Aug.  I,  1896.1 
THE  TROPICAL  AGRICULTURIST. 
85 
of  the  year  are  devoted  to  general  outdoor  woik, 
such  as  priming,  deephoeing,  inaiuuing,  draining, 
&c.  The  principal  tea  district  of  Natal  is,  of  course, 
that  ou  the  uortn  coast,  about  six  miles  from 
Staiiger  The  nearest  railway  station  is  Vcrulam, 
about  30  to  10  miles  away,  but  the  line  will 
probably  pass  through  Stauger  to  the  Zulu- 
laud  frontier  ou  the  River  Tugela  within  three 
years  from  date,  a result  greatly  desired  by  the 
Victoria  Gounty  planters— tea  and  sugar.  Ou  the 
South  Coast  there  are  also  two  tea  estates,  Barrow 
Green  and  Ifafa,  both  good  properties.  These,  too, 
wdll  soon  be  connected  by  rail  with  Durban.  At  pre- 
sent there  is  not  a single  working  tea  estate  in  Natal 
on  the  line.  The  total  outturn  of  tea  for  the  whole 
Colony  was  estimated  last  September  at  960,000  lb.  for 
the  present  season,  or  about  100,000  lb.  moi'o  than 
season  before.  The  crop,  however,  will  probably  not 
reach  over  700,000  lb.,  on  account  of  the  great  fire  last 
December,  which  totally  destroyed  the  Kearsney 
Estate  Central  Factory.  'This  estate,  which  manufac- 
tures not  only  its  own  leaf,  but  buys  and  manufactures 
the  leaf  of  eleven  small  out-gardens,  under  the  circum- 
stances is  not  expected  to  reach  its  estimate  of  560,000 
lb.  as  it  was  given  out  that  100,000  lb.  of  tea  alone  were 
destroyed  in  the  fire.  If  they  have  succeeded  in 
making  300,0001b.  more  at  Kearsney  only,  they  will 
have  done  remarkably  well.  Space  does  not  allow 
6f  detail,  but  the  conclusion  come  to  is  that  by 
deducting  at  least  260,0001b.  (including  100,0001b. 
destroyed)  from  the  Kearsney  estimate,  and  iherefore 
the  same  amount  from  the  total  estimate  for  the 
Colony,  the  result  will  be  700,0001b.  total  out-turn  of 
tea  for  Natal  season  1895-96.  Besides  the  drought, 
locusts  have  been  a source  of  loss  and  vexation  of 
spirit  to  the  tea-planters.  Fortunately,  locusts  do 
not  touch  tea,  at  least  not  the  young  tender 
shoots  used  for  picking,  though  they  have  been 
known  to  nibble  at  the  older  and  coar.ser 
leaves.  It  is  a good  thing  that  there  is  so  much 
else  eatable  that  strikes  their  fancy  more  in 
Natal,  as,  if  they  did  talio  a liking  to  the  tea- 
leaf  in  general,  then  good-by  to  the  industry  as 
long  as  locusts  were  about.  The  danger  exists, 
nevertheless.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  no  fire,  or 
drought,  or  hailstorm,  or  other  evil  will  interfere 
with  the  welfare  of  the  very  promising  tea  industry 
of  Natal  during  the  coming  season  1896-7,  and  that 
the  planters  will  reap  fully  the  benefit  from  their 
labour,  especially  the  smaller  ones,  who  without 
capital,  have  worked  hard  asd  pluckily  for  some 
years,  and  certainly  deserve  all  the  success  they  caii 
get.  With  favourable  weather,  such  as  the  Stanger 
district  was  blessed  with  in  1891-5,  and  on  ill  luck 
or  accident,  the  turn-out  of  the  w'holc  of  Natal  should 
easily  top  the  very  respectable  figure  of  one  million 
pounds  of  tea  for  season  1896-7.  Let  us  hope  then 
that  increased  quantity  with  improved  quality  will  be 
the  result  next  June  year. — Xatal  Mercury,  May  15. 
INDIAN  PATENTS. 
Specifications  of  the  undermentioned  inventions 
have  been  filed  under  the  provisions  of  Act  V of 
1888. 
Improvements  in  the  trays  or  carriers  of  appara- 
tus for  exposing  tea,  coffee,  Ac.,  to  the  drying  or 
other  action  of  air,  vapour  or  gases. — No.  66  of  1896, 
— Samuel  Cleland  Davidson,  merchant,  of  Sirocco 
Engineering  works,  Belfast,  Ireland  for  improvements 
in  the  trays  or  carriers  ot  appartus  for  exjiosiug  tea, 
coffee,  Ac.,  cocoa,  grain  and  other  substances  to  the 
drying  or  other  action  of  air,  vapour  or  gases.  (Filed 
22ud  May  1896. — Indian  and  Eastern  Engineer,  June  13. 
THE  1‘KODUCTION  OF  COEEEE  ANi)  TEA 
IN  BRITISH  DEPENDENCli'lS. 
TO  TIlK  KDITOU  OK  'niK.  TI.IIKS. 
