Oct. 1, 1898.1 THE TROPICAL AGRICTTLTURIST, 
257 
e.ise in tlie past it can hardly hold good today 
in face of the starting; of a considerable enterprise 
in Sydney for reducing copra into those oleaginous 
articles of commerce which the manufactures of the 
world are open to receive. The colony will have 
to consider whether it will be best to erect a 
manufactory on its own account or accord a bonus 
to some European firm for the establishment of a 
concern. The idea is not an original one, and 
was first suggested by our last Governoi-, Sir John 
Thurston. With copra however at £10 per ton— 
the highest price we have known it to realise in 
Fiji is fifteen guineas- the industry should be an 
exceedingly remunerative one, and there is nothing 
like fair market values to stimulate an industry^ 
The following data as regards acreage in cocoi:ut 
estate properties ownefl by Europeans will be 
interesting. It is only a rough estimate, but it is 
approximately a correct one. Kanacia, the pro^ 
perty of Messrs. Miller, Headdey and Co., heads 
the list with something over 2,000 acres. Mango 
Island and the island of Kabi come next with 
something like2,000 acres each. Cicia, one property, 
1,200 acres : Naitaba, 800 acres ; two properties on 
Taviuni belonging to Mr. Coubrough of 800 and 
600 acres each ; Messrs. J V Tarte and Co., Vuna, 
Taviuni— a specially fine area— 809 acres and 
arrangements in course of progress for the putting 
in of 900 ad<litional acres; the island of J^ancala, 
700 acres ; Mr. W. Peckham, Wairiki, Taviuni, 
500 acres; and Mr. Kennie's property at North 
Taviuni, some 400 acres. There are many other 
coconut estate jjroperties in Fiji ranging down- 
wards, but it is dilHcult to arrive at their acreage. 
— Fiji Times, June II. 
TEA BULKINa AND TARING CHARGES. 
We have received the following from the Secretary 
of the Kaugra Tea Aasociation : — 
Your correspondent, who on page 96 of jour issue 
of 23id Jiily, takes exception to my remarks on Mr, 
Buckingham's circular about bulking and taring 
charges, has been misled at tlie outset by a printers' 
error. " Infracted 5d per lOClb" was originally hiero- 
glyphiced by me "in practice 5d per 1001b." It ia 
perfectly true that the charge for (1} bulking, (2) or 
taring, (3) or weighing net varies from 3d to Is 6d per 
package, as may bo seen on page 46 of that useful 
hand book, " The Tea Planters' Compendium," which 
gives full details about these charges. But it is im- 
possible to suppose that any one who can get a tare to 
pass customs would knowingly incur a charge of Is to 
Is 3id per chest for such a simple operation 
as buikiug. The taring is the lion in the 
path, and as at present all breaks are " in 
practice" tared, so " iu practice" the bulking charge ia 
the difference in the rates for taring and bidkiug and 
taring only, and 5d a chest is a fair average to take. 
I do not get at the £100,000 (in the second para- 
gi-aph) by the same process as your correspondent does, 
but as there is only a difference of £5,000 between his 
figures and mine, the point is immaterial. I reckoned 
i'75,CtO could be saved by the industry on taring and 
£30,000 on bulking charges. 
The question of whether Is 5d or Is 8d per chest 
is saved is a question of timber. It is my misfortune 
to have to use a wood which tares about 35lb (with 
lead) for a hundred pound chest. A lighter wood 
woidd save me 3d per chest, but the saving would be 
swallowed up in the extra cost of the timber. Ii would 
be interesting tohear from some of your readers how 
much these average chests, holding lOOlb tea, tare. 
It requires a good deal of dodging to shave under the 
present warehouse scale. I can do it best with a 951b. 
chest, which 1 can gro33 to 12Slb by selecting boxes. 
