8oo 
THE TROPICAL AQmOULTURlST. [May 2, 1892. 
Being offered an appointment in the service of 
the Assam Company he left England to take up his 
'"new duties. He remained with the Assam Company 
■^for five years and left them to take over the 
'^'management of the Sukwah Tea Company, in which 
''^.^capacity he acted for a period of 14 years, and of 
'^•which company he is at present a considerable share- 
"•^tolder. He has now resigned the appointment under 
'^this company, and is engaged in pushing the inven- 
tion of which we have made a cursory mention above. 
This invention, a tea leaf withering machine, 
which he has named the " Cyclone," like many other 
' inventions, has taken years to bring to anything 
■'like a state of perfection. He had not the oppor- 
, tunities that many inventors have of having all their 
'.''tirne to devote to their one object, and of having 
'^Jtroikahops to experiment in ; but he had to find out 
'""Step by step the faults and failings of his system, 
"'khd, as he says himself, but for the assistance of a 
"neighbouring planter, who took an interest in the 
niachihe from the first and who introduced it into 
his company, he doubts whether the invention would 
..ever have attracted the attention it has now. From 
t'all we can hear of this invention, and judging from 
"'the highly satisfactory testimonials we have had an 
'Opportunity of reading regarding the work performed 
;%y the inventor's latest improved machines, we 
"have little doubt that it has a great future before 
"it. We do not purpose entering into a detailed 
■flescriptlon of the machine, but from what we can 
gather the inventor has produced one that will 
practically do away with large withering houses. It 
aims not only at economy of space but economy in 
"labor, as the largest machines can be worked by 
half a dozen boys. The machine itself is of the 
most simple discription, there being no complicated 
fiarts or machinery about it to get out of order, or 
hat a factory carpenter could not put right at the 
'Bhortest notice. It performs its work thoroughly in 
all Weathers or conditions of atmosphere, prevent- 
ing night work, and every planter knows what that 
means. It also produces the leaf withered to any 
extent desired with such perfect regularity as to 
"keep the Tea Rollers and other machinery, &c., 
steadily at work from early morning until the 
Wholeof the leaf has been worked off. Perhaps the 
most urprising thing to learn about it is, that leaf 
whichhas been plucked off the trees a few minutes 
" 'Jb(Bfo*e the gong strikes at noon, and brought into 
-fhe factory, often dripping wet, is passed through the 
machine within two hours and carried off to the 
tolling tables perfectly withered. This to practical 
•planters might at first produce the impression that 
'the leaf would suffer by such rapid withering, and 
that it must be necessary to wither it at a high 
temperature ; but such we are assured is not the 
case, as by means of the new system adopted, the 
leaf is taken but of the machines quite cold, and, 
as those who have had opportunities of testing 
these new machines declare, "Withered to perfection." 
That the " Cyclone" witherer has at last begun to 
attract attention is proved by the fact that a 
considetsible number of orders have lately been 
received for Assam and Cachar; one company alone 
^11 have six of them it work this season. 
We hope to see the machines more widely 
patronized than they are already, as an invention 
of this kind, reducing the expense of labour and 
performing its work in a manner far superior to any 
of the other methods commonly in use, deserves to 
have given to it a prominent position in public favor. 
Before closing those notes we might add that Mr. 
Tnrton in his younger days was a bit of a cricketer. 
His best year was in 1869 when he distinguished 
himself at Birkenhead Park against the All England 
eleven, receiving a presentation bat for his perfor- 
mance against them. Ho also kept up his interest 
in cricket whilst in Assam ani captained the Nazira 
Team for many years in many a hard fought contest 
against their Jorehat and Dibrughur opponents. He 
was also an enthusiastic Volunteer. He began in 
his youth by serving as a private in the Dorsetshire 
Administrative liiUtalion, then as Lieutenant and 
Captain in the 'llh IjimcaHhire Artillery Volunteers, 
paa fimUly as^Captaiu of "A Troop," yibaagar Mounted 
Rifles, which corps he was chiefly instrumental in 
raising, and which has since increased so materially 
both in number and efficiency under its late popular 
commander Lieutenant-Colonel Buckingham, c.i.e , 
who had to resign this command to be promoted to 
the higher command of the Assam Valley Adminis- 
trative Battalion. — Indian Planters' Qaeette,¥eh. 20. 
POPPY TEA. 
The reclaimed land grows the most splendid and 
abundant crops of corn. I have walked between 
two stacks, each 100 ft. long. But the land that 
grows corn grows also weed rankly ; the drills 
are made nine inches apart, and gangs of women 
are employed with hoes to weed between the drills, 
two or three times in the year. With them goes 
a ganger to keep them to their work aod prevent 
ohattering. Time wa? when the ganger was armed 
with a sharp goad, with which he progged the 
hoer between the shoulder blades. 'The demand 
for female labour has this disastrous efieot — it draws 
the mothers away from their children. One thing 
may be seen in the Fens that is not pleasant, and 
that is the little plot of white poppy grown in the 
cottage garden. That plot means a good deal of 
evil. It means the making of "poppy tea" — in 
another word, opium to be administered to the 
babes while the mother is out at work. The 
little child is given its poppy tea in the 
morning, and the mother locks the cottage door, 
knowing the babe will sleep like a log till she returns 
at sunset. Children thus diugged have a dazed 
look through life, and have not their wits pro- 
perly. They are heavy, with only flashes of in- 
telligence. But it has another evil effect. It in- 
duces a craving for opium. The chemists could 
tell a tale that would cause surprise, if they chose, 
at the amount sold by them to the fen folk on 
market days. There is a little shyness about 
asking blankly for opium, and the received formula 
is : "I'll trouble you, sir, for an ounce ot tluit," 
The chemist knows well what that means. — 
Daily Graphic, Feb. 15th 
« 
INDIAN TEA AT CHICAGO. 
At a meeting of the Indian Tea Districts Abso- 
ciatioa held this week, a proposal received from the 
directors of the recently-iormed Palais Indian Tea 
Houses, Limited (Paris), for nndertaking the work 
of exhibiting Indian tea in an appropriate way at 
the forthcoming Chicago Exhibition was coneidered. 
It was explained to the meeting that prodigious 
efforts were being made by Ceylon planters, assisted 
by liberal grants both from the Ceylon Govern- 
ment, the planters themselves and the commercial 
houses in Colombo, to have a thoroughly repre- 
tentative exhibition of their tea and a strong pro- 
paganda of its merits throughout the United States 
generally. It was felt that, although the work done 
by Oeylon would eventually help Indian tea also, it was 
hardly compatible with the dignity of the Indian planlers 
to leave the work altogether to their neighbours, 
and that India also should be represented and 
the interests of Indian tea planters promoted. To 
work on the lines of the Ceylon planters would imply 
a larger disbursement of money than it seemed likely 
could readily be obtained. The case might be met, 
however, by accepting the proposals of the " Palais 
Indien " Company- — a company which, it was well 
known, had been got up and subscribed for almost 
entirely of the chief London representatives of the 
tea companies and estates, but the small capital of 
which had been entirely absorbed by the work of 
introdacing tea into France. 
The proposal of this Company was that the tea 
planting communicy in Calcutta should raise a 
guarantee fund of, say, £3,000 or £4,000, endeavour- 
ing, if possible, to get the ladian or Bengal Govera. 
