246 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [October i, 1891. 
thougb not bearng the same proportion of profit 
as formerly, is still likely to i .crease in qaaotity 
and, notwithstanding the various forma competitioa 
has taken, can still be made to bear a very fair profit 
and yield a good return to grocers who are in a position 
to know their customers' tastes better than growers 
in foreign countries, and others who only aSeot this 
knowledge. 
^ 
COCOA IN CEYLON. 
(From the Financial News.) 
The shrewdest of the Oeylon tea companies are 
wisely showing their appreciation of the maxim that 
no one shou'd put all hia eggs into one basket. Tea 
is of necessity, the moat valuable export at the present 
time, and will probably oonticue to be the st iple pro- 
duce of Oeylon for another ten yeara to come. The 
West Kensington correspondent whose letters we pub- 
lished on Monday does not believe in " the enormous 
estimate for future Ceylon crops of t£a." The most 
"enormous estimate" is that the output will amount 
to 100,000,000 lb. per annum in ten years time, which 
is about the quantity exported today from all the 
Indian gardens. Our point in difcussing " Tea 
Shares as luve'stments " was the danger of the supply 
overtakirg the demand. Qaal'ty rather than qaan- 
tity should be the peremptory instruction of the Lon- 
don companies to their local managers. When the suc- 
oess of a plantation is measured by the fineness and 
lusting qualities of its leaf rather than by the estra 
thousands of pounds in weight sent out per annum, the 
Ceylon tea gardens will have established their equili- 
brium, and Ceylon tea will still hold a commsndiug 
place and a profitable price in " the Lane ;" but, apart 
from tea, the natural resources of the island are suffi- 
ciently abundant to sustain the hopes of the investor in 
Oeylon securities. The disappointing results of Oeylon 
coffee and the quinine bark may fairly be paid to 
have been counterbalanced by the eucoess which 
has attended the experiments in the cultivation of 
indigo, of cotton, of a new fibre known in the market 
as "kapok," and, more especially, of the cocoa plant, of 
which the Ceylon variety is outstripping the best 
growths of the West Indies, not excepting the famous 
nut of Caracas. 
It nan only be a coincidence that the increasing 
consumption of cocoa in the United Kingdom should 
be occurring at the same time as the rise of the 
Ceylon cocoa industry. There is no possible connec- 
tion to be found between the two facts that we 
are all drinking more coroa than ever, and that the 
Ceylon supply is increasing, and obtains the best 
prices in Mincing Lane. It is possible that Oeylon 
cocoa is even now caviare to the general public. It 
has not yet become a special brand on the grocer's 
counter ; it would be necessary to travel far afield 
to procure a lample with which to try experiments 
on one's palate. Its value, however, is recognised 
by the manufacturers of cocoa and chocolate 
in France and Russia, as welt as in the British 
islands. Its prime cost is high, and it is bought, 
apparently, as an ingredient " too pure and good 
for human nature's daily food." Its commer- 
cial value consists, in fact, in its refining influence, 
which lends colour and flavour to a blend with cocoas of 
a poorer class. It can scarcely be said that the intrinsic 
merits of Ceylon cocoa account for the remarkable in- 
crease in the general oonsumptiot,. At 43 or 63 per lb., 
the price at which the re'ailer could afford to dispose 
of it, the commodity would be almost out of the reach 
of the prudent hou^ewife, The consumption of cocoa 
has, nevertheless, been a continually increasing item 
during the five yeara comprised in Messrs. Lewis and 
Noyes' last report. Their record, as regards the United 
Kingdom, runi, for the first half of each year, from 
3,9e0 tons in 1887 to 4,780 tons in 1690, and 5,370 tons 
in 1891. The French — to whom cocoa in one or another 
of its forms is at once meat and drink — did not keep 
pace with oar own people during the same period. 
The consumption in France for the first half of the 
present year was 6,910 tout, or only a trifling increase 
on the 6,070 tons ot five years before. Stocks were large 
in France at the end of J une; but prioes were Btesdy;and I 
OeyloQ cocoas Bt ill maintain their supermaoy, There- I 
lation which Ccylun prices bear to th" commercial values 
of the West Indian product will be seen by the 
appended table, which we have token from Messrs. 
