424  THE  TROPICAL 
KUEMKUUV  TEA  COMPANY  OE  CE^■L()N, 
LIMITED. 
Incoritoration  ot  tlii.s  Coinpiiiiy  with  a capital 
of  l!5U0,(M)i)  divided  into  dOU  share.s  of  l!lU0-Un 
eacli  lias  been  ajiplied  for  hy  Messrs.  K.  J.  and 
11.  F.  de  Saram.  The  Comjiany  is  pureliasiii”'  we 
understand  the  two  estates  lioelieriy  and  Delie- 
j^alle  hotli  in  Madulseenia.  A contemporary 
.states  : — 
The  former  property  consists  of  ()33  acres,  :;00  acres 
of  which  are  planted  in  tea,  and  20  acres  with  grevil- 
leas ; and  the  rest  is  forest,  chena,  and  patana.  The 
other  estate  is  400  acres  in  extent,  242  acres  being 
in  tea;  58  acres  coffee;  40  available  jungle;  and 
00  scrub  and  jungle.  The  estates  are  being  sold  by 
the  trustees  of  the  estate  of  the  late  Mr.  George 
Alston  and  the  Blackwood  Coffee  Company  respect- 
tively  for  f8,500and  £5,200.  Thisds  equivalent  to  aoout 
B287,000 ; and  the  cost  of  the  factory  now  being 
er-ected,  viz.,  EH5,000,  is  to  be  paid  by  the  Company. 
Thi'ee  thousand  14100  shares  are  to  form  the  jiresent 
issue  ; and  the  provisional  directors  are  Messrs.  Geo. 
Alston,  W.  H.  Figg,  and  Percy  Bois. 
“EEUGUSOVS  CEYLON  HANDBOOK  AND 
DIKECTOBY  1895-90.” 
( r>U  (ui  “Official." ) 
A new  edition  is  before  us  literally  bulging  with 
information,  and  though  not  overflowing,  very  full 
indeed.  It  is  a compendium  of  information — tlie  experi- 
ence of  years  of  unwearied  industry,  of  dauntless 
labour,  of  unselfish  love  and  study  of  the  Editor's 
tropical  home — not  the  scourings  of  a bird  of  passage. 
Mr.  Ferguson  has  given  Ceylon  more  than  any  Euro- 
pean has  ever  taken  or  can  ever  take  away  from  it. 
No  Dependency  of  the  (^ueen  has  ever  been  served 
as  he  has  served  it,  and  may  his  shadow  never  grow 
less.  The  chapter  on  the  rise  and  progress  of  the 
planting  enterprise  has  been  written  down  to  the 
present  year.  As  regards  plantation  coffee,  it  is 
satisfactory  to  find  that  the  estimate  for  1895  is 
57,000  cwt.  as  against  an  export  of  29,029  cwc.  in 
1894 ; and  as  regards  native  coffee  an  export  estimate 
for  1895  of  4,000  cwt.,  as  against  an  export  of  only 
1,5G8  cwt.  in  1894.  These  are  encouraging  indications 
that  the  decadence  of  the  coffee  plant  has  been 
arrested  and  that  a slow  but  steady  increase  of  the 
output  of  coffee  may  fairly  be  looked  forward  to. 
At  present  we  have  805,000  acres  of  tea  under  culti- 
vation. The  export  of  tea  has  risen  from  28  Ifc.  in 
1878,  value  1158,  to  85,87(5,822  lb.,  value  141(5,108,214 
lu  1894  The  imports  of  tea  in  1878  were  69,45)4  lb., 
and  in  1894,  242  lb.  In  1878  10  cwt.  of  cocoa  were 
exported;  the  estimated  export  for  1895  is  28,000  cwt. 
The  export  of  cinnamon  in  1898  amounted  to  1,1(50,754 
lb.,  value  14580,870.  The  estimated  export  for  1894 
is  2,784,754  lb.,  value  141,118,902.  The  area  of  land 
under  coconut  cultivation  is  854,221  acres  yielding 
1,486,219,(535  nuts  at  an  average  of  1,680  nuts  per 
acre.  The  approximate  estimate  of  area  cultivated 
with  the  coconut  palm  in  the  world  is  2,7.80,000  acres. 
The  cultivation  is  also  being  extended  in  Northern 
Australia  with  success.  To  what  extent  the  ever- 
increasing  cultivation  of  coconut  will  in  the  future 
affect  the  question  of  price,  can  at  the  present  time 
be  only  a matter  of  mere  speculation. 
It  is  impossible  for  want  of  apace  to  touch  upon  the  ex- 
haustive treatment  of  all  our  products — cardamoms, 
cocoa,  palms,  cinchona,  rubber,  Ac.  One  can  only  [icruse 
with  ever-increasing  interest  and  wonder  the  various 
exhaustive  articles  on  these  sjthjecta.  The  total  area 
of  land  cultivated  in  (ksylon  is  estimated  at  8,887,000 
acres,  with  a probable  eventual  extension  to  4,8(50,000 
acres.  The  valuation  of  agricultural  jnoperty  in  (Jcy- 
lon  is  estimated  at  £40,5 10,500.  1 have  thus  very  lightly 
indeed  touched  on  the  first  part  of  the  Directory. 
Part  ii  is  entitled  “ Calendar  and  Useful  Information.” 
