460 
THt TROPICAL AGRIOULTUmST. [January 1, 1892. 
THE AMSTERDAM CINCHONA 
AUCTIONS. 
(Telegram from Oar Correspondent.) 
Amsterdan, Thursday Evening. 
At to Jay's cinchona auction 3,691 packag'is of bark 
were sold at an average unit of 6 cents (=1 l-16d per 
lb.;, showing a barely steady market. Manufacturers' 
barks in quills, broken quills, and chips sold at 11 to 
66 cents (= 2d to Old. per lb.) ditto root at 16 to 46 
cents (2|d to Sidperlb,). Druggists" barks in quills, 
broken quills, and chipj brought from 13 to 136 cents 
(=:2jd to 23 per lb.), and ditto root 11 to 16 cents 
(=2d to 2Jd per lb.) The principal buyers were the 
Aaerbaoh factory, Messrs. C- L. Schepp & Zoon, of 
Kotterdam, the Brunswick Works, and the Amster- 
dam Works. — Chemist and Drugyist,' Nov. 14th. 
^ 
THE INDIAN TEA COMMUNITY. 
To the Editor of the Home and Colonial Mail, 
Sir, — While it can hardly, of course, be said that the 
Indian tea inlustry is, at the present time, altogether 
in a bad way; jet, looking to the competition of 
CeyloQ and to the great increase in the production in 
India itself, there is no doubt that the situation is suoh 
Bs to give rise to some anxiety as regards the immedi- 
ate future. 
Taking current Mincing Lane priceF, as represented 
by the sales of the principal v?ell-known London com- 
panies' marks, and comparing them with the averages 
lealised for these oonipanies' entire crops in 1890, 1 am 
driven to the conclusion that many of them are at 
proseut obtaining much lower prices, and that, in the 
case of some, it is quo tionable whether the price of the 
produce is much in excess of the actual cost of pro- 
daotioD. In order to bring this home, attention may, 
with advantage, be drawn to the following comparison 
of current prices with those ruling during the last three 
years, taken from Messrs. Gow, Wilson, and Stanton's 
weekly circular:— 
Total 
1888. 1889. 1890. 1891. drop. 
Pekoe Souchong TJd 6id 8d 5|d 2id 
Common Pekoe 8id 8Jd 8|d 6|d 2 l 
Medium Pekoe 9:14 lOd g^d 8jd l^d 
What is, then, the attitude which the tea community 
is prepared to take up in the light of this rather painful 
ooDclusiou This is a serious and an important ques- 
tion. 
It is undoubtedly a satisfactory feature oC recent 
years that there has been an inoreasiog tendency on 
the part of tea producers to draw together and combine 
for their own mutual protection, and in various direc- 
tions evidence is not wanting of the desire for suoh 
mutual support, which only requires some stirring up to 
ensure its manifestation. It, however, the great 
industry is to progress, and if it is to continue to be 
profitable to its members, much mote than has hitherto 
been done must in the future be done to ensure this. 
The spirit of " No man for a Party, but all men for the 
Cause," mmt be much more stronglyevoked. There 
must be more working together, more of the " shoulder 
to shoulder" which has won Britons their battles, 
alike in war and in peaceful competition. 
This point can but be urged upon your numerous 
readers, and those who have been backward mutt be 
urged to come forward now ; better late than never. 
There are many echemes at preuent on the tapis 
for (ixtending consumption and improving the pros- 
pects of the tea grower, and it will not be difficult 
for your readers to inform themselves of what these 
are. Let them enquire diligently, aod then give their 
support w.llingly and liberally. One-te:jth of 1 per 
cent of the capital invested Indian tea would furnish 
a fund of well-nigh £10,000. 
As has been frequently pointed out in your 
oolumnc, the industry already possesses an organiza- 
tion both in Loudon and in Calcutta, whose objeot 
is to further the Lcjtt iiitflrotti of the planting com- 
munity ; a'ld as component parla of the organisa- 
tion we have "good men and trup," men who 
" mean business, ' and have the cause— their own 
cause and that of their brethren — a heart. These 
organizitious, however, and the mister spirits who 
work for the ciuse— let it be said with regret — do 
not always receive that cordial support and backing 
which is due them. It cannot be too strongly urged 
that all — that every man who has any, however small 
an interest in Indian planting, should enrol themselves 
in the ranks of one or other of the tea association.s, 
and not only enrol themselves and pay their guinea 
subscription, but that they should work as one man, 
in every direction, to strength5n the organisation and 
increase the icjfluence of these bodies and thereby 
help, if nothing else, to fill their own pockets fuller 
than would otherwise be the case. After all, I am 
merely appealing to self-interest, and lowest stimulus. 
The world's consumption of tea must be increased 
if we are to continue to draw profit from our plant- 
ins: enterprize, and to effect this at all rapidly is a 
difficult matter and can only be done by combination 
and by push. Indian tea must be promulgated and 
its merits more widely preached, and money must 
be spent and " bread thrown broadcast on the waters," 
so that it may comd to shore in future days, — Yours 
truly, Obsekveb. 
London, Nov. 11th, 1891. 
" WICKED " TEA. 
In the Illustrated London IVetvs of Nov. 7th, in the 
Ladies' Column, Mrs. Fen wick- Miller writes : — 
Tea, that precious refuge of the nineteenth-century 
woman, has been much talked of lately. Here, as 
in the case of a lady's reputation, to be "talked of" 
means to be abused. One critic declares that it is no 
longer women who are the worst tea-drunkards ; that 
the University undergrade has now far surpassed the 
weakness oi the other sex. "Wicked" tea is Sir 
Andrew Clark's description of the liquor as it is 
frequently offered. He is complaining of the tea com- 
monly dispensed as a beverage by ladies in the after- 
noon, which is allowed to stand in the teapot for 
half an hour after being made, and warmed up for 
new-comers by pouring a flood of hot water on the over- 
drawn leaves. This is "wicked" tea. That which is 
phj'siologically righteous, according to the learned 
physician, must have stood only five minutes after 
being made : it should be orginally black China tea 
— not Indian — and the old-fashioned allowance of one 
spoonful for each consumer and one over for " the 
pot " is the right quantity. Finally, a lady's article 
in a magazine declares that women " degrade them- 
selves" by their out-of-door lunches, which usually 
consist of tea and buns ; she avers that this habit of 
lunching on tea, so long as it be continued, will keep 
women feeble, nervous, and comparatively useless 
creatures. 
These complaints, all appearing in the world of 
periodical literature, but in very diverse quarters, at 
one moment, may be taken as an illustration of the 
cycle of ideas. If we observe, we shall find that no- 
tions reappear at regular intervals, like comets. All 
this about tea has been said before ; but, for all that, 
it is just as well to have our minds impressed now 
and again with the degree of truth that the lucubra- 
tions contain. 
Studious men are, and always have been, quite as 
great consumers of tea as women, and for the best of 
all reasons — that there is not any beverage BO stimula- 
ting to the nerves with so little necessary evil at- 
tendant on the stimulation. The evil of a stimulant 
may by measured by, first its temporary, and next 
its permanent, results on the constitution. Those 
which produce depression corresponding to or deeper 
than the stimulation they produce, and those which 
after a time injure the structure of the bodily organs, 
are dangerous. Now, tea can challenge the world of 
stimulants on both grounds. The great authority on 
food. Dr. B. Smith, says, "Tea promotes all vital 
actions " ; Dr. Parkes, the standard writer on hygiene, 
avers, " Tea sooius to have a decidedly stimulative 
and restorative action on the nervous system, and no 
depression follows"; while the great chemist Liebig 
