July L 1903.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 51 
dealers know their value, or will be tempted to stock a 
package for whicti they have not a bayor beforehand. ' 
The "Salada" Tea Company aunouace that they 
have secured a prominent position in the 
CEYLON COURT OF THE WORLD'S FAIR 
to be held next year in St. Lonis, where they will 
make an exhibit of Ceylon tea. The Globe of Toronto, 
pablishes a portrait of Mr. P C Larkin. and in the 
course of a biographical notice, mentions that mainly 
through his instrumentality " today, from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific in Oanadi, there is not a 
town, village, or hamlet where Ceylon tea is not a 
popular drink, and it is fast becoming so in every 
part of the United States." — H. and C, Mail, May 13, 
. « : 
RUBBER CULTIVATION AT LAGOS. 
NEED FOR AN INDIAN FOREST EXPERT. 
An interesting lecture on "La'^o?: Its Hinter- 
land, Prrtduets and People," was delivered by 
Major J H E^vart before the Colonial Seetioa of 
the Society of Arts last week. For the last ten 
years, said Major Ewarfc, rubber has been col- 
lected ia that Colony, and is much more profitable, 
beside being; ei,sier work t'laa collecting oil and 
kernels. Consequently the latter trade has 
been very much neglected. The rubber 
plants thrive and grow quickly if the seed be 
allowed to fall in its natural way. A better 
quality and a larger quantity of rubber is collected 
if the trees are tapped during the dry season. 
They recover during the wet season and are ready 
to be tapped again the following season. The 
damage said to be done to rubber trees has been 
somewhat exaggerated, said Major Ewart, al- 
though natives who do not understand the work 
often deepen the cuts that have already been 
made by the Yankee collectors, and extend them 
all round the tree. If a trained official from the 
Indian Forestry Department were sent out with a 
staff of Indians to superintend and organise a 
proper Forestry Department in West Africa, the 
rubber and timber industry would benefit largely. 
— Commercial Intelligence, May 14. 
THE COFFEE CRISIS IN BRAZIL : 
A BAD LOOK OUT, 
A planter writing to O Estado from Moujolinho 
proposes the heroic remedy of leaving the coming 
crop on tlie trees and, as it leaves a dead loss, do 
not gather a single berry. We dont know how 
much it would cost, but if i>3stead of burning- 
coffee and leading money to planters to produce 
more Government would supply them with enough 
to pay custcio and maintain their farms for 
another year on condition of not gathering the 
coffee, there might be something in it. But then, 
they could never be trusted. 
— Plans and projects for raising coffee prices 
are so common that no one takes any further 
notice of them. Whatever happens coffee will be 
produced in quantities enough to satisfy consump- 
tion. 
A good deal of disappointment is felt that the 
effect of the late coffee legislation has not been 
immediate, but that instead of going up prices 
abroad have positively gone down since. But 
every one here is in too much of a hurry ! At 
present, prices are apathetic because, for one 
tiling, no one scarcely believes in the law being 
really executed. 
Tlie Sun of Mew York has also been taking the 
matter up and advocates a tax on coffee because, 
when American took off the import tax Brazilians 
increased the export duties and got all the advant- 
age. The " Sun goes on to tax us with ingratitude 
as America imports from Brazil half a dozen 
times as much as Brazil import from the?m. On 
the other hand we took more from G. Britain 
and some other countries than we sent to them 
and so helped them to pay for the excess of their im- 
ports from the United States and made all things 
beautiful. 
Reciprocity is all very well but Americans do 
not take our goods out of philantliropy, but be- 
cause they want them ; nor do they refrain from 
taxing them for our benefit but because they can't 
produce them themselvas and, like .sensible peiple, 
want them, therefore, as cheap as they can get 
them ! If they clap on a tax they will raise 
prices, certainly, and probably reduce consumption 
and injure us that way. Bat prices are already 
so low as to make it almost impossible they should 
fall lower for any long period, and any damage 
that might be done in that way would certainly 
fall much more on the American consumer. To 
tax oneself in order to spite one's neighbour 
is too silly to recommend itself to so sensible a 
peple as the Americans and is not likely to We 
done. 
Messrs Alfre o Guedes, Jos^ Souza Qeiroz, 
Jose M de Uamargo Arruda, Barao de Rezende, 
and Ignacio Mendonga Uchua, the delegntes of 
the Agricultural Congress that met early ia the 
year, have issued a manifest explaining to 
planters the outcome of their mission and giving 
them advice for the future. The co-operation of 
Government was they say, disappointing because 
although adopting several of the measures recom- 
mended by the Congress, Government refused to 
have any thing at all to do with compensation of 
planters for the coffee " eliminated" nor even to 
approach the Federal Government on the subject. 
Since the law was passed prices abroad have fallen 
and everything leads to the conclusion that they 
will fall lower still and not be sufficient to pay 
the cost of harvesting , What is to be the out- 
come of a situation by which the land owner will 
be ruined and oOO, 000 labourers left without work 
cannot be foreseen. The manifest recommends 
planters to act all together camly and hopefully, 
but does not tell them how. If they are all ruined, 
and their colonos too, and can't even pick their 
coffee, it seems the best thing to do would be to 
plant something to eat at any rate. No doubt 
things are as black as they well can be, but the coffee 
will be picked that is on the trees, no matter 
what prices go-to if only to pay the colono what 
is owing. — Branilinn Revietv, April 21. 
PRODUCE AND PLANTING. 
VVhile the Tea Association of London and the major- 
ity of growers have been doing all in their power to 
bring about a reduction in 
TEA DUTY, 
one member at least of the fraternity of grocars does 
not sympathise with them. Mr Imrle, J P President 
of the South Shields Gtocers' Association, is, so far aa 
regards tea, content with things as they are. He 
aoorna the idea of a reduction o£ duty, and ha ex- 
plained why at the monthly meeting of his assooialion. 
"Everybody seemed to be selling tei uoivad.iyT. It 
the duty wag doubled it would send a tremindous 
lot of stuff out of the mirkat thit should never bs in 
the m arket, and shcRild certainly not be put into the 
sloma'?h, because it woald not be worth the duty, and 