The  useful  information  is  very  comprehensive  and 
minute— abbreviations  used  in  connection  with  com- 
merce— common  chemical  terms  and  their  scientific 
equivalents— foreign  patents,  notes  on  boilers,  table 
AGRICULTURIST.  [Dec.  2,  18Q5. 
of  constant  multipliers  for  finding  weight  of  metals, 
a most  < xhaustive  chronological  table  of  events  in 
Ceylon,  a resume  of  the  principal  Ordinances,  Ac., 
Ac.,  Ac.  The  comparative  statement  of  revenue  and 
expenditure  in  1892  and  1898  (and  further  on, 
18941  is  most  interesting,  as  also  the  chapter  on 
Ceylon  Bailways.  There  is  a very  full  and  inter- 
esting chapter  on  the  Colombo  Harbour  Works.  The 
Directories  are  very  full,  as  also  the  Estate  Direc- 
tories But  I must  stop.  It  is  utterly  impossible 
to  convey  any  fair  conception  or  any  conception 
at  all  of  the  vast  and  varied  amount  of  most 
useful  information  this  “ Handbook  and  Directory” 
contains.  At  the  end  of  the  book  there  is  a pocket 
and  in  it  we  have  an  excellent  map  of  the  island. 
So  that  between  the  boards  we  have  the  island  and 
all  it  contains.  The  labour  involved  in  gathering 
and  arranging  the  information  must  have  been  stu- 
pendous. The  result  is  worthy  of  the  builder  and 
worthy  of  the  subject.  If  the  Government  14ecord 
Boom,  and  the  Kachcheri  Bccord  Booms  in  the  island, 
were  burnt  to  ashes  tomorrow',  ” Fkrguson’s  Ckyi.on 
H.VNnnooK  .snd  DiitEcroKY  ” would  supply  all  that 
they  contained  and  a trifle  more ! 
THE  CHINESE  TEA  TRADE  AND 
RUSSIA. 
The  following  is  an  important  e.xtracfc  from  the 
letter  of  llie  St.  Peter.shurg  Correspondent  of  The 
Daili/  Tdctjraph  : — 
At  a sitting  of  the  Siberian  Railway  Committee, 
presided  over  by  the  Heir- Apparent,  now  the  reign- 
ing Czar,  on  Oct.  31,  1893,  it  was  resolved  that  the 
Government  be  urgently  requested  to  take  energetic 
measures  to  in  luce  the  Chinese  authorities  to  allow 
the  Bussiaii  raihvay  to  run  through  Chinese  terri- 
tory in  two  directions,  viz.,  from  the  Transbaikal 
to  the  Gulf  of  Liaotoug  on  the  one  hand,  and  through 
iMougolia  to  the  Central  Provinces  of  China  on  the 
other.  The  reasons  alleged  were  reasonable  enough 
— from  a Russian  point  of  view;  viz.,  the  necessity 
of  winning  the  Chinese  markets,  and  in  this  way 
of  paying  the  expenses  of  the  railway.  The  memo- 
randum on  this  commercial  aspect  of  the  case  is  in- 
structive. It  set  forth  that  the  chief  exports  from  China 
are  costly — viz.,  silk  and  tea,  amounting  to  about 
68  per  cent,  of  all  exports  from  the  Celestial  King- 
dom: that  about  two  thirds  of  these  pass  through 
English  hands,  and  that  over  and  above,  England 
is  ruining  the  tea  trade  * by  her  own  plantations  in 
Ceylon  and  India;  that  China,  left  to  her  ow'n  re- 
sources, is  pow'erless  to  break  down  this  competition; 
but  that  Russia,  with  the  tea  trade  in  her  hands, 
could  enable  China  to  hold  her  own  The  chief  im- 
ports also  could  be  supplied  by  Russia  with  advan- 
tage to  both  countries,  viz.,  cotton  Ac.,  aniounting  to 
41,  and  metal  manufactures  and  woollen  wares 
amounting  to  10  per  cent  of  all  China’s  imports. 
Unless  this  be  done,  it  was  urged,  the  Siberian 
railway  will  prove  ruinous  to  the  country.  The  re- 
port wound  up  by  affirming  that  in  all  that  part  of 
north-eastern  Asia,  the  most  important  district  for 
Russia,  from  an  economical  and  strategical  point  of 
view,  would  be  the  contiguous  territory  of  Manchuria, 
comprising  the  basin  of  the  Sungaree,  with  the  cities  of 
Sansin,  Ningoota,  Tsitsikar,  and  Girin,  the  actual  po- 
pulation of  which  is  about  twelve  times  that  ot  all 
Ussuria.  This  territory  must  ,^be  brought  under  the 
control  of  Russia. 
And  this  is  precisely  the  land  through  which  it 
has  just  been  reported  Russia  is  authorised  to  cons- 
truct two  lines  ; to  be  called  the  Nertshinsk-Tsitsihar- 
Vladivostok  Itailway  and  tlic  Tsitsihar  I’ort  Arthur 
Railway  respectively,  besides  which  she  has  received 
the  right  of  anchorage  in  Port  Arthur. 
The  plan  existed,  as  I have  shown,  at  a time  when 
China  and  Russia  stood  face  to  face  as  irreconcilable 
enemies.  That  it  will  bo  realised  now  that  they 
have  become  fast  friends  cannot  for  a moment  be 
* F’rom  1886  to  1890  the  export  of  tea  from  China 
fell  from  yu  to  07  million  pounds. 