Sir, — There  is  a great  deal  of  misapprehension  cur- 
rent in  reference  to  our  old  Ceylon  staple,  coffee, 
its  production  and  price — which,  with  your  permis- 
sion, I should  like  to  correct.  The  other  day  Lord 
Stanley  of  Alderly,  addressing  the  House  of  Lords, 
included  “coffee”  in  his  list  of  products  suffering 
from  depreciation  of  price,  although  for  the  past 
eight  years  at  least  coffee  has  been  pre-eminently 
the  tropical  product  which,  contrary  to  the  theory 
of  bimetallists,  has  not  only  maintained  but  in- 
creased its  gold  value  in  the  markets  of  the  world. 
Thus,  in  1889  the  lowest  and  highest  quotations  for 
middling  plantation  coffee  in  London  were  9ls  to 
102s,  and  they  have  not  since  fallen  below  that 
figure,  while  for  1895  the  range  was  lOO.s  to  107s, 
and  there  is  little  difference  this  year.  This  is 
duo  to  the  fact  that  production  has  not  kept  pace 
with  the  demand  for  the  Continent  of  Europe 
and  North  America  ; and  yet  here  again  a curious 
misapprehension  prevails  as  to  there  being  an  im- 
mediate risk  of  the  over-production  of  coffee  as  of 
tea.  Thus,  at  the  recent  reading  of  a paper  before 
the  Royal  Colonial  Institute  on  “ The  Development 
of  Tropical  Africa,”  by  Sir  George  Baden-Powell,  in 
the  discussion  that  followed.  Dr.  Morris,  of  Kew, 
stated  that  “ in  the  regular  cultivation  of  coffee, 
cacao,  cotton,  kola,  and  fruit.  West  Africa  has  a 
great  future  before  it.”  And  in  describing  the 
Coffee  industry  in  the  Nyasa  hill  country  (British 
Central  Africa)  I made  the  remark  : — “ The 
chief  staple,  coffee,  is  one  of  which  there  is  no 
fear  of  over-production  at  present.”  Nevertheless, 
the  chairman  (Sir  R.  W.  Herbert)  in  summing  up 
and  referring  to  tropical  products,  said  : — “ It  is  de- 
sirable as  far  as  possible  to  seek  for  new  staples 
rather  than  to  crowd  the  markets  with  ordinary  pro- 
duce like  tea  and  coffee,  which  seem  in  danger  of  being 
ovet  produced.” 
Sir  Robert  Herbert  is  correct  as  regards  tea,  but  he 
has  overlooked  the  great  falling  off  in  the  production 
of  coffee  within  British  dependencies  during  the  past 
16  years.  This  has  been  mainly  due  to  the  terrible 
effects  of  a fungus  enemy  on  the  coffee  of  Ceylon,  a 
great  part  of  Southern  India  (and  even  of  Java).  ‘ With- 
out going  into  details,  let  me  venture  to  give  approxi- 
mate and  contrasting  estimates  of  coffee  exports  from 
Br.tisli  dependencies  : — 
Maximum  annual 
e.xport  16  to  18  Estimate 
years  ago.  for  1896. 
Cwt.  Cwt. 
Ceylon  ..  ..  1,100,000  50,900 
South  India  ..  450,000  210,000 
West  Indies  ..  150,000*  80,o  )o 
Straits  and  North 
Borneo  . . _ 30,000 
1,700,000  400,000 
This  indicates  a woful  deficiency,  and  I see  no  pros- 
pect of  more  than  a very  limited  increase  for  many 
years  in  the  above  dependencies.  I am  free  to  con- 
fess that  at  the  same  time  Brazil  has  maintained 
and  even  increased  its  large  production  of  coffee  • 
but  this  has  been  counterbalanced  by  the  notable 
falling  off  in  the  crops  of  Java  and  Netherlands  India 
generally;  and  were  it  not  that  American  and  Euro- 
pean capitalists  have  been  developing  coffee  plan- 
tations in  Mexico  and  Central  America  (Guatemala, 
Costa  Rica,  &c.),  the  consuming  markets  would  have 
been  barely  supplied.  The  continued  high  price 
has,  indeed,  encouraged  Ceylon  tea  planters  to  invest 
surplus  capital  in  a new  coffee  district  in  East  Java  • 
while  I am  ayvare  that  City  capitalist  are  looking  to 
foreign  States  in  South  and  Central  .Lnerica  for 
coffee  investments. 
Surely,  then,  . xperiments  in  coffee  cultivation  may 
v/ell  be  encouraged  in  the  British  divisions  of  Africa 
(as  well  as  in  the  Malayan  Peninsula,  North  Berneo 
Ac.),  and  more  especially  in  British  Central  Africa 
under  Sir  Herbert  Johnston’s  enlightened  adminis- 
tration. 'The  first  limited  company  for  coffee  cultiva- 
tion in  Nyasaland  was  formed  a year  ago  in  Ceylon 
by  planters  and  merehunts,  whose  manager,  now 
*The  West  Indies  attained  their  maximum  early  in 
this  century.  Dr.  Morris  telling  me  that  Jamaica  alone 
sported  260,000  cwt.  of  coffee  in  1805,  while  other 
islands— Barbados,  Antigua,  Dominica,  Montserrat,  St. 
Kitt’s,  and  the  Virgin  Islands — made  up  as  much  more 
or,  say,  from  500,000  cwt.  to  600,000  cwt.,  at  the  maxi’ 
mum  about  90  years  ago. 
