590 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 
[February 2, 1891. 
the (an can cope with Ruch a blockade aa be applied on 
it without being affected thereby, why he may perhaps 
find it making its own supply of air some day aa well ! ! 
Meantime, however, I would a lvise him to pro- 
vide the stove with a direct supply of air from out- 
side the house, even although it be at the point of 
complete saturation (which is seldom if ever the 
case with the outside atmosphere) as air fully 
■tturated at 65° F. if raised to 120° F. becomes prac- 
tically dry air — which latter temperature is as low as 
air ever reaches in the exhaust of the fan. Hence 
saturated air at 65°, forms practical! ij a dry air supply 
for an apparatus which discharges its exhaust air at 
120° F. Wnat causes many managers to think that 
it is owing to the dampness of the outside atmosphere 
on wet days that their driers give lower results than 
on dry days, is that on wet days the windows and 
doors of the tea-house are usually closed up, and they 
go on using the same air that is within the house 
over and over again with but little fresh air being 
admitted, and it is not long till this becomes absolu- 
tely saturated even at the high temperature it attains 
to, seeing that a Down draft Sirocco passes about 
300,000 cubic feet of air through it per hour and turns 
about 200 to 2601b. weight of water into vapour in 
the same time — so that ere long the machine is actu- 
ally drawing in hot vapour with very little air in 
it and drying with superheated vapour instead of hot 
air to the very serious detriment of the quality of 
the tea produced. On fine dry days the windows 
and doors of the tea-house are all wide open, aud the 
vapour gets out, aud fresh air gets freely in and the 
drying goes on so much better in consequence. 
My advice to all users of Siroccos is, to either blow 
the exhaust air out of the factory entirely or else 
provide a large duct to lead fresh air to the stoves 
from the outside atmosphere. 
From the testimonials adhibited we quote as 
follows : — 
From. — J. N. Campbell Esq., Superintendent of 
Morary Tea Estate Musketry [ !— Ed. T. .of.] Ceylon, 
22nd August 1890. 
“ Outturn per hour of dried tea 214 lb. wood fuel 
per hour 98 lb. This is equal to about 2§lb. oftea 
dried per lb. of fuel.'’ 
From. — H. D. Dean, Esq. Superintendent Kinlyre 
Tea Estate, Ma.‘keliya, Ceylon, 6th August 1890. 
“ I am perfectly convinced that the capalbiJities of 
the Down-draft are in no way over-estimated in the 
advertisements, and have no hesitation in saying that 
from 180 to 2001b. tea an hour can be easily obtained 
from the machine.” 
MIXED SPICES. 
A correspondent asks the nature of mixed spices, 
a question the reply to which will be of interest to 
many. Mixed spices are a compound of many different 
sorts, in order to save the housekeeper time, trouble 
and expense. She need no longer buy a small quan- 
tity of many sorts and experiment in combining them 
in the right proportion, for this is done for her by 
the spice dealer. In a popular formula the fo’lowiug 
eighteen kinds of spice are ustd : AVhite perpor, 
shot pepper, allspice, ginger, mustard, coriander seed, 
celery seed, cloves, long pepper, cardamom seed, cassia 
buds, cumiu seed, mace, caraway seed, Ceylon cinna- 
mon, bay leaves, Chili pepper, Malabar pepper. The 
proportions are kept secret by the leading mixers, 
being regarded private property . — American Grocer. 
flll.NA ; I'RomSED IM I’ROVEMEJS’TS IN TEA 
(iROWJNO. 
Mr. E. Putin B, who lately gave the Shanghai 
Chamber of Oon.m tco some information as to hia 
propoBals w.th retercnco to ttie cultivation of the t(ta 
plant in Ch iiB, wr.tcs to the aV.-O. JJaihj Ncros as 
uqdcr from Tiintsiu, whoro he has beep stopping op 
bis way to Peking. Mr. Pinches says : — 
‘Briefly my proposals are simply to endeavour to 
obtain from the Government at Peking a tract of 
land either at Shanghai, Hankow, Foochow or Formosa, 
to be liauded over to a Chinese Company for a 
period of not less than 15 years, in which would be 
established a tea-garden to be worked in the same 
manner as tea gardens are worked in India. The 
very latest tea machinery would be introduced, 
suitable buildings ercctvd and the tea bush cultivated 
and plucked in the same manner as in India. The 
introduotiou of machinery would considerably lessen 
the cost of the tea and give China a better chance of 
competing with India. It would also improve the 
make and appearance of the tea. The reason to my 
mind why China tea has so fallen off in quality is 
simply that less attention is now given to the cultiva- 
tion of the plant than used to be given formerly. 
The cultivator has received a lower price for his 
tea year by year. To meet this, instead of working 
up his cultivation more, so as to get an increased 
yield from his plant and thus reduce the cost of his 
tea and also improve its quality, he has spent less 
on cultivation, thus hoping to reduce the cost of 
his tea, entirely forgetting that by doing so he is 
really killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. 
The Chinese — at any rate in Formo-a, the only tea 
district of which I can speak with confidence — have 
simply no idea whatever of pruning as understood 
in India. As a rule the tea hash is hacked down once 
in about six years, branches being left split half- 
way down in a most barbarous manner. Scientific 
pruning means rca'ly giving the tea bush a new 
lease of life. After a searon's plucking, especially as 
done in China, there are a certain number of twigs 
which have a partially dead bark, aud which if left 
alone will next plucking season only givo very few 
leaves, and these of a thin sapless character. Out 
away this partially dead wood at the end of the 
plucking season and next year when the sap commences 
to rise you will have a fine young shoot which will not 
only give you plenty of leaf but will also be good qua- 
lity. I have always found the foil round a Chinese tea 
bush caked so hard that a fork could scatcoly penetrate 
it. If this soil were p"operly loosened by forking round 
the bush more moisture would get to the surface roolB 
of the bush, and thus ensure a more rapid rise of 
sap, which a^aiu v a,ildi of course mean increased 
quantities of leaf. Again, the Chinese system of 
plucking is very bad. Chinese v/ait till in a plot of 
tea all the bushes have got a lot of leaf on them, 
and then men, women and children, sometimes the 
latter only five years of age, are let loose among the 
tea bushes. Nearly every leaf is ripped off the bush 
whether it is properly ready or net. Some of the 
leaves have of course grown too old and others are 
not properly re.\dy. To get the best quality of leaf 
you must be constantly going r.und your tea garden, 
say once in 7 day.s or fo, only taking the leaf which 
is perfectly ready and leaving the rest for your next 
time of going round. Practice a'one of course can 
teach you this. If you allow leaf to grow 
too long it bfcomes hard and difficult to 
manuf»cture and does not make good tea. On tka 
other hand it yon pluck it too young you lose leaf, as 
if it had been allowed to grow a little longer, it would 
have weighed more. It seems to me a most extraord- 
inary thing that such an intelligent race as the Chinese 
undoubtedly are ehould calmly sit down and allow one 
of their most imporlant industries to pass away from 
them without making au effort to prevent it. If 
figures are true facts, unless the Chinese make some 
attempt to keep abreast of the times, at the present 
rale of yearly dc crease in the China tea crop, about, 
four or five years should see the end. There are 
plenty of tea garden.s in India which can lay their 
whole crop down in London at an average cost of 7d 
per pound, some even less. Cliina at jmesent cannot 
do this. First lob China tty what can be done by a 
better system of cultivation and the introduction of 
the latest tea tuachiuery, and then, if that is not 
enough to p'ace her on an equal footing with India, 
1 the lilcin must be done away with.’— C/tWiit Alail. 
