340 
Ynr TROPICAL agriculturist. [Noyember 2, 1891. 
The credit for the starting of the tea industry as 
well as cinchona planting in Ceylon belongs to Messrs. 
Harrison and Leake as Eeir, Dandas & Oo. who were 
my employers and proprietors of Loole Condera. It 
was they who allowed me to plant cinchona and 
ordered me to plant tea, and it was they who paid 
for these things and stood the rifk of failure. I 
took much interest in these cultivations, f>'r I 
had before thought myself that surely eomething 
else besides coffee could be profitably grown on our 
estates; 
With regard to the manufaotnre of tea I learned 
that mainly from others and from reading, but it 
took a lot of experimenting before I was very suc- 
cessful. About the time we began planting China tea 
from seed got fromPeradeniya Garden a Mr. Noble, 
an Indian tea planter from Oachar, pafsed through to 
see a neighbouring ccfiee estate that some of bis 
friends were interested in, and I got bim to show 
me the way I0 pluck and wither atd roll tea 
with a little leaf growing on tome old tea bushes 
in my bungalow garden. It was all rolled by hand 
then. He told me about fermenting and panning 
and the rest of the process as then in vogue, 
showing me the fermenting and paunicg as far as 
oircumBtanoes permitted. After that I frequently 
made experimental lots as I got leaf to pluck. 
Afterwards when Mr. Jenkics of the Oeylon Company, 
an old Assam tea planter, came to the country he 
called on me and I made a batch of toa under 
his direction. A sample of this and samples of seven 
lots that I had made before were then sent cp to Cal- 
cutta together to be reported upon and valued. Mr. 
Jenkins' pample was valued a little higher that any of 
mine, but mine were also pronounced good except one 
indifferent and one spoiled. With the«e exceptions 
both Jenkins' sample and the rest of mine were eaid to 
be better than the most of the Indian teas that were 
baing sold in Calcutta at the time. From this I saw 
that I had been making tea rightly enough, but as I 
could not get it to taste like the China tea of the 
shops I had been always varying my process and 
fpoiling batches of it in various ways sometimes 
purposely to see the nature of the results and 
throwing away lots that were no doubt ri ally good 
tea, some of which was used by other people and pro- 
nounced good. Nevertheless I benefitted largely by 
Mr. Jenkins in various ways, and that sample of bis 
being better than mine fettled me as to the degree to 
go to in the different parts of the manufacturing pro- 
cess and gave me confidence. 
Up till this time all my makings of tea bad been 
made with arrangements in the bungalow verandah 
and godowDS. But I got la, tea house finished soon 
after and regular tea making then became a necessary 
part of the working of the estate. Afterwards Mr. 
Jenkins put tip a temporary tea house on Condegalla 
which I was surprised to find was a copy in all its 
working parts aud arrangements of the one I bad built 
which was according to a plan of my own and different 
from the style of Indian tea houses, and Mr. Jenkins 
did not like it when he first saw it. 
But Mr. Jenkins did not then make as good tea as 
I did. On visiting his tea house I found his tea very 
different from the lot he made with roe and very 
different from what I was making ; and his ferment- 
ing which I saw by ramming the roll aa hard and 
tight as possible into a box was a plan that I had 
tried in the beginning of my espeiiments but long 
before given up as a failure; The lot Mr. Jenkins 
made with me at Loole Condera was not fermented 
that way. One day I was in the coach going up to 
Nuwara Eliya with Mr. Parsons, Government Agent 
of Knndy, and some apparently stranger friend 
of his, Mr. Parsons did not know me but I 
knew who he was. When we were passing the 
old patch of tea in Condegalla Mr. Parsons pointed 
it out to his friend as being tea. His tiiend then 
asked if they made tea there. Mr. Parsons said : " Yes, 
tbey make tea here but they do not make good tea 
here the favourite lea is made on another estate they 
call Loole Condera," and fiom other quarters I heard 
the lame. 
A Mr. Baker, a tea planter from Assam, called on me 
after my original field of Hybrid Tea was well grown 
up and showed me that I had not pruned it sufficiently 
in the pruning I had juat then finished and I pruned 
it all over again. I also saw light prnninfj and heavy 
cutting down of Hybrid lea in the Darjeelicg Terrai 
in 1874 just before their plucking Feasoo commenced. 
Afterwards when Mr. Cameron came and took to 
visiting tea estates 1 was pleased to find that his 
pruning so far as I siw of it on Mariawatte seemed 
to entirely agree with what I had done. 
But Mr. Cameron, started finer plucking than I 
had been doing and began to top the sale lists which 
I think we began to get about that time or very 
shortly before. When I found this I also took to 
weekly plucking and topped the sale lists for a time. 
That finer plucking largely increased the selling 
prices of my tea and still more largely the profit per 
acre. So I was greatly indebted to the example of 
Mr. Cameron though I only met him two or three 
times casually about Kandy and Gampola. 
Regarding cinchona we were not the first to plant 
a few trees or even a small patch but we were the 
first to regularly cultivate a few acres and to test 
the value of the bark in the market and then to 
start tie cultivation on a large scale. Our experiences 
as to raising seedlings in field nurseries and that 
the bark of diseased trees if taken in time was valuable, 
and BO on, must have been useful to others who 
planted later. 
Looking back to the beginuing of our Cinchona and 
Tea experiments and recollecting how little they were 
generally thought of at the time, expecially by some 
of my acquaintances whom I most respected as in 
various ways superior to myself, and now seeing this 
testimoBial makes me feel that the battle is not 
always to the strongest. The first person I believe 
who ti oroughly appreciated our experiments and who 
really foresaw the necessity of new cultivations in 
Ceylon was Sir William Gregory ; and Ceylon Tea is 
more indebted to Sir Wm. Gregory who so patronised it 
and gave it fame than we can ever know. 
Now I thank all who have helped towards this testi- 
monial and the office bearers of the Planters' Associ- 
ation who have taken trouble with it and Mr. P. R. 
Shand who as I learned from the newspapers took 
part in initiating the matter, and especially I thank 
Mr. Wall who first proposed it to the A'sociation in 
words which are of themselves a grand testimonial and 
who has taken a leading interest in it all through. It 
made me feel confused and surprised that I fhould be 
thought worthy of such honour as well as of the kind 
things eaid of me at that meeting by its Chairman and 
Mr. W. Mackenzie. 
The Testimonial is not only a valuable one but one 
of a kind to make me remembered after I am not 
here. It will make my name and that of Loole Condera 
live in the history of Ceylon. I shall be proud of it 
though abashed in the receiving of it. 
But if I may be allowed to make remarks about one 
so much my superior and so lar above me Mr. Wall 
is the man who deserves a memorial from the Planters' 
Associaiion. He has been by far its most conspicuous 
atid leading member from the first, until [latterly 
perhaps that be has not been so much amongst us 
for some time. It has seemed to me that but for his 
own will he might have beeu permanent Chairman of 
the Association ; and he was one of the leading men 
connected with our planting industry before the 
Association was formed. I suppose few of the men of 
old who knew Mr. Wall in the earlier years of his 
labours now remain. But I from reading of them in 
newspapers have known of his ceaseless exertions for 
tlie good of our planting enterprises and of the Asso- 
ciation for a very long time. — Yours truly, 
(Signed) James Taylok. 
NOTES ON PRODUCE AND FINANCE. 
Tea Direct to Liverpool.— We print in another 
column some suggestions made by the Liverpool Journal 
of Commerce in favour of the direct shipment of tea 
to the Mersey. The journal from which we qnoto 
