July I, 189T.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
39 
seen the limit at whioh advertisement of that kind 
may be profitably made. Having thus fa? written 
my letter, my eye caught a paragraph in the Times 
of this morning which informa us that at the sale 
room yesterday Messrs. Gow, Wilson & Stsnton 
sold a small lot of golden tip Ceylon tea from the 
Gartmore estate to the Mazawattee Oeylon Tea Com- 
pany at £25 lOs the pound ! Well may the Times 
remark as to this that it is " a price whioh has 
never yet been approached." It will be unsafe to 
hazard even a conjecture if at this rate we have 
reached the economic limit and whether the 
advertisement market will prove now to be glutted 
with these abnormal preparations of tea. It is 
certainly singular that no tea of this kind 
has been sent from India. Ceylon as yet 
stands alone in the supply of if, and the 
fact of course gives exceptional prominence to your 
produce in all conversations arising out o£ these 
extraordinary sales.— London Cor. 
TEA AT ^17 AND £25 lOa. PER POUND. 
The recent sales of Ceylon tea at £17 and £25 iOs. 
per pound have attracted a good deal of attention 
from the English newspapers. The London and 
China Express says that there appears to be " no 
limit to the price which tea dealers are willing to 
pay for the fancy parcels of Ceylon tea which have 
of late been put upon the mavket. It will soon 
equal in value gold Aant itself." A description is 
given of the sale of the Haviland parcel on the 5th 
inst. at £17 per lb., the bidding beginning at ten gui- 
neas and rising by half crowns and crowns to the sum 
for whioh it was ultimately knocked down snd 
whioh is equal to a guinea an ounce ; and with 
regard to the sale two-dfiys later when £25 lOi 
per lb, was paid by the Mazawattee Ceylon Tea 
Company for ■' golden tips" from Gartmore it is 
stated that the price beginning at 10 guineas was run 
up within a minute to £20 v/hen it proceeded by 
crowns and half sovereigns till the £25 IO1 was 
reached. During the sale the room was packed to 
suffocation. The Financial Times has a pro- 
minent article on the sale headed " Worth 
Nearly Half of its Weight in Gold," and the 
Daily 'Neivs and Daily Chronicle have also sketchea 
of the exciting scene in the auction roou). 
Announcements regarding the purchase by the 
Muzawattee Co, also appear in the advertisement 
columns, and altogetter there is perhaps at the 
present moment no article of commerce which is 
kept more prominently before the mind cf the 
British public, than (!ey!op. tea. From the OZote of 
May 8th we quote the following v&xRgcavh.~~" Apropos 
of the high price paid for tea yesterday — the record at 
prf sent stands at £25 lOi a pound — a correspondent 
writes to suggest that Mr Goschen should consider 
the advisability of employing lea leaves as one 
pound notes. We offtr tliis Golden Tip to the 
Chancellor of the Exchequer for what it is worth." 
WYNAAD PLANTING NOTES. 
COFFEE CR3P PBOSPECTS — LIBBKIiN COFFEE. 
As the suy)jeot which is most promiacaUy forcing 
itself upon our notice, I must oommeuoo this letter 
with the weather. This his been most unusual, and 
in some respects sati.ifaotory, us our very early showers 
fell just suffioiiiiitly, ttud then liad the grace to hold 
off loug enough to allow the blossom to set. This 
arrangement ooourred on four disliufit occasions, eo 
tliat most of us have had four separate blossoms on 
our trees. All last month thunderstorms and rain 
were so oontinuoas that the climate has become 
more like that of the monsoon, than what we might 
expect in an ordinary "hot weather" season. The 
nights, early mornings and evenings are pleasantly 
cool, but there is a steamy haat ia the middle of the 
day whioh brings oar men folk in from the field 
pauting for any ooct ol cooling beverage. The country 
is as green and lush in growth, as if i| were Sep- 
tembe? instead of May. The coffos looks splendid. I 
have nevar seen the berries such a aize, so early in 
the season, but we are rather quaking at the thought 
that all this estra moisture is not unlikely to bring 
on again oar dreaded foe, leaf disease. At present, 
it is simply marvellous how the eslates have re- 
covered themselves, which some months ago seemed 
almost positively doomed. 
Crop prospects, therefore, may be generallj re- 
garded as very fairly favourable ; and a corresponding 
cheerfulness would reign amoogst us could we all 
feel that our future was as secure as our next crop. 
But there is no use in attempting concealment in 
a matter which is every dey becooiing more patent 
to the experienced coffee-planter. The death warrant 
of Arabic! has gone forth, and it must be only a 
matter of a few years, when its place «iniongBt ui 
will know it no more. The old fields hold on where 
the borer does not finish thetn, but the present 
he^vy crop will probably shake many of them beyond 
recovery. The disheartening fact is that it is the 
young plantings on wbich we should naturally rest 
onr hopes, and these are proving a constitution so 
undermioed by leaf disease that it is not probable 
that even the mast promising of them can be 
lasting. I do not think from what I can gather that 
the idea of grafting coffee is regarded us feasible in 
the Wycaad. The general opinion is that it could 
not be f nccessful, and would only be a throwing awav 
of money, which alaa I is none too plentifui amosigst 
ua now-a-dnjs. Liberian coffee is now decidedly, first 
favourite. There caa be little or ).o doubt that in vigour 
and general hardiaess it very far excels Arabica. 
The thickness of its leaves apparently defy the fungus ; 
and it is as hearty as an evergreen all the year round. 
Ill fact, it is evergreen. The masses of crop do not 
seem in *he very least to affect its lusty growth, 
and the fact that the blossom sets in one day, is 
greatly in its favour. No one but a planter knows 6ho 
!i::art-sick feeling caused by the drenching downfall on 
open blossom, which is so often to be witnesssd in the 
0.1,86 of the Arabica flower. 
A veiy great deal of Liberian ia being planted in this 
d s*ricit. It has the disadvantage of course of being 
longer in reaching maturity, but if we can hold on with 
our remnants of Arabica until the Liberian comes into 
lisariiig, we may hope for better times before us yet 
O'bere is much depression felt on account of the 
shockingly bad price given us for lust season's cinchona 
1 ark. A great quantity was despatched from the 
district iu the hope of replacing some of the lossei 
iiicurred by the failure in our coffee crops. But as ill- 
liiok will have it the s^les hare proved generally so 
unremunorative that it is absolutely hardly worth while 
h-.rvts'ing our bark. This of course is very rough on 
us. Rut we should be usad to suoh disappointments. 
UniuL'tunately not being constituted like eels, we fiud 
f c'l disappointment cornea down upon us more like an 
utipbas.'int surprise than an habitual ocourrenoe. A 
;;.iod deal of business is being done in timber, and our 
1 lagnifioent Blaokwoods are paying the penalty of their 
lives for our necessities. This ia likely to be an 
improving trade. Very large quiutitios of "fancy 
blocks " are in demand for the Continent, and one 
thinks with regret cl the glorious timber which lay 
ritlic}^ in our fields, or became fuel for our coolie* in 
the good old times, when we sacfificed the most valuable 
trees, simply because wo wanted the land, and had no 
roads by which to transport the wood to the coast. 
Certainly we are better off in this respect, and our roads 
ere, some of them, boeoniiug a pleasure to travel upon. 
"^V^ell, we will not despair, as long as Liberian, pepper 
and tea are left ns, though the latter does not as yet 
make mnch progress. Everyone seems afraid to begin. 
Or possibly the cost of the "plant," for such a navy 
