THE TIlOPiCAL AGRICULTURIST. [December i, 1890- 
404 
involved, aud consequently no reason for discrimination 
against tea other tlian other products of the Orient, 
which are largely re-fhipped from European countries 
that the tens imported from London are on a higher 
average quality than the direct imports and that more 
than nine-tenths of these teas are bought in London by 
American merchants before shipment ; and finally that 
ssetion has been enacted before and repealed during 
a Republican administration, and that its reappearance 
now is due to the initiative of about five interested per- 
sons, while the majoiity of the trade are oppo ed to it. 
The British authorities annually seize thousands of 
chests of Chinese and Japanese teas and destroy 
the same as being unfit for human food. A few un- 
principled dealers in this countr 3 ’', ascertaining that 
this stuff could be safely landed here, eagerlj' grasped 
the opportunity of purchasing and importing large 
quantities. The impurity of China teas is further sus- 
tained by United States Consul Crowell at Amoy, 
Chiu.a, in his letter of Feb. 4tb, 1889, page 589, in which 
bespeaks of China tea as “vile stuff,” etc., for the 
American market. In speaking of Ceylon teas, Se-- 
nator Evarts himself says : “They are the only pure 
teas ir the world,” and English enterprise has been 
struggling for the last two years to introduce them into 
this country, meeting with much opposition from those 
wholesale dealers who find there is more money in 
handling adulterated China teas (ban the pure ones 
of Ceylon. 
The following official table, showing the annual 
consumption in pounds, gives the best idea of the pro- 
gress of Ceylon tea in Great Britain ; 
1885 
1888 
1887 
Ceylon 
3,218000 
6,245.230 
9,911,860 
China 
113,514,000 
104,2->9,313 
90,581,753 
1888 
1889 
Jan. 1st to Oct. 
1st 
Ceylon 
18,553,051 
25,350,000 
China 
79,792,866 
51,800,000 
The English are known to be connoisseurs in teas, 
and the American taste will doubtless ratify the choice 
of the mother country. — Brooklyn Standard Union. 
4 - 
Incinerator Eeeuse, — As an experiment, 1 
hundred bags of ash refuse from Mr. Harrington’s 
incinerator in Circular Road Calcutta, have been 
sent up to a tea garden in Assam to tests its 
fertilizing powers and consequent value as a manure. 
— Indian Engineer, 
UdapussellawA. — The prosioects of a good 
coffee crop next year are looked forward to from this 
district also, and several good blossoms have been out 
on all good coffee during the last month. Tea is 
nourishing but not flushing well just now, and some 
estates are busy pruning iiud cutting down the tea 
bushes. There have been a few d^ys of rather strong 
puffs of wind lately, but not much rain, the nigh s are 
getting colder, and signs of the north-east monsoon 
being near at hand. 
The success of the Colonial College at Hollesley 
Bay for young men has suggested the establishment 
of a branch of the Forsyth Technical College, 
specially devoted to the training of women for 
colonial life. There being no capital available for 
the purpose, it will be necessary to raise a guarantee 
fund for ■working the experiment for three years, 
and the board have an immediate offer of 2001. 
lor the initial outlay, provided the required total 
of 1,. 5001. can be raised. According to the Managing 
Director— Ethel Forsyth — “ The training that is 
proposed will embrace dairy work, poultry and beo 
farming and horticulture, and the laundry. Cooking 
and housework of tl)o establishment will be under- 
taken entirely by the students themselves, under 
competent supervision. One year’s residence will 
ho compulsory in order to gain tiic college certificate. 
A suitable house, with farm buildings and land 
attached, and near a market town, can bo had 
on cosy terms if taken at once, and there is no 
doubt that there is a great and increasing demand 
or Buch training as wo propose to offer, ” — E, Mail, 
COLD SEASOFi LIFE ON A CACIIAE TEA 
GARDEN. 