Lewis and Nojes' August report:— 
COMPAEATIVE PeICES PER CwT. 
„ , 18ai. 1890. 1889. 1888. 1887. 
Ceylon 119/-I25/ 95/-105/ S-i/ 96/ RO/-W.V 90/- 00/ 
Guayaquil (Arriba) 9ii/-97/6 bO/- 85/ 75/-80/ 70 '-78/ 75/- 80/ 
Triunia'l 6K/.70/ Cb/- 69/ 65/-;0/ 70/-75/ 80/- 84/ 
Grenada 59/-63/ 60/-63/6 .59/-64/ e0/-66/ 69/- 73/ 
And this does not complete the tale, for at one time 
this year Oeylon "good red " fetched as much as 133s 
per cwt. in open auction. 
The cocoa industry iu Ceylon, promising as it ic, re- 
quires of its cultivator that " great capacity of taking 
paiua" which Oailyle described as the quality of geniup. 
It asks from all wbo know anything about it faith, 
hope, and charity. It makes u demand upon one's 
faith because five years must pass before it is possible 
to say that the outlay on the nui series is likely to 
prove a profitable invastmeut ; it asks for charity in 
the sense that it must be tenderly nurtured upon a rich 
allucial soil, somewhere by a river's brink, and unJor 
the shade of such shrubs as those which return their 
value iu the " kapok " pool, or such trees as are being 
raised to come i^to our timber market as gnod teak wood . 
The three or four plantations which a^^ cultivating 
the cocoa plant are even now only at the threshold 
of the good fortune which appears to await their 
enterprising proprietor?. The root of the growth must 
have been originally at Caracas ; it wi.B transplanted 
to Ceylop, and, so f ir, it has increased and multiiilied 
amazingly. The once famous cocoa of Venezuela, ihe 
fruit of the equally celebrated grow h in Idexico, the 
special varieties for which Ttiuidad was wont to be 
noted, have had to give way to the now competitor — 
the immigrant shrub which is fructifying in CeyJon. 
It involves some sacrifice, no doubt, to let one's 
money rest for halfaduzyn years until the cocoa plant 
matures. Everything seems to depend upon the suita- 
bility of the soil ; but when the location is rightly 
selected, the platt is robust, and enjoys a remarkably 
long life. It is too soon to talk of the longevity of the 
Coylon description of the Theobroma Cacao; but in 
Trinidad there are two thriving estates on which the 
cocoa trees are creditably reported to be over 100 
years old. Perhaps the reason whj so little informa- 
tion as to the possibilities of Cejloa cocoa reaches 
the investing public is that the holders of stock in the 
prosperous companies are satisfied with their eei^urities, 
and prefer to keep the good things to ihemselves. 
With a View of encouraging the fruit industry 
in Victoria, the Railway CommisBionera of that 
Colony have ogreed to carry fruit at special rates, 
with a minimum of Is for each consignment for 
any distance. This concession is a largd one. as it 
will enable growers at a consi<ierable distance to 
Bend single boxes of fruit to different persons at 
a very much reduced rate, provided the boxes do 
not exceed 1 cwt. in weight. — Colonies and India, 
Ivory. — When passing through the Exhibition, 
the other day, we noticed a splendid display of ivory 
in its raw and manufactured states. The "teeth," 
as they call elephantine tusks in the trade, in- 
cluded some very fine specimens, and it was 
apparent from some of them that Bos lucas has 
been a great martyr to that ache which invari- 
ably reminds us that our masticating members are 
a plague to get, a plague to keep, and a plague 
to lose. One pair of mammoth tusks weighed 
2 owt, and was valued at 90i. Mammoth ivory, 
by the way, is not hunted for nowadays. It ia 
found as an "alluvial deposit" in the rivers of 
Siberia, and ia rarely fit for commerce, being too 
discoloured. The specimens at the German Exhi- 
bition, however, are, curiously enough, quite white. 
A couple of elephant's tusks are also shown which 
weigh 1 cwt. 3 qr., and which are priced at 175Z. 
This lot came from the Kilima-Njaro district, 
the happy hunting ground ot the searcher after 
iyOT-g, -^European Trade Mail, 
