42 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [July i, 1891. 
var. A scoop of tf a is put in the tespot, the boiling 
water frMii the Shmovar ia turned upou it ; the iufusioa 
is iLHlantly jioured into a glass tumbler, and a slice of 
lemon or akimp of fugnr is used as a flavoring by thofce 
who like it. lie majority of Russians use ii' ilber. At 
all the railway stations, in nil the streets of the towns- 
at every hour of the day snd night, " tehai" was to be 
bad, even though bri-ad or b^er might be wanting, 
T e man iu our pia-ty who thought tea was only fit 
forold woEuen and would not drink it, learned, 
after pfl>ing three rnblts for a bottle f f ginger ale 
and making himself ill with poor coffto and bad 
water and worse wine, to swallow the national bever- 
agH without a grimsce, and almost to like " the cup 
w- ich cheers but not inebriates," before he left the 
dominions of the Tsar. On the Siberian wharf, where 
Ibe ^turdy Tartars were unloading the myriads of 
harees which brt.ught goods to the fair, there were, 
be ides tbonfands and thousands of chests of tea, bales 
of cotton by the mile, heaps of hides and skins, 
carboys of acid, casks of dried fruit, and uuonn- 
tains of iron from the Ural. Wool is a great article of 
conimerce at Nijni — we saw enurmcus heaps of the 
fl eces of sheep, and in the Bazaar some of the famous 
Ukrj.iue wool. They have timber too, and stone, and 
broi ze, and carts and all their separate parts, and iu 
fine, all things vi-hich men can use, or wear, or eat, or 
dri:'.k. Among these last articles were literal hills of 
■wstermf-lons. Every man. Woman and child iu some 
parts of the town seemed tu be eating watermelons. 
C.iu'd a Southern m gro have dropped into Nijni during 
the fair, he would have thought himself in paradif^e, 
for the iu-cinus fruit was everywhere, iu heaps on the 
wharfs, at the markets, in wagonP, and Bppareutly in 
the hands and the mouths of most of the two hiindreoi 
thousand strangers vho are faid to flock hither in 
A^iguet.— Editorial Correspondence of the New York 
Observer. 
_ — _ 
CEYLON PRODUCE' ESTIMATES AND 
PROBABLE CROPS FOR 1891. 
TEA. 
Early in the year we endeavoured to collect such 
estimates from tho several planting districts in 
reference to staple products as might enable us 
to judge more accurately of the total outturns. But 
from certain — especially the larger — districts, the re- 
turns were so imperfect as to make a compilation of 
them not worth the labour required. In other cases, 
we were greatly obliged to friends who put themselves 
to a good deal of trouble to afford the required in- 
formation. Although therefore the figures are of 
no use for enabling us to indicate a more correct 
estimate of the total outturn for the island, yet the 
gentlemen concerned, and other district residents, 
may be interested in eeeing the returns m.ade up 
for certain districts some five to six months ago as 
a means of comparison with the position and pros- 
pects at the present time. For instance we had 
careful estimates compiled for tho North-eastern 
group of districts and the total crop of tea for 1891 
from Kelehokks, Knuckles, Eangala, Nitre Gave and 
Medamahariuwara wo,s fiven at 3 325,000 lb. (Kele- 
bokka 1,175,000; Knuck'es 950,000; Ktngala and 
the rest l.VOO.OOO lb.) We suspect if the eslimatea 
were to bo made up at present thn.t tho total would 
be nearer 4 than 3 niiliion lb. Matale East (with 
Lag(.'ala), North aud West were put down for 
2, too OtJO lb. ; but we were witliout full returns for 
iilka' U'.va, Hunaegiriya and tho f r-inmed Valley 
included iu W.ittegama. It is the opinion of one 
who may nlmof^t bo oolb d an old " Ceylon tea 
planicr" that, the long "ntraih" or cuocession of 
"utralha" (valleys) from Matale to Peradeniya and 
tbence up via Gampola to Nawa'apitiya will 
prove to be the richest yielding portion of the coun- 
try in tea. The district of Dolosbage which always 
stood well in the palmy days of ctfiee, has also 
been one of the earliest to take up with tea which 
luxuriates in its climate and soil, so that the es- 
timate for this district alone at the beginning of ' 
the year (3,100 000 lb.) was nearly equal to tho 
outturn from the whole of the North eastern group 
of districts specified. Wo suppose 4 millions lb. 
