Feb, 1, I90i] 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
537 
NOTES FROM OUll LONDON LETTER. 
London, Jan. 1. 
Mr. Edwards Radclyffe haa achieved 
wonderful success with the new fabrics 
obtained from 
RAMIE. 
Some of the patterns of dress materials, he 
showed me yesterday, were for gloss, softness, 
and beauty of appearance equal to silk, and 
evidently ramie is a textile that lends itself 
to the dyeing process, for some of the 
samples were as brilliant and delicate in colour 
as I have ever seen in a draper's show 
case. Among other letters he showed me 
was one from Dr. J Hill Gibson, who said 
that years ago he had experimented with 
ramie as a substitute for lint in surgical 
operations ; that he found it had fourteen 
times the absorbent power of other banda- 
ges, and that he predicted for it a great 
future in hospital use, as soon as it was 
procurable. Dr. Herd, who writes from 
St. Lucia, is planting up a considerable 
area experimentally and expects that !St. 
Lucia will go in for ramie cultivation on a 
large scale. He has also had correspond- 
ence from planters in various parts of 
India, and Queensland, who are taking 
up the idea. One of these gentlemen stated 
tbau he was proposing to sink Capital to 
the extent of £6,000 in a ramie venture in 
Bolampore, I believe it was, and that several 
others in his district were prepared to 
cultivate the fibre in small quantities and 
send it to his mills when they were started 
to be worked into the ribbons. Mr. D Ed- 
wards Kadclytfe's contention is that the 
SINHALESE CULTIVATORS OP RASflE 
could extract the fibre by hard labour as 
is done in China and he has promises 
from several large firms in this country 
who are ready to take 70 tons of the fibre 
a week, or practically as much as he can 
offer them. Incandescent gas mantles alone, 
he considers, would absorb an enormous 
quantity. Germany alone needs 150 millions 
of gas mantles per annum whereas Eng- 
land takes only 20 millions at present. I 
don't know whether that estimate is based 
on the breakages in mantles. My experi- 
ence goes to prove that one's first gas 
mantles last out a year, just to make you 
think how delightfully economical they are, 
and that after that period the life of an 
incandescent gas mantle is something like 
the existence of a butterfly. Three days 
is about its limit in any ordinary house- 
hold. Still that only makes the case 
for the huge consumption of gas mantles 
a better one, and if — as Mr. Edwards 
Radclylfe says— the rest of Europe adopts 
incandescent light on the same scale as 
Germany, and if— as / say— the breakages keep 
pace even with England, there seems no end 
to the possibilities of ramie. 
MARKET FOR TEA PLANTING SHARES. 
THE YEAR 19 j3. 
The year 1908 opened with a quiet tone in 
Mincing Lane, Common teas having tlie best of 
it in the way of value. Before lon^, however, the 
ftdniitte4 shortness o» the 1902 Indian crop, as 
well as le.^seued supplies from Ceylon, caused 
stronger tone, beuefitin}^ more particularly the 
better classes of tea, and the general average of 
Indian tea, which, in December, stood at 7|J, 
ro.se, in March, to over 8Jd, and of Ceylon from 
7Jd to about 81. No alteration of the duty was 
made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, nor, 
indeed, was a change very generally expected, 
though it was considered liaid, by those interested 
in the tea trade, that the extra 2d. should not 
have been remitted rather than the little felt corn 
tax. In the early autumn the tone was easier, 
but, later on, a belief gained ground that, with 
short supplies from Ceylon and moderate arrivals 
from India, with increasing home consumption 
and considerable quantities being diverted to 
Foreign and Colonial markets, the position warrant 
ed a continuance ot good prices in Mincing Lane, so 
that, throughout the autumn, good prices were ob- 
tained for the cheaper teas, with only a slight) re- 
action in November and December. Good medium 
Assams, however, and even, in some cases, tUe 
liner teas kept exceedingly low — so much so that) 
it is to be feared planters have, towards the close 
of the season, plucked heavily in all the districts. 
The combination of Indian producers has worked 
satisfactorily, and at no time have the supplies at 
auction exceeded requirements, and it is hoped 
that notwithstanding the large supplies still to be 
dealt with, importers will stand firm. The state 
of the trade is reported to be sound, with supplies 
in distributors' hands moderate. When accounts 
for 1902 were made up in the spring of 1903, better 
results were shown, though there were notable ex- 
ceptions : dividends were mostly better with an 
improved state of finances, but there were still in 
some instances arrears of preference dividend. 
Share values, which at the close of 1902 had been 
tending better, continued almost uninterruptedly 
tiiroughont 1903, to advance although towards the 
middle of the year there were temporary set-backs. 
The greatest improvement, however, has taken 
place in the shares of the cheap-tea producers — 
chiefly those of the Dooars end of the Soorma Valley, 
as well as the low-country Ceylon properties — 
while those of the Assam gardens, Darjeeling and 
the high elevation Ceylon properties have benefited 
least. There are tho.se who believe that in re- 
gard to the 40 or 45 per cent, of the Indian 
crop still remaining to be marketed after Christ- 
mas, conditions may be entirely reversed — that the 
common producers will now suffer and the fine 
producers reap the advantage, bub against this 
view is the almost insatiable demand which exists 
— accentuated by the high 6d duty — for tea costing 
below a certain price, The tone of the interim 
reports and the absence in so many cases of interim 
dividends has a little damped expectations ; but it 
is understood that, in view of past hard times, the 
administrations of the leading companies are follow 
ing a conservative policy. The rise in the case of 
certain shares which had dropped to nominal prices 
has been quite phenomenal, but notwithstanding 
this, the buying even of large lines of shares has 
been persistent right through the year. This buy- 
ing would appear, moreover, to be based less on the 
expectations of immediate good returns than upon 
a belief that the industry is about to enter upon a 
cycle of increased prosperity. The features of 
strength are mainly these : 
1 The continued stoppage of all extension of 
oaltivation in India, and the inability of Ceylon to find 
mach new land break ap foi planting. 
