862 
The tROMCAL agriculturist. 
[May 2, 1892. 
(Extract alluded to.) 
It is desired you should accompany this expedition, 
or undertake independent expeditions, and report 
generally on the products of the country traversed, 
and of the lands in the vicinity of any 
property selected for the purposes above mentioned, 
or which you may think it desirable for the 
Corporation to select, vyith a view to future de- 
velopment. This investigation should be directed 
to the actual economic products of the country, 
and the capability of lands for cultivation, 
specifying what class of cultivation would best tend to 
its development. You should also deal with the 
climatic conditions of the different localities, the labour 
available, means of transport, and similar subjects. 
Such for example as the industry of rice growing, 
cacao_ planting, cane growing, vanilla growing, rubber 
planting, etc. Information of a general nature as to 
the mode of life in the interior, the existing settle- 
ments and trading stations, and the flora of the 
different districts would be of great use in enabling 
the Corporation to determine the location of lands 
and the uses to which such land can properly 
be put. 
Your official reports and communications had 
better be addressed to me here or to the Secretary. 
(Signed) Gerald A. Allaed, Manager. 
66, Old Broad Street, London. 27th April 1891. 
[The above certainly justifles Mr. Clark's inde 
pendent action ; but we can scarcely believe that 
a copy of this resolution was supplied to the 
Commissioners. — Ed. t. A.] 
MB, J. L. SHAND ON OVERPLUOKED TEA 
BUSHES. 
Gampola, March 28tb. 
Dear Sir, — I have been astonished that the local 
papers, which look after the planting interest, have 
allowed Mr. J. L. Shand's strictures on Ceylon tea 
planters, regarding the management of their tea 
bushes, to pass unchallenged. 
Mr. Shand, is in my opinion, a very clever man, 
but is be an adept in tea planting matters ? It 
is now some 5 or 6 years since Mr. Shand was last in 
Ceylon; and the management of the tea bush has very 
much altered in the interval : when Mr. Shand lelt 
Ceylon tea bushes were pruned every twelve months ; 
now few people prune before the bushea have run 15 
months; a good many planters allow them to run 
18 months, and instances are known of the bushes 
having been allowed to run for 2 years. Because 
the bushes look ragged at the end of 18 months 
for pruning, is that a proper reason for saying 
that they are dying out ? 
When in Iceland amongst the farmers I have 
heard them speak of Eome of their cows as 
" strippers " ; now a " stripper " is a cow 
which is milked straight on end for 2 years, 
or so, and when in her condition of " stripper- 
hood" only gives about Jrds of the quantity of 
milk given by her sister-cow ; yet a farmer would 
not say that the " stripper" had deteriorated. She 
is kept on milking for a certain purpose, and if I 
am not mistaken, the quality of the milk is above 
the average, just as the quality of tea plucked from 
long-run tea bushes is above the average. It is 
good and right to decry the inflated estimates of 
tea quantities given out by some people, among-st 
others your good selves,* and I think, and from ilui 
beginning have said, that inflated estimates of 
quantity are against the interests of Ceylon tea 
planters; but if it is allowed uncontradicted, to be 
stated by " An Authority" that the tea planting 
industry of (Ceylon is ephemeral it will be a grievous 
wrong to Ceylon tea planters. My own opinion is 
* Our eBtimate was, and is, 85 millions, ngainst 80 
milliongby MessrB. H. Bois and W. W. Mitchell. We 
deny infl»tion.— Ed, T, A. 
that tea is going to be fairly permanent in Ceylon, as 
the country is essentially a leaf-producing land. 
Look at our eternal patanas 1 The raison d']€tre 
for this letter is that Cejlon planting interests exist 
to a great extent on borrowed British capital. — 
Yours faithfully, J. F. K. 
[It is for Ceylon planters to deal with Mr. Shand's 
statements. We have endorsed neither his state- 
ments nor his low estimate. — Ed. T. A.] 
PUSHING TEA IN AMERICA : 
MR. LIPTON TO THE RESCUE. 
Nuwara Eliya, April 6th. 
Dear Sir, — The still further curtailment of tea 
prices likely to take place in the near future, 
together with the fact of Mr. Lipton's presence in 
Ceylon, appear to me, to make it advisable at 
least to attempt to come to some understanding 
wi'h him in regard to pushing Ceylon teas in 
America, rather than go on in the present one- 
horse fashion, v/hich will not, I believe, appreciably 
fsffect the Ceylon tea crop within the next 20 years. 
There is no use of going back to the question of 
the present American company, with its wonder/ul 
ways of paying for advertizing, &c. further than 
to remark that many— very many — of our producers 
are keenly disappointed with the results of its 
sales. 
It might be well, however, to ask Mr. Lipton 
to give the public, through your columns, his 
opinion of its ways of doing businefs and the 
probable results. As a dealer of American repute 
Mr. Lipton's opinion would be valuable and 
instructive ; and it might be well to ask those 
gentlemen who (when Mr. Elwood May made his 
dehut as the guiding hand of it"? destinies) sang 
its praises so loudly here, and in Loudon, whether 
one of them has invested a single dcllar in the 
company beyond his original shares, which he 
could not get rid of. 
I believe that the Chicago Exhibition expendi- 
ture will he wasted money, so far as the Ceylon 
tea enterprise is concernc;', unless we have some 
means behind it, of placing the article in every 
city, throughout the length and breadth of America, 
and at rates that will compete with and oust 
Japanese and other teas now being sold there. 
I believe Mr. Lipton is the one man to do 
this, as his wealth is enormous and bis influence 
in America generally, and in Chicago particularly is 
immense. And Mr. Grinlinton evidently recognised 
this, when he left a letter asking Mr. Lipton's 
assistance in Chicago (vide Observer). The 
Observer says that Mr. Lipton intends to sell 
only unblended pure Ceylon tea in the United 
States ; but I conclude this must be a reporter's 
mistake, as no sane man would adopt this course 
unless he were prepared to face heavy losses. 
I have seen Ceylon tea in America selling for 
H 25 per lb. that could be bought in London 
at Is to Is 2d per lb wholesale, which means 
that while the Ceylon planter for all his hard 
work and estate expenditure, interest on capital, 
and shipping and selling charges was getting Is, 
or say Is 2d per lb , the retailer was getting for 
handling the tea about 48 per lb. 1 So there 
is a big margin for profit, and competition, and 
for pushing Ceylon teas. 
I think it is less than 5 years since Mr. Lipton 
started as a tea dealer in England, and at pre- 
sent, according to the Observer he is selling 
7i million lb. of Ceylon tea per annum (half of 
3,000 chests sold weekly); and if this is the case, he 
is the best friend the colony has in the buying 
market. And when he starts there he will. I doubt, 
