May 2, 1892.] THE TFtOPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
84s 
SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT TEA. 
When tha Laureate sang 
" Bctte?fifty years of Eui-ope, than a cycle of Cathay," 
we do not suppose he had in view < hina's great 
gift to Europe and the world, Thay or Tea, 
" which cheers but not inebriates," _ 
as another poet sang in a poem rising from the 
every-day pleasure of home to the sublimities of 
the Millennial glory. Blessings on the man, though 
he had his eyes askew and wore a pigtail, who 
first invented tea— the dried and fragrant leaf! 
His name, if it could be discovered, even if it 
was a oomioal aggregation of monosyllabio excla- 
mations such as "Hoi" and "Ful" and "Fi!", 
ought to be emblazoned amongst those of the 
ofremost benefactors of the world. There can be 
no doubt that the tea plant is indigenous to Assam 
and Burma ; and the probabilities are that it found 
its way into Ohica from India via Burma instead 
of the reverse process which Jsome have imagined. 
Be that as it may, the roasted tea of China is 
as superior to tha pickled haves of Burma, as 
the finest golden tip pekoe escels the coarsest 
brick tea. The curious phenomenon is that the 
genius which discovered the preparation of the 
fragrant leaf by simple and rude appliances should, 
in all the centuries, have advanced no further. To 
this day the processes of;preparation are stereotyped ; 
and John Chinaman rejects and destroys improved 
appliances when introduced to his notice. The 
" better fifty years of Eurojie" principle is illus- 
trated bv the progress made in the labour-saving 
and quality-improving machinery and appliances 
which have been invented in the half century since 
the British have oommenoad to cultivate and pre- 
pare tea, whether pure China, as at first, or Assam 
indigenous or high class hybrid as latterly ; and,now, 
what would tha Chinese who first roasted tea on 
hambu sieves over open charcoal fires — the leaves 
hav.ug been prepared by the pressure of the human 
hand and perhaps by the imposiiioc of human feet — 
what would this Chinese inventor, who knew 
nothing of advanofid engineering and patents, say, 
were he permitted to "revisit tha glimpse of the 
moon " and see at work in the insignificant island 
of Ceylon, those great triumphs of human skill 
applied to the preparation of the leaf he loved so 
wisoly and so well, the roller which is such an im- 
provement on the human hand, the downdraugbt 
sirocco and the perlection in simplicity of the 
Britannia drier ! These thoughts on tea and tea 
machinery on the literature and the science which 
have brought their voiive offerings to shrines which 
men name tea factories, in the fast haif century or 
less, have been suggested by a glance at the latest 
edition of Eutherford's enoyclcpedio " Ceylon Tea 
Planters' Note Book," It contains " all about tea " 
and a great deal more. Much about wood and coal 
and petroleum, as sources of heat and force ; about 
iron and timber as structural substauci^s and material 
for tea boxes; about lead and so'der and ehinglea 
and nails ; about tea tasting and weighing and mea- 
surement, and freights and cost and profits; about 
rupee-cents and pence and sterling and exchange. 
About the proportion of dry tea to green and 
withered leaf ; about the cost and capabilities of 
labour, labour advances and the labour laws ; with 
the number of bushes per acre at varying distances, 
and the profits p"r acre at varying rates per 
pound of ten. Even the forester can come to 
loarn with the planter,— fuel being literally a burning 
question with both,— what indigenous trees to plant 
at low levels and which of iho exotica aro best 
suited for high altitude^ : while wrights per cubic 
foot and prices of the local timbers, ot cement, 
lime, bricks, tilos and other building materials 
with the cost of various doaoriptious of building, 
are given. Much valuable and important literature 
on tea, originating in India and Ceylon, is extant 
and can be consulted with advantage ; but this, 
the selected tit-bits and boiled down essence of 
all, is indispensable even at the price, about 
which we have heard some murmurs. But surely 
a book is worth paying for (especially with the 
rupee so low in value) which tells a man how to 
open an estate and how to turn its produce to the bast 
advantage, which gives tea exports since they became 
appreciable in our commerce and the latest dividends 
of Indian and Ceylon Tea Companies. A reward 
might well be offered to the man who looks and 
fails to find in this Planter's Note Book anything, 
however, remotely, connected with tea. Then comes 
the curious coinoiclence, that, although Englishmen 
have doubtless done their part, the author of the 
most generally useful and comprehensive book on tea 
and the greatest and most successful tea machinery 
engineers are Scotchmen ! There is no more 
mistake about Mr. Kutherford than there can be 
about Messrs Beid and Loudoun Shand or our 
good friend and everybody's good friend " Logie 
Elphinstoue." Then we might as well deny the 
existence of " Aberdeen awa' " and the influenoe 
its sons have had on Ceylon estate culture and 
Oeylon estate English (" Wha 's mammoty's yon?") 
as doubt that Mr. Jackson of " Rapid roller " 
and "Britannia drier" fame is a Sctchman, 
whose model rooms and laboratory are within 
hail of Balmoral, although his honest and solid 
machines are made by the Marshalls on the wrong 
side of the border^ We imagined the old-world 
Chinese sage who invented tea and there stopped, 
as amazed if he saw the modern automatic 
machinery applied to the preparation of the fra- 
grant leaf. But surely his ghostly pigtail would 
stand on end if he heard Mr. Jackson coolly talk 
of generating electricity as a motive power for 
Buoh machinery. But no doubt some Milesian will 
claim Sirocco Davidson as a countryman. He lives 
and works, brain and hands, to good purpose at 
Belfast, and we suppose he was born in that North 
of Ireland city, " beoauea he happened to be there 
at the time." But Mr. Davidson, like thousands 
of other Irish-Scotoh, is essentially Scotch, although 
the purity of his doric accident is somewhat tainted 
with a tinge of brogue. If a Scotchman does not 
cease to be a Scotchman because he emigrates, 
does his son cease to be a Scotchman because of 
the accident of his being born in the country to 
which his parents had moved ? Time does 
not admit of our pursuing this problem or 
our thoughts about tea further on the pre- 
sent occasion. — Before closing we may admit 
that the Note Book is not faultless. There 
are soma curious misprints for which of 
course Mr. Rutherford, away in London, is not 
responsible. One of tha most curious is the sub- 
stitution of Devon as an Indian Tea District, 
instead of " the Doosrs," in association with 
Darjiling and the Terai. But there are spots (at 
present one larger than our globe) on the sun's 
face ; but the usefulness of the light-giving 
orb remains, Wa may add that Mr. Rutherford's 
useful compendium is published at the office of 
the " Times of Oeylon." 
AN EX-CEYLON PLANTER IN 
AUSTRALIA. 
New South Wales, March 6th. 
The qnestion of Federation is very far off when 
we consider the two baruing topics in these Colo- 
uies, viz. ; — 
(1) Sii Sam. Griffith's wish' to onoourage kanakas 
and the New South Wales hatred to the very idea of 
black labour. 