And 120 lb cheats work out nicely to 15,''>lb or there- 
abouts. But chests holding intermediate quantities 
ftre charged relativei)- higher, 
Your correspondent's last paragraph is open to 
criticism. He says: '' 10 per cent, only of the break ia 
weighed, and Is charged for each chest, or a little over 
Id per chest." This is a specious but spurious argu- 
ment. Why debit the nine chests with a charge they 
have not incurred ? As a fact (granted the gross ia 
under 291b.) the charge for weighing 100 lb of tea net 
is a shilling less 10 per cent. Will your correspondent 
defend that charge ? I doubt if it costs the whar- 
fingers 2d. They have excellent scales, and labour at 
6d per hour per docker. They do not re-solder the 
lead after shovelling the tea back into the box. Say, 
two men and a clerk are employed at an outsi de cost 
of Is 6d an hour (for you may be sure the poor devil 
of a clerk does not get so much as the horny-handed 
son of toil, and I allow the extra Id or 2d for pro- 
portion of foreman's wages). Well, how many boxes 
ought three to wei{;h net in an hour ? Shall 
we put it at a low estimate at 12, that is, one in five 
minutes ? (They shovel and tramp expertly, those 
same dockers, and I think 20 would be nearer the 
mark.) Taking 12 as a fair number, the ware- 
house gets 123 less iO per cent, for Is 6d paid on 
wages. For you must remember " management" 
has already been charged at Is lOd a chest, and rent 
at 6.1 a chest remains to be charged. 'With these 
figures before, him, I ask your correspondent, is one 
shilling less 10 per cent, a chest an excessive charge 
for the simple process of net weighing 100 b of tea, 
or is it not '! My opinion is, it is, iu view of the 
rudimentary operation performed and the other 
charges made for the same chest. And if we are able 
to obtain facilities that will enable us to factory 
tare or teas, leaving the wharfingers only the net- 
weighing of tea chests in the hundred to do, unlesa 
they considerably reduce their present scale, I should 
consider we are being charged three times as much for 
the work as we ought to be. 
Another incidental point that is worth consider- 
ation is the waste or loss by weighing (iu addition to 
the lib draft) which the planter suffers. Most fac- 
tories use packing machines now-a-days to avoid 
breaking the tea. Bat when the tea is tared or net- 
weighed in London, and has to be got back into the 
same chest without a packing machine, then the 
slaughter begins. Ramming and grinding and break- 
ing and smashing in is part of the process, and the 
balance that " can't be got in no how, sir" — that, I 
fancy, is " loss by weighing."— P/aji/era' Gazette, 
Aug. 6. 
THE NORTH-WEST PROVINCE. 
POUDEETTE : BARREN SOILS. 
MAnAwiiiA, Aug. 23. 
In continuation of the treatment of night soil dis- 
cussed iu my last comcnunicatiou and its use as a 
manure, I read that in the Straits the treatment of 
night soil by incineration has been found successful, 
but its sale as a fertilizer has net taken place as 
yet. By the vfay, has the incineration of the 
Colombo night soil been given up as a failure ? It 
seems a sinful waste that while thousands and tens of 
thousands of rupees are annually sent out of the 
island for manures, we alio .v to go to waste what 
ought to be, or can be made, a valuable fertilizer. 
I am not forgetful of the failures of the attempts of 
Sir John Grinlinton iu Colombo, and of C 1. Byrde 
in Kaiidy to manufacture and sell poudrette. If I 
am not mistaken, these failures were chiefly owing 
to the bulk of th3 substances. Cost of carriage is 
a very important consideration in manuring. People 
do not wish to pay for the carriage of a ton of 
manure which has only a few lb. of valuable stuff in 
it. If it be possible to prepare Poudrette in a more 
concentrated form by the addition of artificial fer- 
tilizers, there is the possibility of people living not 
far from the seat of manufacture purchasing and 
using it. Somewhere at Kelani will be good as trans- 
port will be possible both by rail and liver. 
Barren soils are discussed iu the current number 
of the Aijiicnltural J/aijazi)ie, especially with refer- 
ence to the white sand of our cinnamon gardens' soils. 