Delicious weather, morning air exhilarating as cham- 
pagne, Italian skies, roads hard and dry — it is glorious 
to aet on one’s pony and have a rattling canter over 
ground which till the other day was a series of sloppy, 
sticky mud-puddle.“, interspersed with occasional quug- 
mires. Choti haziri is no longer an unpleasant duty, 
and the daily cold bath is scarcely the luxury it was. A 
few weeks ago, on coming in from our muddy round 
of the garden works, we were inclined for nothing but 
a long chair, a cigar, and a p“g. Nowadays he can 
tramp all over the country, or wade through bheels for 
hours after snipe, come home and set to a vegetable 
gardening (by the way I wish the Agri-Horticultural 
Bociety would send up our seeds), and never think of 
anything stronger than claret and soda. 
One’s eujoj’mentof the exquisite weather is, however, 
sadly dulled by the rapid manner in which the gardens 
seem to he shutting up. The bushes are assuming a 
regular cold weather appearance, and some sections look 
as though they intended giving but little more yield. 
And this is only September, The season has been a 
complete chapter of accidents, a chain of misfortune 
from first to last, and until lately, as unpleasant as 
unfortunate, I fear it is a black look out for many 
concerns and many managers. A number of gardens, 
behind in outturn as it was, are rapidly going from bad 
to worse. 
Down below the bungalow teela the green expanse of 
tea-bush surface, stretching away into the distance, 
glistens and sparkles with the dew in the morning tun. 
It is studded and diversified with the whito, red and 
multicoloured garments of the leaf-pluckers. I have 
just been pitching into the sirdars about somecarelesi 
plucking, and the sirdars, are, in turn, giving it to the 
pickers. The women arc an uninteresting lot, on the 
whole, with a few exceptions, notably our old acquaint- 
ances Rosy (Golabi), Sweet face (Sudamukhi) and 
Nectar (Amrita). The fresh lightness of the air has 
enlivened them, and they are in high spirits, laughing 
and joking. An intere.sting colloquy is taking place 
hetwee-u the three young women and a sirdar, who, 
standing on the road in a hortatory attitude, is getting 
rather the worst of the argument, and beginning to lose 
his temper at the chaff. Each of his admonition.s re- 
garding leafplucking is repeated with the utmo.sb gravity 
by the two trio in a chorus, and in tones of serious 
exhortation to one another. It sounds as though the 
sirdar were conduotiug a sort of agricultural Litany, and 
the three girls intoning the responses. It makes the 
sirdar very worth indeed. “ Bohoot achclia, good old 
sirdar,” concludes Golabi, “ we will remember to pluck 
beautiful leaf for evermore. Oh, here’s the Sahib, 
come along and show us how to pluck. Sahib.” This 
young woman is in a chronic state of requiring my in- 
struction. Her thirst for information would be most 
praiseworthy, but somehow my patient teaching in- 
variably proves to be painfully clevoid of result when 
her basket comes to be examined at leaf-weighing time. 
Sudamukhi has a pain in hsr finger, and wants me to 
lock at it, and give her a holiday. Amrita would like 
her temperature taken with my little pocket clinical 
thermometer, a.s she thinks she has got strong fever. I 
tell her she does not look in the least feverish, and 
that if she really had a strong attack, she would not 
think so, but would be able to speak with full con- 
tidonoo on the subject. 
Changsil and Fort Aijal are holding out pluckily. 
Captain Oole has sent a letter stating that there has 
been seven day’s continuous fighting, but that the 
Lushais have retired somewhat. Three hundred and 
fifty of the 3rd Bengal Infantry have arrived, and the 
campaign will be a military affair. The detachment of 
frontier police from Debrughur take up the guards on 
the frontier. Captain Maxwell returns to Debro. I 
hope that Mr. McOabe will give the Lushais what the 
Irish style “ taste of his quality.” 
I hear that the Manipuris have risen in revolt , oo' 
casloning the flight of the Raja, who, I believe, subse- 
quently abdicated his throne. Two hundred men are 
