I'eb. 1, 1899.] 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
561 
difficulty to dispose of our cheap teas. Tiiis would 
also tend to a very great extent to minimise thefts 
of tea from factories! Would not Lebbe & Co. find 
their sweet occupation gone, when a really good 
drinkable tea can be offered by the (may I say) 
"Tea Dust Company "'s agents at siy 30 cents a lb. 
in packets, or 20 cents a lb. in bulk. The "dust 
tea" invariably sells at from 12 to 1.5 cents in the 
local sales and not very much more in Mincing Lane. 
Apart from this, it would be to the interest of the 
planters one and all to sell their " dust tea " to such a 
company direct from the factories and thereby help 
to strengthen both the London and Colombo markets 
for their better grade teas. 
Would not some of our philanthropists who have 
the island's interest at heart, and who have the push 
and energy and the means to promote such a laudable 
and yet withal paying enterprise, move in this 
matter ? I see the Indian merchants have already 
made a start. Are we to be behind a country against 
whom we have always had the credit of forging ahead ? 
Wake up, ye Colombo Company promoters I here's 
a scheme worthy the name I Wishing the Old Kag " 
a very prosperous and happy New Year —Yours truly, 
C. T. 
CACAO PREPARATION AND PRICES. 
Dear Sir, — One of your correspondents lately 
called attention to the methods, in vogue amongst 
native cacao-growers, of drying their cacao beans 
with little or no fermentation, and attributed the 
continued low prices partly to this practice. But re- 
cent enquiries clearly sliow that this new, cheap 
method of curing cacao is by no means confined lo 
native growers and thieves. On several estates a 
system is now adopted of washing the beans in the 
morning after the pods have been broken, and drying 
gradually for periods of three hours daily. By this 
method a large amount of the sugary mucilage is 
dried with the beans and their weight consequently 
increased. The old idea of getting an outturn of 
bright, well-washed, well-fermented beans has been 
given up, and Ceylon cocoa, instead of topping the 
market, seems likely to take the lowest place I 
It would seem to be more reasonable for planters 
to combine in adopting the remedies suggested by 
'the Cryptogamist to exterminate the cacao fungus 
than to try to make up estimates of crop by these 
methods. 
A complaint was recently made in your columns 
against the Chamber of Commerce entry, in prices 
current, of cocoa as ' unpicked and undried ' : as 
regards a considerable quantity the heading appears 
to be perfectly justifiabie. It would be fairer though 
to have two headings, ' fermented ' and ' unfer- 
mented,' so that honest growers should not suffer 
for the artful de dings of others. 
We have, unfortunately, merchants in Colombo 
who will buy the lowest grades of any product and 
make use of the prices so paid to lower the rates 
for all grades accordingly. Can nothing be done to 
prevent the sale of such produce? Can we not have 
some standard fixed so as to prevent unprincipled 
dealers and receivers pandering to the ingenuous 
middleman? With Ceylon Tea "faked" in the way 
"Incinerator" lately pointed out, and cacao "cured" 
without fermentation, it is hardly fair for the Ceylon 
planter to continue to throw stones at the "heathen 
Ghinee " I— Yours faithfully, 
A MISCELLANEOUS PLANTER. 
RUBBER AND COFFEE. 
Coonoor, S. India, Dec. 
Dear Sir, —Can you recommend any siiort 
description ot Rubber cultivation, more especially 
fts re<jards Ca'-tilloii in conjunction with coll'ee as a 
possible shculc 
Ilevea is, 1 undeistatul, a surface-feeder and 
would not therefore suit colVce ; regarding Castilloa 
the informalioii especially wanted is : — 
buitability as shade for coll'ee. 
Di.stance for plantinc;. 
PLCturns per tree at 3,000—4,000 feet elevation. 
Has it been tried successfully as a sole product' 
—Yours faithiully, W. RHODES JAMES. 
[Our compilation of available "Rubber" informa- 
tion for the planter is in the printer'.s liands. 
Castilloa is just as mueli a surface-feeder as Hevea 
and we have the authority of the Director of'tiie 
Botanic Gaidens for sayiii.cc this ; and neither of 
these rubbers will do 'well above 2,000 feet — 
Ed. T.A.] 
PROPOSED CEYLON "TEA DUST CO." 
Ambagatnuwa, 10th Jan., 1899. 
DEARS[R,—^\lth your kind perinis-^ion, ibis my 
desire to lay before you and your readers such 
tisnres as would convince the most sceptical, that 
a "Ceylon Tea Dust Comi^)any " started to ' pur- 
chase and dispose of all the Dust Tea manufac- 
tured (in Ceylon Factories) for eon.suniption within 
the Island, would not only reflect to their credit 
as a laudable pliiiantliiopic move, but as a scheme 
which must undoubtedly in the near future 
prove a very remunerative undertaking. As I 
pointed out in my last, it would be to the interest 
of all planters to bind themselves to sell their 
Dust Teas (bo7iafiac dust only) to such a company 
at say 15 cents a lb, packed iii chests and delivered 
in Colombo. A slight concession may he made to 
those estates at an elevation over .3,000 ft. in the 
shape of the "Tea Dust Company" payino- the 
rail freight and giving those estates 15c"nett 
in Colombo. It is not the 1.5c per lb. we 
can thus get, that would revert to our benefit, but 
t/ie enormous advantage gained by keeping back 
these teas which now go to swell the Colombo .and 
Mincins' Lane markets and which must tend in 
a great measure to keep down our average. When 
they are no more available to those markets it is 
but natural to suppose that juices for our better 
grades must harden : a rise of a penny for these 
grades would more thanconipensatetho.se estates 
where Dust Teas may now sell at a few cents 
hioher than the 15c limit, I have quoted as the 
.selling price of the dust to the " Ceylon Tea 
Dust Company" oiii//. This is the main obiect 
we must keep in view. 
Now for figures ! Let us take the Ceylon Tea 
crop lor 1899, and for the sake of argument put the 
crop down at say 120,000,000 lb— 5 o/o (five per 
cent)of jhis will be Dust Tea equal to 0 000 OUO 
lb. available for the " Ceylon Tea Dust Company " 
The company at iis inception cannot well be 
expected to dispose of this vast quantity in the 
Island: those thousands who now know tea only by 
name and perhaps not, have to be reached • 
and this can only he done by dint of (irni per-ever- 
ance of a good working stall .scattered throu..h<mt 
the length and bieadtli of the Ishunl. M e can then 
have no reason to doubt that the whole ot this 
quantity within a few years wouKl be more than 
annually absorbed by the -2,000,000 or .so which 
form the poorer classes of our Island population— 
every outlying village must be reached and no 
ellort spared to have agood drinkable and yet 
wit lal a cheap tea within the puicliasing powers 
of the |)oorer classes. 
A company di.sposing of tliese tea-s ,at 30c a 
lb. in one lb. leaden packets or 22c a lb. in bulk 
can safely reckon on a profit of oc a II). and 
when such a company can dispose of the 6,0(i0,0li0 
lb. annually, thoy will turn over the nice little Mini 
of R:i(iU,0(iO. Wit h such a figure to be reached,' are 
there no pliilanthroiiists in dur mctiupolis to'rise 
to the occasioa and lloat such a uompauy X 
