April 1, 1903.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
703 
LUCKILY FOR NATAL, THE TEA PLANT IS HARDY, 
being an evergreen of the camellia family, so that 
it can stand to a large degree the rough usage it 
receives. Pruning of tea bushes — an art in itself , and 
the most important \york on an Indian or 
Ceylon estate— is reduced to mere hacking 
down the bush with the largest sized prun- 
ing knife obtainable, and often in the 
hands of a raw coolie ; and as a result a heavy mor- 
tality usually ensues on some estates. Plucking, 
another very important work, is done in a mostpri-. 
niitive fashion, and it is a wonder the trees" flush," 
or send out new shoots again, after the handling 
they get. By careful plucking— i.e., by removing 
two or three leaves with the " bud," or topmost 
unformed leaf, and leaving an " eye " or embryo 
shoot below, carefully protected by the stalk of 
the last leaf picked, a new shoot soon forms, and 
springs out ready to be gathered in seven to tea 
days. The local fashion is to tear off the "flush" 
in handfuls, and in some cases the v riter has counted 
HO less than eight leaves on a single stalk, the 
stalk being torn away from the parent branch, and 
every chance of a succeeding flash lost. It can 
easily be understood, therefore, that, ()y careful 
and fine plucking, and nursing the next gathering 
— though the amount for the day be less than if 
picked by the local way — the former and correct 
method produces more flashes for the season than 
the latter, and in the long run a greater quan- 
tity is obtained per acre, while the quality is 
of coarse, incomparable. 
SUITABLE LAND CAN BE HAD IN ANY QUANTITY 
at moderate prices, and a capitalist starting on 
a holding of, say, 5C0 acres, with 50 Indians 
as a beginning, and an experienced manager, if 
he is not one himself, could easily commence 
his tea garden, and by ordinary perseverance and 
imitating Indian and Ceylon methods of produc- 
tion, would soon develop it into a very paying 
concern, and the source of a very comfortable 
income. —Natal Mercury, Feb. 26. 
*- 
A FERMENT OF THE TEA LEAF. 
A most interesting paper on " Ferment 
of the Tea Leaf " — II.— reaches us today 
from the Secretary, Indian Tea Association, 
written by its Scientific Officer — Mr. H. H. 
Mann, B. Sc. His conclusions, from experi- 
ments dealing with tlie " enzyme " of tea, 
are ; — 
1. That, during withering, the amount of oxidising 
enzyme or ferraent in the leaf increases up to a 
certain point corresponding under normal withering 
conditions with the point at which tlie leaf is ready 
for rolling. 
2. That the two processes of loss of moisture and 
production of ferment by no means necessarily take 
the same length of time, and that the leaf may be 
withered (in very dry weather) long before it is 
chemically ready to roll, and in very wet weather 
may be ready, chemically, to roll long before it is 
withered. 
3. That, at the temperature studied (76»— 86" F) 
the normal time which the le&f requires in order 
to be chemically ready for rolling is 18 to 20 hours 
with normally withered and over-withered leaf, and 
several hours longer (it may be up to 25 hours) 
with leaf prevented from withering by a very wet 
atmosphere. 
4. That the object of the tea manufacturer should 
be not merely to get his leaf in the bes-t physical 
condition, for rolling tent alao in the best ohemioal 
condition, and for this purpose he should arrange, so 
tar as is posaible, to have the leaf soft for rolling 
when the chemical constituents of t^ie leaf are at 
their best. 
Other experiments in fermentation are 
recorded in the same paper and, being of 
high importance to all manufacturers of tea, 
we quote them at once in full :— 
1. The time requited for making the leaf chemically 
ready for rolling is independent, or nearly so, of 
that required to render it soft enough for this 
purpose and at a temperature of 7(5" P.— Be'' F. 
varies from 18 to 24 hour^, according as the leaf 
dries normally, too quickly or not at all. Hence 
the object should be to wither the leaf in the 
time. If it be withered too quickly, as by heait 
and fans, the leaf is soft enough to roll before 
being chemically re idy ; if it be withered too 
slowly, as on a wet day, with a saturated at- 
mosphere, it is chemically ready long before it is 
soft enough. I hope to be able to, later on, after 
further experiments, prepare a table giving the 
best time for withering at various temperatures 
and under different conditions, 
2, The absolute cleanliness of every thing during 
the manufacture beaomea mofe and more evident and 
the cleanliness necessary can only be reached by 
scalding every implement and machine, and the floor 
of the fermenting house with boiling water. There 
seems morever considerable reason to suppose that 
by the addition of a small quantity of Salicylic 
Acid to the fermenting leaf the eifecfc of outside 
microbes may be entirely eliminated (the salicylic 
acid being entirely driven off during the subsequent 
firing), and the tea correspondingly improved. 
RUBBER IN UGANDA. 
PARA PLANTS DOING W^I<L. 
It is only a question of the activity of traders 
to determine the time during which our natural 
supplies of rubber will last. So says Mr. J Mahon, 
in a report to the Foreign Office on various exotic 
plants in the Botanic Gardens at Entebbe, in 
Uganda, and that being so, importance attaches 
to the efforts being made there to furnish by sys- 
tematic cultivation supplies to meet the demands 
of the future. So far not a great deal has been 
done, but, despite some unfortunate circumstances, 
one of the I^ara rubber seedlings sent out trora 
Kew in 1901 is now over 7 ft. higli. It Vemains 
to be seen whether the climate and elevation. 
(4,000 ft.) will continue to prove favourable, but 
Ml". Mahon appears to have some hope that on the 
lake shores the Para rubbpr will do well. The 
Central American variety, Uastilloa el^tica, which 
is more or less highland plant, is likely to find 
suitable conditions at Entebbe, and a seedling 
Ceara rubber of eight montlw is already 4 ft. 
high. Satisfactory progress has also been made 
with plants of Theobroma Cacoo, and Mr. Mahon 
believes that since an excellent wild coffee flourishes, 
introduced sorts would do well, — Hand C BlaU, 
Feb. 13. 
Man— is boin an agriculturist ; and it is both 
bad morality and bad policy to invite him, by for- 
tune or by honours, in other words, by avarice 
or by ambition, to leave the plough and the fields. 
It is a mistaken idea to give education to the 
children of peasants only to make them come out 
of their spliere. No one is too learned to be an 
agriculturist, hardly anyone is learned enough for 
it.(Alphonse K&vr,)'— Agricultural Ncics, Feb H. 