would be about the estimate for Dolosbage, Kadu- 
pannavta and Alagala, but this is doubtlefs below 
the mark i:ow. Fauherup, while we got 1,600,000 lb. 
for Kctmale and 2 200,000 lb. for Lower Dikoya, 
we were left to conieclure Ambagamuwa at about 
1,200,100 and for Yukdessa some 600,000 more, 
making for Ibis group, a total of about 6,600,000 lb. 
If we now go to the Far East, we get the crop 
for Hewaheta Upper estimated so closely as 814,000 
lb. and Ilewi beta Lower 613,000 lb , while for 
Haniane our return is imperfect but, we suppofe 
the total w ill be about a million lb., while Nilambe 
is placed at 900 000. Gallaha Factory serving 
several estates in this quarter cannot be putting 
through this year lees than half-a million lb. We 
thus have 3,300,000 lb. for the Eastern group. 
For Pussellawa, Ramboda and PuD('aluoja cur 
returns in eetimates were ver? imperfect, so that 
our reckoning of an outturn of about 2 million lb. 
of tea can only be considered approximate. We 
omitted while in the North, to credit 120,000 lb. to 
Kuruuegala, ann if we add 1^ million for Hunas- 
giriya and "straths" not otherwise counted, the 
grand total for country between Matale and Bam* 
boda and Hewaheis, and Yakdetsa, becomes very 
nearly 22,000,000 lb. or probably above one-third of 
the total export from the island for the year. 
Abo\ e we give estimates for all the Northern 
and what may be called the Midland districts, and 
we made the total outturn this year as nearly as 
possible 22 million lb. for all the country 
fxiending from Matale to Eamboda and from 
Hewaheta to Yakdessa. Now if we turn to the 
three extensive h gher districts — Dimbula, Dikoya, 
and Maskfcliya — v. t; find, curiously enough, that 
our reckoning c; the aggregate crops of all three 
divisions, comes singularly nf-ar the above result 
for the older districts. In July 1888, tfese three, 
districts were returned as having 57,000 acres of 
tea planted, and between that date and July 1890, 
the addition to the planted area was 18,000 acres. 
Altogether, then, we cannot put the tea crops ©f 
the three districts for 1891 at less than 19,500,0001b, 
while they may amount to 22 million lb. — We 
have next the Nuwara Eliya division which 
may bo said to include Maturata, Udapussollawa, 
Kandapola. New Galway and Nuwara Eliya itself. 
For Maturata our estimate is a crop of from 
900,000 to the round million lb.; for U,ia- 
pussellawa we get about 1.300,000 ; for New 
Galway about 100,000 lb. ; Nuwara Eliya and 
Kandapola say 730,000 lb., making a total of very 
nearly 3 million lb. If we now go to Uva proper, 
but shorn of its outlying divisions of U'lapus- 
seilawa and New Galway, our estimates — furnished 
very kindly by competent local residents who took 
a good deal of tri-.uble to complete them, run 
Haputale . . l.SS.'SjGOO lb. Tea. 
Madulsima & 
Hewa Eliya . . 566,000 
Monaragala . . 17,000 
To these we liave to add for Hsputale 
West, say 250,000 lb., and for Badulla which we 
are inc ined to put down, in correspondence with 
tho above, at a little over one million lb., but 
su-peot that all these estimates will prove well on 
the safe side and that the aggregate from Uva 
this year oanaot be le^a than 3| million lb, 
