Kov. 1, 1898.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
Mr. Bowden Smith took a prominent part in 
starting the Planters' Wards at the General 
Hospital, Colombo. When the Government took 
over the working of the Cooly Medical Aid 
Ordinance from tlie District Coniniittees in IST-l 
or 1875, lie was larfjely interested in the Fus- 
sellawa and Kamboda Districts and was able to 
induce the Committee of those two districts to 
pay the balance they had in hand, which &,mounted 
to a good large sum, towards starting the Planters' 
Wards instead of returning the money to pro- 
prietors of the estates interested pro rata. This 
formed the nucleus of the fund out of which the 
Planters' Wards were constructed. A few other 
districts followed suit, but not nearly all. He 
had several interviews with Sir W. H. Gregory 
and Sir W. Kynsey about starting the Planters' 
Wards and met with some opposition at first. He 
always took a deep interest in the Planters' Wards 
and they have undoubtedly proved a boon to all 
planters requiring careful medical treatment. 
On 5th December, 1S97, Mr. Bowden Smith 
(accompanied by Mrs. and Miss Bowden Smith) left 
Ceylon with ■ great regret after the many happy 
years spent amonsrst the kindest of friends, 
several of whom, however, he hoped to meet 
again in England ; where he was sure to take 
the deepest interest in the country in which 
he laboured for so many years. Alas ! his 
hope of some years of usefulness in a business in 
the City of London was not to ba fulfilled. He 
went home to succeed the late Mr. Thos. Dickson as 
London Manager for the Scottish Trust and Loan 
Company, 52, Gracecliurch Street ; but he had not 
been long at work when the great change came. 
Up to the time we go to press, full parti- 
culars have not been received, but a telegram 
received by Mr. Cumberbatch announced the 
death of Mr. Bowden Smith which seems to have 
taken place on Sunday, October 16th, at his 
brotlier's residence in the country where he had 
been out shooting the previous day. The brief fatal 
attack, it is said, was due to heart-disease. So 
passed away in his 60th year tiie hale and hearty 
merchant and planter who left Ceylon only ten 
months previously, apparently in good health. 
Widespread and sincere sympathy has been felt 
for Mrs. Bowden Smith and family under this sad 
and sudden bereavement, and all who knew the 
deceased in Ceylon feel that a truly good man, 
and an excellent, hard-working pioneer colonist, 
has departed this life. Peace to the memory of 
of a mail of worth. 
^ 
Java Quinine.— Our Amsterdam representa- 
tire writes us on the 6th instant that another 
600 kilos of quinine from the J5andeei)g factory 
are on their way to his city, — Drithh and Colonial 
Druggist. 
CEYLON TEA-BOX WOODS. 
By Fredrick Lewis, f.l.s , 
Assistant Conservator of Forests, Ceylon. 
The increasing export of tea from Ceylon, which 
must now be regarded as having more than fully 
taken the place of the island's former staple — coffee, 
baa developed a correspondingly large trade in woods 
suitable for the manufacture of boxes for the pack- 
ing and transport of the prepared article. Some 
notion of the volume of wood required yearly may 
be arrived at from the fact thit, assuming all the 
tea exported from the island to be packed in 100 lb. 
chests, the total number of cheats for one year's 
export alone would be over a million, or, roughly 
speaking, upwards of 18,000,000 superficial feet of 
jdanking. 
Of this vast quantity, for some years past a great 
proportion of the wood baa come from Japan, as 
both planters aod merchants found by experience 
that the Japanese tea box was not only very neat, 
but it bad the superior advantage over the locaily 
made article, in possessing great equality of weight. 
The importance of the last consideration cannot ba 
too highly valued by the planter, as fluctuation of 
weight would in all cases lead to the contents of 
the box being emptied ont and re-weighed, for ob- 
vious reasons; entailing not only additional cost 
and delay, but a serious loss by waste. 
London importers also raised objections to certain 
Ceylon wood packages on the grounds of " tainted 
teas," implying thereby that the teas themaelve 
had acquired a taint from the smell of the oute 
wood package, notwithstanding the fact that between 
the wood and the tea itself is an air-tight envelope 
of lead. A still further objection was raised, thta 
certain woods corroded the lead lining, an introduced 
poisonous matter. 
It is, perhaps, foreign to the purpose of this paper 
to enter into 9ny discussion as to the merits of the 
above objections, as, unfortunately, those most in- 
terested accept as final what is told them by their 
London constituents. 
Now that the importation of tea-box wood has 
declined from Japan- Owing to the lite Chino- 
Japanese war, the demand in Ceylon for local woods 
for cases at once increased, and the demand for soft 
light woods rapidly began to manifest itself. The 
trade is practically in native hands, and for this 
reason thn planter is often placed at a serious dis- 
advantage, as he is absolutely igaorant of the 
extent of seasoning his packages have received, and 
very frequently is equally ignorant as to tho mate- 
rials themselves. 
The trader is interested chiefly in obtaining woods 
that are light, and these he buys from people who 
have wood for sale ; and so long as these will float 
the log dealer will invariably find a ready sal'e for 
his produce, no matter if it is composed of all sorts 
or of wood; green or dry. It will be further under- 
stood that the log dealer — for so he is— buys his 
wood wherever he can get it near navigable streams, 
and as these are very subject to periods of flood, 
as well as periods of non-navigability, it follows 
that he must often be for mouths unable to move 
his wood, during which time it has either stranded 
in the stream, or in the forest just as it was felled, 
Such conditions are not conducive to improved sea- 
soning ; and, natuially, wood exposed In this manner 
to tropical atmospheric changes oannot but suffer 
in turn. It is, moreover, remarkable that tropical 
soft woods are much more easily affected than woods 
imported from temperate zones. Finally, in Ceylon, 
the forests cannot be regarded as possessing any 
large extent of gregarious woods ; in other 
words, pure forests do not exist, so that the long 
dealer can only adopt his standard of lightness as 
his rule for selection, and not that of species only. 
It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that our 
locally made tRa boxes are mixed as regards their 
composition, and equally mixed as regards their 
specific weights. 
