35^ 
their requirements at a profitable margin. However' 
taking the cotton trade of India all rouDd, it is in 
a ciistinctiy flouriBhiiig condition, and the enormous 
Htrides it has made in the past decade bear evidence 
to the energy and enterprise of the numeroui capi- 
talists who have been engaged upon its development. 
—M. Mail, Oct 3rd. 
HAND-WEEDING VERSUS CULTIVATION 
ON TEA ESTATES. 
The anhject rif hand-weeding ue)'.?M.9 cultivation * does 
not receive the attention whi(-h it deservef. The for- 
mer practice has now for yenre been observed on 
maiijt Oeylon Estatop, and it would be interesting and 
instructive to knov? the comparative resnlts. Plftntcrs 
generally in India, have a!l along believed implicitly 
in cultivation, snd when, now and again, reference has 
been m.ide in pablic papers \o the advant.'iges of hand- 
weeding, as practised in Oejlon, it has been lightly 
passed over, and has perhaps not received the atten- 
tion which the snbiect merits. Now that there are 
80 many gardens in the little sister Oolony which have 
come to full bearing, and may v?ell be supposed to 
have reached their full limit of production iu quality 
as well na qufsntity, there must be sufficient data to 
enable ua to get at a complete and reliable compari- 
son of results. The most satisfactory comparison must, 
of course, be iu Oeylou itEelf, if there be a anffioient 
number of Hardens which have |ierei.stently carried out 
a system of thorough cultivation to set against the 
great number which have practised hand-weeding from 
the first ; failing this we must fall t)ack for the one 
Bide upon the experience gained in Astam, Darjeeling, 
Dooai-!', etc., and if it can be shown that our frieuda 
who labour in the younger Colony can, as has been 
o fn atated, prodnce bettor results with a smaller 
expenditure of labour, it is high time that planters 
in India should " take a leaf out of their book." 
There are several points which arc patent to all who 
have had any considerable experience of planting and 
onltivaticg tea, and which may be briefly summarized 
as follows:-- 
1. A plot which has been kept well dug will invari- 
ably yield a much larger quantity of lo^f, and better 
leaf than a plot which has been kept free of weeds 
by being sickled only. 
2. It is exceedingly difficult to moke tea grow upon 
an old roRd, or a piece of ground which has, for mmy 
years, been the site of houses, or otherwise been 
continually beaten down, and tea grown upon such 
places will for many years, produce next to nothing. 
3. Land which has, by means of cattle passing over 
it, or otherwiee, beoome trodden down, in course of 
time becomes (1) less prodajtivo of jungle ; (2) the class 
of jungle becomea different, and (3) finally as the 
process goes on jungle disappears altogether. There 
are some other things such as the following which 
may have escaped the observation of some planters. 
Young tea which has been only hand-weeded, and 
which has bad no proper stirriug up of the ooil 
from the time of plauting till, say, three years old, 
throws its lateral rootb much nearer tho surface than 
tea, which bus had a porioilical digging suitable 
to its age, it may bo the mere breaking of the s lil 
round the plant with tlie fingers the first year, and 
digging more or less deeply with an implement after- 
wards ; again on sloping laud where the surface soil 
has been from rush of water, or a bad system of 
cultivation, carried away from tho roota of the plants 
to a depth of eight inches or more, the lateral roots, 
of couii e, become exposed, and on poor soil it usually 
happens that the pUnta become sickly, or are killed 
outright; but it is invariably tho case in auoh in- 
staucca lh»t if the sub-soil (or the rema in ing aoil) is 
* Cultivation " in India means a periodical turn- 
ing dowu of tho weeds into the ground by means 
ot the hoe,— our Ceylon " n)amoty.' — Ed. '/'. A. 
t For " many," " M " might bo read. The leading 
Ceylon planters iiro oppoicd to "cultivation" which 
iuvolv'.'B cutting masHCB of tea rootlets,— lio, T, A, 
yood Rnd fertile tho plants will (with cultivation) 
continue to flush vigorously, and, in course of time, 
look as healthy and well aa similur ple.uta which 
hiive not lost any soil. Ou most of the old 
gardens in the Darjeeling district there are plots 
where such plants are to be eeen ; tho original collar 
of the p'aut standing twelve iucUea or mora above 
the surface of the ground with the atumjis of the 
old lateral loots sticking out, like the knots ou the 
club of " Giant Despair," ami, at the sam« timCi the 
bush itself is in a high state of efficiency, flushing 
quite as well as any plants in the particular plot; 
thug fhowing thas the plant hus established new 
lateral roots as required by tho altera i c";nditi jus. 
Now it remains to be stated what bearing all theae 
facts have upon the question of hand-weeding versus 
cultivfition. With the former treatment, it seems 
reasonable to expect that before very long the weeding 
cm be done very cheaply, because the soil must 
become caked and hard from coolies' treading upon 
it for tho purposes of i^lucking leaf, pruning, etc., 
but it is ressonible to suppose that the same causes, 
which result in the killing out of weeds, will also 
operate towards weakening tea plants and reducing 
their efficiency. Ou the other band, it is a well- 
established fact that deep cultivation stimulates the 
growth of the plants, and even if such cultivation is 
done iu such a rough and uncouth way as to cut away 
many of tho lateral roots, the plant does not receive 
any permanent injury, but soon repair.^ the damaga 
di ne. Hand-weeding on old tea has been done on some 
gardens in Darjeeling district, and with great success 
but only during a month or two of very wet weather, 
and only when the soil has previously been dug very 
deep and thoroughly pulveiizod. — Indian Planters' 
Gazette. 
A REVIEW OF THE PRICES OF 
QUININE IN THE U. S. MARKET. 
The conditions of demand and supply in medicinal 
ar;iel*.s vary to an extent almcsi; unheard of in many 
other articles of commerce, and these variations have 
nowhere been more marked than in quinme. Wereprint, 
on another psgr, a tabular statement of some interest- 
ing facts conaerning the range of prices of ciuiuino 
during a very considerable period. A thoughtful peru- 
sal of these tables will serve to bring to the mind of 
the observer not merely the fluctuations in the price 
of this valuable commodity, but might furnish a thread 
on which to hang the history of modern pharmaceuti- 
cal cheruistry. 
After passing out of the category of a mere cariosity 
tho alkaloid gradually settled dowu toward a price 
which admitted of its general use. Improvement in 
manipulation and possibly also increased competition 
sufficed to maintain the general downward tendency 
for some time until iu 1837 a price of $1 40 per ounce 
was reached. An upward movement then set in which, 
with an occasional relapse, as in 1842, carried the 
price to S3 and upwards. The marked decline ob- 
fervable in 1857 was largely attributable to the aboli- 
tiou of the fifteen per cent, duty ou cinchona barks. 
The rise in price from 1866 was due, primarily, of 
course, to the changed conditions arising from the 
civil war, including increased consumption, diminished 
supplies due to the perils of navigation incidental 
to the war, and an increased cost arising from these 
combined causes, and from the impo.'-ition of a high 
rate of duty, ranging up to forty-five per cent, for 
quinine itself, and twenty per cent for the bark. The 
high range of prices continued to rule for some years, 
reaching the maximum of 50 per ounce in 1877, 
since which time there has been a gradual decline 
to the present low values of nineteen cents for foreign 
bulk. At this juncture the influence of the East 
India barks began to be felt. In 1876 only 1,777 
bales of this bark was imported into Loudon, but 
the quantity rapidly increated to 6,260 in 1877, 13,460 
in 1880, and 20,692 in 1881. In 1879 the alkaloid 
. wae also placed ou the free list. It is this last 
