November i, 1890 .] 
the tropical AQRI outturn ST, 
371 
is to say, E200 an acre. The cost of cnlti- 
vation, except keeping down parasites, had 
been nothing: the crop only had to be gathered. 
The proportion of male trees is, of course, 
very excessive ; and in a regularly planted 
place the- excess of males would have been 
wiped out and fresh plants put in. I regret I am 
not able to get the proportions received from 
nutmegs and from mace separately, otherwise 
it would have been a simple matter to have 
calculated the average yield of each. But the 
information given above, so far as it goes, is 
thoroughly reliable. 
Here there is nothing so handsome as R50 which 
has been mentioned to be the income that may 
bo derived from a single nutmeg tree, but, never- 
theless, the prospects ahead of the successful 
nutmeg cultivator are such as to class it among 
the most profitable tropical cultivations in which 
one can engage. 
The price in the London market for nutmegs 
and mace is very much higher than obtains here. 
I have, however, no late circular at hand to quote 
the figures. Perhaps Mr. Editor, you will kindly 
supply them. Peppercobn. 
[Wo quote from Messrs. Lewis & Peat’s fort- 
nightly Circular, Sept. 11th : — 
Quality. Quotations. 
1890. 
Nutmegs, large ...-IT’s a 80's, garbled. ..2s lOd to 4s 
medium ...83’aa95'a ... 2s8dto2i 91 
small ...lOO’s a 160’s ... ls6dto2s7gd 
-Ed.T. a.] 

A LONDON TKA WAREHOUSE. 
(From Gh'mibeys's Journal.) 
It is 8 o’clock of the morning and a numerous 
body of workmen are passing into the doorway of a 
huge barr.icU-like building some half-dozen stories 
high, occupying the site of a cousider.ible village of 
Loudon houses which have been swept away to build 
it. In quiet orderly fashion the morning muster-roll 
of labour is accomplished, and the gangs of men are 
told off for work. Steady and well-mannered fellows 
mostly, but not much re-embling ordinary labourers, 
as currently understood, are these warehouse hands. 
A most varied lot certainly, with a very general 
appearance, for the greiter part, of artisins out of 
work, or “down on their luck,’’ as they would say. 
ludeed, many of them look like anything that could 
be named in a wide range of choice, not excluding 
the liberal professions and the gentleman “born.” 
HOW TEA IS LANDED. 
The great ocean steamers are berthed at the 
various docks as soon as they arrive in the Thames. 
Their cargoes are discharged at the principal docks, 
and immediately dispersed over the port of London 
in vans by land and barges by water, nil of which 
conveyances are jealously crown-locked by the 
sleepless Customs officials, who watch this fruitful 
source of revenue from the first “ hail ” at Gravesend 
until it is finally deposited, duly paid, in the hands 
of the consumer. But, primarily, itj destination, 
on being sent from the ship’s is the bonded 
warehouse in towu or by river-side, where the 
warchousc-keopcr gives ample security for its safe 
keeping, alike to tbo owners thereof and to the Crown 
as having a lien on the goods at first hand. 
SOUTINO. 
On arrival at the warehouse the tea is pounced upon 
by gangs of the handy and civil labourers; and, anon, 
the chests are whirling in mid-air on their way to loop- 
holes of distant floors near the sky-liiu', or arc being 
tr.vnsported thither on men’s shonlders in endless 
streams like human ants, up howildtring flights of 
stairs to similar far-olf stowage. Other gangs, ad 
iiifuiitum, there receive them. Sipiads of coopers 
hammer them, prune and hoop them, and otherwise 
amend them. Drawers of samples pierce and tap them 
Expert bauds carefully assort tho multifarious packages 
into “chop” and “bed,” with nice regard to size 
quality marks, garden marks— delightfully suggestive 
these of orient tea-fielJs — and uniform weight and 
desoriptiou. The tea-chests are then ready for the 
weighing scales, at which Customs officers and ware- 
house clerks busily ply their pens, entering into 
account-books the gross and net weights of the goods 
by each ship, in .successive importations, as the pack- 
ages, are past iu swift review before them. Odd things 
come to light sometimes when the chests are emptied 
to bo weighed for tare and refilled. “ Uuconsidered 
trifles ” from far-off homes in Assam are occasionally 
revealed. White rats, dead and flat, have been seen 
and bogus chests are not unknown. A frequent im- 
portation by the China tea-ships is the delicious fruit 
lychees in a dried condition. 
A CHECK ON ADULTERATION. 
But to return to tea. In the history of its pro- 
gress up to the weighing-point the ligid scrutiny of 
the revenue officers has been exercited m.ainly with 
a view to fiscal and .statistical returns ; but at this 
stage of the proceedings the various teas— Kaisons, 
Capers, Congous, Pekoes, Souchongs, Oolongs, Assams, 
Hysons, &c. — are inspected by an officer acting as an 
official analyst under “ The Sale of Food and Drugs 
Act 1875,” who .selects samples and subjects them to 
a searching examination, with at times, the whole- 
some result that spurious or adultei’atod teas are pre- 
vented from entering the British market ; and even 
to the extent of causing such vitiated goods to enter 
the destruction furnace instead. Large quantities of 
damaged tea are disposed of in that manner. 
A DELECTABLE MIXTUBE, 
Tea is frequently spoilt on the voyage by .salt water 
or other causes, and, being thus rendered unfit for 
human food, it becomes “ prohibited.” It is, however, 
allowed to be delivered duty-free from the warehouse 
on condition of its being donaturalis jd by tho effec- 
tive process of mixing with it a proportion of asafee- 
tida and lime. This delectable compound is used in 
j.he manufacture of the alkaloid catfeine, 
“bulking.” 
For homo use the tea from China is generally cleared 
out of bond in the same condition as on arrival in 
this country. Bat Indian tea appenr.s to be so much 
varied iu quality and “ make,” even when produced 
in the same tea province, or district that it is found 
necessary very frequently to throw it together in 
quantities, taking care not to blend different marks 
aud importations. This arrangement is termed " bulk- 
ing,” and the effect of it is to make the whole bulk 
of the tea operated on more uniform in appearance 
and quality. In a large tea warehouse capable of 
holding perhaps a quarter of a million packages, 
amounting, it might be, to twenty-five million pounds 
of tea, the bulking of Indian produce assumed stupen- 
dous proportions. Floir after floor will at a busy time 
be crowded with enormous heaps of the emptied contents 
of many hundreds of chests. These fragrant mounds are 
thoroughly “ roused ” by gangs of men, deft-baud var- 
lets with wooden shovels. A faint and balmy odour fills 
the rooms, and the atmosphere is heavily charged with 
a very palpable dust of tea, of dull red hue, which settles 
upon the clothes like down. 'The bulked tea is refilled 
into the original chests aud agaiu weighed in the pre- 
sence of the Crown officers, each empty chest having 
been previously wmighed for tare ; the merchant pay- 
ing duty on the exactly ascertained net weight of the 
tea. 
TEA EXPOKIED FROM LONDON. 
Immense quantities of tea are annually exported 
from London, noticeably to Germany and tho Baltic 
Provinces. It is also largely sent to the colonies and to 
South America. 'The latter trade is peculiar, the tea 
being prepared in bond e.xpre.«sly to meet certain 
native demand. Packets as sina'l as four, or even two, 
ounces are greatly iu vogue. These goods are (roqucutly 
also weighed in French kilogrammes (21b 3oz Sdr.J 
