110 THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [August 1, 1898. 
TEA CULTURE IN ASSAM. 
An upcountry planter asked us the other day 
to say in what relation the various divibionB of 
the great tea country of Assam stood to each 
other. His iinniediale object was to show tliat 
when a report came iiflecting crops in Cacliar 
or Sylhet, that meant hut a limited division 
of Assam. That is quite true. Assam aito- 
getiier is made up ot 10 divisions and while 
Gachar includes the lar^'est number (191) of tea 
gardens, Sibsa{,'hur has the largest area under 
crop, 70,000 acres or 7,000 acres less than Dim- 
bula and Dikoya together. Sylhet comes a good 
second with 70,200 acres. Altogether Assam in- 
cludes 822 gardens with an area of 310.550 acres 
of mature and immature i)lants, the total crop 
last year being 107,206,334 lb. As to the yield per 
acre, the average ran from 474 lb. fiom Sylhet 
to 132 for Kanirup. As regards total crop, Cacliar 
gave a little over 22 million lb. ; Sylhet over 
26; Lakhimpur nearly 19; Darrang over_ II ; 
Nowgong over 4 ; Kamrnp g ; Goapara and Khasi 
and Jantai Hills under 150,000 lb, 
^ 
PICKINGS. 
Says tiie Chcmid and Dni'ifjlst :— " A thirty 
pound case of the concrete .luici'; ok Tin; tai'AW, 
shipped from Ceylon, was included in the drug 
sales recently; it consi.^ted of small, irregular 
rnaues of a iiglit-brown colour, having an odour 
somewhat resembling Para rubber. Papaw iuice 
is obtained by scarihcat^on from the unripe fruits 
and is generally emi)loycd med cinally in cotiu- 
tries where the tree is found. The active prin- 
ciple— papain— is readily precipitated by the 
action of alcohol ; it is used in the treatment of 
dyspepsia, diptheria, and as an anLlielniintic, and 
is also recommended for eczema. The lot in 
question was sold at live .shillings per pound, 
•subject to api)roval."'— It is hardly correct to 
say that the juice is used medicinally in coun- 
tries where the tree is found ; at any rate this is 
not the case as legards Ceylon. It would be 
interesting to know who are the shippers ot papaw 
juice from Ceylon at present. It is advised (by 
Mr. Christy we believe) that the papaw juice 
for papain should be taken not from the fruit but 
the tree itself. Ihis would leave the fruit un- 
damaged and allow it to i ipen properly. 
The following is an advertisement, writ large, 
taken from an Australian exchange: — "SUN- 
LIGHT Coconut Oil Cakes. For cows, calves, 
working horses, pigs and poultry. It is the 
richest food knovm. Coconut oil cake is used on 
every up to-date farm in England, Denmark and 
Germany. It prolongs the milking period of 
cows, enriches the milk, and increases the quan- 
tity. ' It increases the feeding power of grass, 
hay ensilage, lucerne, oats, maize, bran, &c. 
Enables more stock to be kept in a given area 
and returns to the land a rich manure. Pam- 
phlets etc. on application. Its effects are mar- 
vellous—just give it a trial. Manufactured by 
Lever Bros., Ltd,, 6-5, Pitt Street, Sydney." Co- 
conut planters in Ceylon should feel thankful to 
Lever Bros, for this advertisement. 
Advocates of the lactometer should read the 
following I— "A gallon of water at 6U° F. weighs 
10 lb. ; a gallon of average milk 10-25 lb. ; and 
a gallon of cream 10 15 1b. Skim milk weighs 
S^oui 10-36 lb. to the gallon, so that water ia 
lighter than either milk or cieani. TItu watt tli6 
chief reason of the failure of the la«.toaieter a* 
a testing instrument. Fat being tlie highest 
constituents of milk, a low specific gravity would 
indicate rich milk, but as water was also lighter 
tiiaii milk, the addition of water pioduced the 
same results. 
To treat .skeu GKAI\ for |>lanting, it is re- 
commended that each bag of seed should be 
heape<l on a cloth on the ground and a pieparatiua 
consi>iting of a milk di.shfull ot lime and iluee gal- 
lons of boiling water, added. Slir the see<l quickly 
with a shovel. Take care that the water is in a 
boiliiit: state. If it is melted it i;- said to b« superior 
to treatment with bluestone. It carries earlier 
germination and an earlier harvest, while lire- 
senting smut and improving the yield. 
WKKVJL A.MON(J srOIlKD CiKAIN 
is from the "Farm an<l Dairy" (Sy<lney) : — 
There is probably more grain stored in N. B. Walei 
at present than at the corresponding period of auy 
other season in its history. And it is equally pro- 
bable that less is known about storing grain lu this 
colony tlian in any other of the liirge whtKt pro- 
ducing countries. The weevil became domeBticatc-d 
at about the time that Gain — or was it Abel — hxti 
platited wheat an 1 offered up some of bia stored 
grain as a sacrifice in the off season when he waen't 
bus; ploughing Perhaps it was because his wheat 
was weevil; that it didn't find so much favou'- as bis 
brother's merinos aud shorthorn calves. Later on the 
weevil did much damage to the wheat that Joseph 
cornered in Egypt aud we have it from authentic 
records writ on Papyrus iu heiroglyphica found in the 
Pyramids that in revenge for the bad treatment that 
he received in his youth from liia bretheru, Joseph 
gHve them weevily grain later on out of his stack 
aud much of it they couldn't eat. It wa^i about that 
time that the weevil, finding that it wasn't safe to 
fly out of doors and catch one of the seven plagues, 
forgot the use of its wings and ever since it has been 
able to fly about as far as a Muscovj* duck. Joseph 
tried all manner of means of extirpation but failed, 
aud if the drought hadn't broken up about that time 
Pharoh would have had to Ivnch him, on the top of 
Cleouatra's needle. We have since then learnt some- 
what about weevil. The floor, walls and ceilings of 
all grain sheds should be smooth and so leave no 
larking place for weevils or their eggs and when the 
shed is empty all the coiners should be played m 
with a steam hose. Close all doors aud windows aud 
evaporate 1 lb. of bisulphide to every thousand cubic 
feet of space and the weevils will feel very sick indeed 
aud express a keen desire to go and rest with their 
ancestors. 
♦ 
AUCTION SALE TEAS IN NEW YORK. 
The Largest Public Offering Ever Made. 
A correspondent writes:— New York, June 3- 
— Possibly the enclosed, from yesterday's Journal 
of Commerce, will interest j'ou. Strikes me that 
prices are extraordinarily low: — 
The largest offering of teas ever sold by auction 
in the Uaited States was disposed of yesterday in 
this manner by the Montgomery Auction and Com- 
mission Company in this city. The sale lasted from 
12 o'clock noon to 4 p.m., aud attracted one of the 
largest ga herings of buyers ever seen at an auction 
sale; two auctioneers were required. A noteworthy 
feature of this sale is that it was the first public 
offeriug under the new tea regulations, which, it will 
be remembsred, provi e for a higher standard of im- 
portations than what existed a short time ago. 
The total amount offered was 32,654 packages, 
consisting of 9,394 half- chests Moyane, including thg 
