Nov. 1, 1899.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 325 
Turning to another shipment which passed through 
the hands of the same agent, but from another estate, 
wo find the result very dilfereut : — 
BINGOLE ESTATE CBOP, 1899. 
Report on Outturn of Packages Tea ex Wakera. 
Aveages : — d. 
2,620 lb. sold, grossing i;i03 14s 2d =9*50 per lb. gross. 
2,728 lb. shipped, netting £91 ISs 2d=»-06 per lb. net. 
108 Loss in weight and charges —1-44 per lb. 
Equal to 
per lb. on 
shipping 
weight. 
Loss in weight : — d- 
Draft at 1 lb. per package accounts for 
44 lb., and the actual shortage is therefore 
641b. 
Draft and actual shortage equal 3 96 per 
cent, on shipping weight .. .. '38 
Freight; — 
Kate,253. Meast., 124-8. Amount, £3 23 4d. 
Equal to 1.091 lb. per 50 cubic ft. on ship- 
ping weight .. .. . . '27 
Dock and sale charges . — 
Amount, £6 63. 7d. . . . . '56 
Brokerage and commission : — 
Amount, £2 12s Id. ... . . -23 
Remarks : — 
Each package tared Involving heavy 
dock charges (tares 14—18 lb). Loss in 
weight is probably due to the same causes. 
Total charges and loss in weight per lb. 1'44 
In this shipment there were only forty-four pacakges 
and so the loss in weight from the draft was only 44 lb., 
but, as a matter of fact, 108 lb. was lost out of the total 
amount of 2,728 lb. shipped. Some little proportion 
of this was due to general causes, such as drying on 
journey and weeping, but the main reason was the 
fact that every package had to be tared at the ware- 
house. The shortage of tea on the shipment thus came 
to •38d per lb., instead of ■07d per lb., as in the first 
example. Taring also added to the warehouse charge 
materially, thia representing '56 per lb., as against 
■35d per lb. in the first example. The only respect in 
which the BingoJe shipment compared favourably 
with that from Rotale was in that it was so 
packed as to allow 1,091 lb. of tea to be got into 
50 cubic ft. on board ship, as against only 941 lb. per 
cubic ft. of the Rotale tea, the difference representing 
.05d per lb. in the freight charge. The net result was 
that the London charges for the tea from the Bingole 
estate totalled 1.44d per lb., as compared with only 
,96d per lb. upon the tea from the Rotale estate. 
And probably the tea from Bingole was not in such 
good condition for selling at the end as that from 
Rotale. Whilst, therefore, we are not blind to the 
faults on the side of the planter and his assistants 
which contribute to keep the London charges heavy, 
we must confess to a strong opinion that he is in 
some respects unjustly treated. Let us analyse those 
London expenses as set forth in the examples given 
above. The loss in weight, after deducting the 
"draft," is a matter, as we have shown, very much 
in the planter's own hands. Then comes ocean 
freight, which is a charge very much outside his 
control. Freights vary at times from about 
20s to 4O3 per ton, and their rise and fall are 
governed by many conditions quite outside the 
tea trade and that trade cannot be expected to receive 
special consideration from the shipping firms. The ex- 
amples we give show a frieght rate of 25s per ton, 
and we believe the present charge is 303 per ton. Next 
comes dock and sale charges. These are the ware- 
house charges about which there is so much com- 
plaint just now, and finally we have brokerage and 
commission. These latter embrace the usual one 
per cent to the broker who sells the tea and two 
per cent to the agents, the latter covering office ex- 
penses and secretary's salaray, if the concern is a 
company. The warehouse charge of 35d per pound 
does not look heavy to an outsider, and in the ex- 
ample we have given it is rather low, the average 
being nearer 40ii per pound, when no special services 
have to be rendered. When, however, millions of 
pounds of tea have to be handled in a year, this 
apparently intitesimal charge amounts up to a 
considerable total, and we have good grouiids for 
stating that it is unduly high. Space will not now 
permit us to enter upon our reasons for this opinion, 
but they shall be set forth in another article — Home 
and Colonial Mail, Sept. 29. 
MR, CARRUTHERS' ARTICLE IN THE 
" CONTEMPORARY REVIEW." 
In the October number of the " Contemporary 
Review, " Mr, J. B. Carrather.s makes a brief, and 
closely reasoned, appeal for more Plant Doctors. 
By tliis term he does nob mean herbalists or 
dealers in " simples," but doctors for plants, 
competent to prescribe for their ailments, like 
the physician or surgeon for man, or the veteri- 
nary jnactitioner for animals. This, as a science, 
is now , belonging almost exclusively to the latter 
part of the century. In owr own country it has 
little encouragement, and naturally but few fol- 
lowers, of whom not all have been trained in the 
right way. Yet botanical therapeutics is an im- 
portant subject and one obviously difficult ; in 
some ways more difficult than in the case of men 
or of animals. The former can tell the doctor 
what they feel, and the more carelul among them 
often take note ot early symptoms, and consult 
him before a disease has become formidable. In 
the latter case, shepiierds and herdsmen, carters 
and farmers, note incipient ill-health in the 
animals under their charge, and are able to send 
for the doctor in good time. But the plant not 
only cannot say what is going wrong, but also 
is often more slow in showing the symptoms of 
disease. Greater, too, are the difficulties of 
treatment. Surgery, no doubt, is a simpler 
matter, and experiment has a free field in vege- 
table pethology. The most zealous antivivisec- 
tionist has not yet protected against operations 
on " poor dumb plants." But this is their 
doctor's only advantage. His subject cannot 
awallow medicines ; in it there is nothing analo- 
gous to the blood system of animals which helps 
him to convey remedies to all parts of the patient's 
body. External applications alone are possible, 
like salves, poultices, and embrocations. Besides 
this, many diseases of plants are due to injurious 
organisms which have not very different life con- 
ditions, and the remedy which is fatal to the 
parasite may be equally »o to the victim. To 
prove the accuracy of a diagnosis by means of a 
post-mortem — though a pupil once made this boast 
of liis professor— would scarcely tend to increase 
a practice Another drawback is that the doctor, 
as a rule, is not called in till the patient is dying 
or deatl. Now, post-mortems are all very well iii 
their way, but the subject is more often sent to 
the pathologist than he is called to I he patient, 
ai)d often arrives in such a state of decompo- 
sition as to be of little use. Doctors, as Mr. 
Carruthers remarks, would not find it easy to 
discover remedies for diseases if, when they were 
summoned, the patients were either in extremis 
or dead, and, perhap.s, a good deal more than 
th.at. Even when the njalady had been ascer- 
tained, and a remedy found, plants present many 
difficulties which living creatu.-es do not. 'Thus, 
