiik, how- 
ever, I am expressing the opinion of the vast major- 
ity when I say that unless Oeylon and Indian teas 
become considerably worse even than they have 
been for the last six months — and there have been 
some pretty bad ones about — there is no chance of 
China teas again getting a hold in England. Then 
there are the dealers' circulars, and very well written 
some of them are. But it is well to bear in raiud 
that they are written for the benefit of the dealers' 
customers. If you read in one of them an -eulogium 
of (f jr instance) Java teas, you need not run away 
with the idea that the writer has any particular ad- 
miration of our br other planters in Java, or even 
that he is a man of pro-Boer proclivities. Not at all. 
You simply make a mental note that Messrs. Sd- 
and-So have a stock of Java teas and would not 
be averse to selliug them at a reasonable profit. 
As the time of the Budget draws near, it is the 
custom with many dealers to write to all their cus- 
tomers, pointing out that there is a chance of the 
duty being raised and that it would be a wise pre- 
caution to lay in a stock of tea, of which at the mo- 
ment they have an exceptionally fine selec'iou, etc., 
etc., etc. Last year the grocers, and others who took 
ihe advice so suavely offered them, did well for them- 
selves ; this year we hope things will be different ; but, 
in any case, the dealer makes his profit. 
No, as things are done in London, lam afraid we 
shall have to wait for the millennium before the views 
and ideas expressed ahout tea are in entire agree- 
ment. There is an old saying : " Tell me the company 
a man keeps, and I will tell you the cnaracter of the 
man." One might paraphrase it and say : "Tell me 
the business a man does, and I will tell yoo the 
character of his tea-circular." — Local " Times '' Lon- 
don Cor. 
[One of our principal p-.ints is overlooked in the 
above, namely, how is it that with good Ceylon 
tea so cheap, the export of "China" tea from 
London keeps up and even showed an increase 
at the time we wrote ? Were we not all assured 
that when ' Ceylons ' fell below a certain price, 
which they did long ago, they would sweep China 
black tea out of America and the European con- 
tinent.— Ed. T.A.] 
Banana Flour. — Attempts are being maile to 
introduce banana floui into Northern markets, 
which is manufactnied on a large scale iu Colom- 
bia and Venezuela, as well as in Central America. 
The process of making it consists in stripping the 
fruits of their skins, cutting the bananas into 
slices, and drying the slices either iu the sun or by 
artiheial heat, after which they are ground and 
sifted. Thus treated, a bunch weighing fifteen 
pounds will yield three pounds of flour. — Grocers' 
Journal, March 23. 
