42 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [July 1, 190L 
never handle a new article until the grower or 
manufactuier has made a market first. They 
will not do missionary work, their travellers 
object to it as, while they engaged in education, 
another firm's travellers sell the 2;rocer what his 
customers have been accustomed to take. Travel- 
lers have to earn their wages, which depend on 
sales. 
Now we had been making green teas in some 
quantity in Ceylon for six months before I reached 
Toronto in Match. Nearly all these teas had 
been consigned to about six brokers in Toronto 
and Hamilton. I had been warning the Ceylon 
Committee almost every mail that their bounty 
and the very low prices for black teas would, 
combined, cause an accumulation in Toronto, as 
we had no money to help to make sales and over- 
come the obstacle ot the wholesaler and his travel- 
lers. 1 found it so. True, some string packet tea 
firms were pushing the green teas, but they drew 
most of their supplies direct from Colombo. A few 
houses had bought some, which were chiefly used 
in packets. Bat the brokers were all loaded up, 
and had wired to stop shipments from Colombo. 
Things looked very blue, and the only encourag- 
ing features were that the packet people were 
hopeful, energetic, and full of praise of tlie quality, 
and that Japans were scarce and dear. 
One importer suggested to me to get a number 
of ornamental canisters made, large enough to hold 
50 or 601b of tea, and ofl'er one to each wholesaler 
for each lOOIb of green he bought. This canister 
was to be given to any grocer who bought 1001b of 
green, and photos of the canisters lo be given to 
the travellers to show the grocers. I had 1,000 
canisters made, marked " Ceylon Green Teas" iu 
large letters, and the accumulation of teas was 
swept oil' in a fortnight. I returned to New York, 
and when there I had letters from various Toronto 
brokers to the effect that they had sold their 
stocks and all afloat. One of them wrote : " I 
wired on March 10th to double my order, and on 
the 20th inst. to treble it." These canisters are 
standing advertisements for Ceylon greens in per- 
haps 1,000 shops. In Montreal no wholesaler would 
listen to me, as they are much more conservative 
there. But I hope to break through the ring there 
before the end of this month. I have been waiting 
for greens to arrive from Colombo, as there were 
none lift in Canada. In New York I will only say 
that I was surprised by the favourable reception 
our greens were receiving about end of March, and 
I have had most encouraging news since I returned. 
1 could give many pages of quotations from 
letters from many sources, all of which are encour- 
aging. But I must confine myself to a few. 
From New York, » fortnight ago : " The only 
thing we have to fear now is cheap inferior teas 
being sent from Colombo to cut prices, destroy 
profits, and disgust our friends." This is from a 
strong New York tea firm. From Buffalo : "Our 
trade in this city in blacks is 1,000 lb a week. 
With the same trouble we should do 5,000 in 
greens. In Utica and Syracuse ' green ' is the 
great factor. See enclosed orders." He strongly 
recommends our doing something to attract at- 
tention during the Exhibition at Buffalo, but, 
unfortunately, there is no money. From Toronto: 
' One of our travellers sent us nine orders this 
morning, six of which were for greens.' Another 
Toronto man writes : ' I am getting on well with 
the greens; had orders for 4U0 lb this morning,' 
Another grocery firm in the country beyond 
Toronto writes : ' We had 100 lb green Ceylon 
first week in January, 500 lb at end of January, 
500 lb early in March. It is the finest tea we 
ever tasted, and we have yet to hear the first 
complaitit about it.' These jare samples of scores, 
all sent unsolicited. They may be deceiving me, 
but I think not. Many grocers have ordered them 
a second, third, fourth, and even fifth time, while, 
of course, others return theirs. It seems to me 
there are tvvo ways of getting the teas introduced. 
1. Make a large quantity and send it over to 
be sold for what it would fetch. If 2,000,0001b 
were made in India and dumped in America at 
Id per lb loss it would cost India £8,000, v.'hich 
the industry could well afford. It would relieve 
the English market, and be an introduction to 
the American one. 
2. That Companies siiould agree as to who 
should make the te.i, that the makers should 
blend the standards in large lots and that instead 
of making a loss of Id per lb as in the first 
method, the teas should be held for paying prices, 
the Id per lb being used to grease the wheels of 
distribution, as I did with the canisters in Toronto. 
There are many other important matters of 
which I do not care to write, but over which I 
would like a talk with you. — Yours truly, 
W Mackenzie. 
P.S. — What is wanted is a regular supply of 
green teas for America. Spot teas can be sold, 
but orders for teas to be delivered four to six 
months hence cannot be obtained. At present it 
is the supply, not the demand, that fails us. Since 
I wrote the above letter I have had two instances 
of valuable progress with those green Ceylons. 
A New York firm bought 25 chests six weeks 
ago, the hrst they had handled. Within a month 
they had opened up 90 accounts with grocers who 
had not t^and'ed any Ceylon green before, and they 
had increased their purchases from 25 to 300 chests. 
Another firm in New York bought 25 chests 
three weeks ago — their first order. I have jnst 
learnt by wire they have bought another 150 
chests.— If C Mail, May 17. 
RUBBER CULTIVATION IN BURMA. 
{Eotcse of Commons, May 18.) 
In reply to Mr. Sharpe (Kensington, N.), 
Lord G. Hamilton (Middlesex, Ealing) said : — 
The Government of India have recently authorised 
an extensive experimental plantation of the Para 
rubber tree in the Tenasserim Division of Burma, 
where the climate and other conditions are believed 
to be favourable. I am aware that attempts are 
being made to develop the production of rubber 
in Ceylon and elsewhere by private enterprise, 
but I do not think that this is a reason why the 
Government of India should not do their best to 
develop their resources in that country and en- 
courage private enterprise by showing that this 
tree can be profitably cultivated in parts of India. 
— London Times.. 
Prune Coffee and prune rum furnish a couple 
of channels for the relief of the terribly burdened 
prune market. The prune coffee contains 70 per 
cent, ot the fruit, the remainder being cereals, and 
will soon be placed on the market in neat cartons. 
The distillers, however, are likely to get the 
larger part of the surplus of prunes. — Merchants^ 
Review. 
