Deo. 1, 1902.] THE TROPICAL 
A.GRICULTURIST. 
" In the articles and corresponclenee that have 
recently taken place, the fact that Government is 
making R200,000 a year profit of the currency lias 
apparently been lost sight of. Surely with this 
profit Government can alTurLl to meet the require- 
ments of the Colony, for it must be borne in mind 
that the profit on the currency is made oub of the 
Public not out of Government money. 
" It Government wish to put a stop to the present 
dilemma, theyshould cancel theordinance and revert 
to the former position which worked satisfactorily 
for all parties concerned. As regard the position 
of the Gold Currency in India, tlie Indian Gov- 
ernment will freely exchange rupee? for sovereigns 
at their currency offices and this is exactly what 
the Ueylon Government will not do ; hence all 
this inconvenience. If the Ceylon Government 
was not prepared to meet the public as the 
Indian Government has done, it should not have 
introduced the Gold Ordinance at all. The Indian 
Government, when the gold coinage was intro- 
duced, endeavoured to force sovereigns on the 
public, but soon found the public would not 
take them and gave up the attempt. Gold is of 
no use to native traders ; they require silver to 
pay the small men wich, to whom a sovereign 
is of no use unless it can be pro nptly changed 
for an equivalent in rupees. 
" This cannot be done and, therefore, sovereigns 
are refused. A premium is now charged to 
change a sovereign into silver in the bazaar here, 
and I am informed a much higher premium up- 
country and in villages outsiile Colombo is ruling." 
« 
THE FUTURE OF GREEN TEA 
MANUFACTURE : 
AMERICA ENTERS AS A COMPETITOR. 
Those men in India and Ceylon, who 
have expended brains and money in work- 
ing out and perfecting new processes for 
green tea manufacture, will have to hurry 
up with their patents, or they may be 
left behind by our American cousins. The 
South Carolina tea-growing experiment, 
which has made a good deal of noise for 
its size, and inspired many a spread-eagle 
" scare he.ad " in the pages of the American 
daily press, is still pushing its way into 
notice, and has, according to the Boston 
Herald of the 7th September last, induced 
Congress to grant a sum of $10,000 to be 
expended in further " green tea experifnents." 
The illustrated printed page which is de- 
voted to "booming" the Pinehurst venture, 
has this startling legend in large type : — 
" Green tea made by machinery at the 
Government Plantation. Discovery destined 
to drive Foreign Brands out of the American 
Markets." There is no secret made of the 
new process, which is to produce the green 
tea of the future, and start it on its con- 
queriug career. The prophetic soul of the 
journalist, who writes the subject up, 
wears his heart upon his sleeve," takes 
the American public into his confidence, 
and is as open with his information as 
he is far-reaching with his vision. The 
green leaves, he tells us, are tumbled into 
a revolving metal cylinder, and exposed 
to a high temperature of about 400= fabr. 
50 
Inside of the cylinder are flanges which 
catch up the leaves and keep them con- 
stantly tossed about. And that is nearly 
all ! Of course, there are spicy paragraphia 
over ancrabove which are purely scientific 
— sops thrown to the sapient souls among 
the Herald's readers — where much is made 
of "volatile oils," "oxidising pr{)cesses, 
'chlorophyll" and "enzyms;" and which 
must cause the constituency of the pai)er 
to feel that when al! is done, its intelli- 
gence, at least, is not affronted. It is a 
high note that is sounded throughout ; but 
then th'=re is nothing American intended 
to win the ear of American public which 
finds its way to notice on a minor key, 
" Secretary Wilson," we are told " believes 
that an excellent quality of tea can be 
produced in the Southern States at a cost 
of 20 cents (American) a pound, but there 
will be more profit in growing teas that 
retails at .$2 to $20 a pound ! There are 
plenty of rich people who are v/illing to 
pay such prices for teas which are of 
proportionably high quality." Happy Ameri- 
can tea-growers ! Ceylon might well questioa 
the advisability of sacrificing so much money 
to win for its green teas, an honoured 
place in the American market ; but a corner 
of the " purdah " has been lifted on the 
Pinehurst venture, and there is dis- 
closed the comical fact that 12.5 lb. an 
acre is the average outturn for a year's 
working ! As we read these figures we are 
permitted to see that from whatever quar- 
ter of the globe the "hustler" is to come 
who is destined to displace us as the tea- 
growers for the world, it cannot be in South 
Carolina that we shall look for his advent. 
The Pinehurst tea plantation is pretty 
much on a par with the ideal American 
infant of whom we read and marvel at. This 
child has a mission from the day it draws 
its first breath, is an object lesson to all other 
infants, and has the theme to demonstrate 
of "How to do it." The American infant is 
said to be able to amuse itself from the 
very first : objects to being walked about 
or fooled around with : wants a quiet time 
for thought : takes regular meals and when 
duly replenished, displays no weakness for 
more ; keeps decent hours, and is never 
known to awake during the night ! So it is 
with Pinehurst. Has it not amused itself 
from the first with its meagre acreage of 
tea trees, and tickled the fancy of the 
Eastern Planting World as it tabulated its 
total yearly crop of 3,000 lb, ? Has it not 
insisted through its newspaper press and its 
Congress votes on being taken seriously, not 
a thing to be dandled or fooled around with : 
a wide-eyed bumptious youngster, appear- 
ing before the world attired in "scare- 
heads," and newspaper illustrations? Has 
it not a great future before it, on 
which at the slightest provocation, 
the An\erican press fastens its attention and 
tootles to its glory in the highest of " high 
falutin" strains? Ah! we are reminded 
that Ceylon too thas an American Com- 
missioner who, on a handsome salary, 
is supposed to ceaselessly forw.ird the in- 
terests of Ceylon tea in the great Republic ; 
and has for years been in a position to learu 
