March  i,  1897.]  THE  TROPICAL  AGRICULTURIST.  615 
chena  grass  or  rhea  fibre  or  hem  } or  similar  fibres 
for  combing  or  spinning. — July  7,  1896. 
No.  462.— To  George  Murray  Gollom,  engineer  and 
,tea  planter,  care  of  W.  G.  Forbes,  Esq.,  Her  Maj- 
esty’s Mint,  Calcutta,  for  invention  for  improved 
patent  tea  sorting  and  sifting  machine  for  tea  or 
grains,  &c..  to  be  called  Collom’s  Patent  “ Acme 
tea  sorting  machine.  - July  9, 1896. 
No.  503. — To  Samuel  Cleland  Davidson,  of  Sirocco 
Engineering  Works,  Belfast,  Ireland,  merchant,  for 
improvements  in  the  trays  or  carriers  of  apparatus 
for  e.xposing  tea,  collee,  cocoa,  grain,  and  other  sub- 
stances to  the  drying  or  other  action  of  air,  vapour, 
or  gases.  - July  23,  1896. 
No.  493. — To  Samuel  Cleland  Davidson,  of  Sirocco 
Engineeiiug  Works,  Belfast,  Ireland,  merchant,  for 
improvements  in  tea  rolling  machines.— August  21, 
1896. 
No.  501. — To  Bruno  Wesselmann,  engineer  of  Got- 
tingen, Prieland,  Weg  45  in  the  German  Empire, 
for  improvements  in  or  relating  to  drilling  or  boring 
tools. — August  21,  1896. 
No.  496. — To  William  Walker,  the  younger,  of 
Birmingham,  England,  electrician,  and  Frank  Richard 
Wilkins,  of  Handsworth,  England,  chemical  merchant, 
and  Jabez  Lones  of  Smethwick,  England,  manu- 
facturer, for  improvements  in  primary  Voltaic  bat- 
teries.—Septemper  1,  1896. 
No.  508. — To  Samuel  lleland  Davidson,  of  Sirocco 
Engineering  Works,  Belfast,  Ireland,  merchant,  for 
improvements  in  tea  leaf  rolling  machines. — September 
17,  1896. 
No.  .507. — To  James  Thomas  Hawke,  of  Orion  estate, 
Gainpola,  and  Charles  Northway,  of  Deviturai,  El- 
pitiya,  in  the  Southern  Province  of  Ceylon,  planters, 
for  improvements  in  machinery  or  apparatus  for  a 
tea  cu;.ter. — September  26,  1896. 
No.  509. — To  Sydney  Lawrence,  of  159,  Queon  street, 
Melbourne,  in  the  County  of  Victoria,  Australia, 
engineer,  for  improvements  in  mechanism  for  and 
mode  of  marine  propulsion.— October  10,  1896. 
No.  514. — To  Henry  Bingham,  of  365,  Mount 
Alexander  road  Ascot  Vale,  in  the  Colony  of  Victoria, 
Au.stralia,  dentist,  and  John  Alston  Wallace,  of 
Ludstone  Chambers,  Collin  street,  Melbourne,  in  the 
Colony  of  Victoria,  Australia,  for  improvements  in 
bicycle  and  like  tyres.— November  13,  1896. 
No.  511. — To  Samuel  Cleland  Davidson,  of  Sirocco, 
Engineering  Works,  Belfast,  Ireland,  merchant,  for 
improvements  in  tea  erpializing  or  cutting  mills. — 
November  30,  1896. 
No.  512. — To  Samuel  Cleland  Davidson,  of  Sirocco 
Engine'ering  Works,  Belfast,  Ireland,  merchant,  for 
improvements  in  aparatus  for  tilling  tea  or  other 
substances  into  chests  or  the  like  while  being  packed. 
— Nov.  30th,  1896. 
No.  515. — -To  Herman  Frasch.  of  Euclid  avenue, 
corner  of  Kennard  street,  in  the  City  of  Cleveland, 
in  the  County  of  Cuyahoga  and  the  State  of  Ohio, 
one  of  the  United  States  of  America  for  improve- 
ments in  mining  gold  and  similar  metals. — Doc. 
15  th,  1896. 
No.  518. — To  John  Cory  ton  Roberts,  of  16,  Crom- 
well Grove,  West  Kensington,  in  the  County  of 
London,  England,  planter  for  improvements  in  the 
manufacture  of  tea  chests  and  other  packing  cases 
or  boxes. — Dec.  24th,  1896. 
No.  523. — The  Pennington  Motor  Foreign  Patents 
Syndicate,  Limited,  of  5 and  6,  Great  Winchester 
street,  Loudon,  England,  for  improvements  in  explo- 
sion engines. — Dec.  24th  1896. — Gazette. 
British  Honduras. -Tlie  produces  of  our 
cultural  industries,  still  really  in  their  infancy, 
are  chielly  represented  by  bananas,  plantains, 
coconuts,  coir,  coffee,  bene([uen,  Indian  coin, 
limes,  mangoes,  oranges  .sour  and  sweet,  pineap- 
ples, avocado  petirs,  rubber,  to  which  tliere 
•hould  be  added,  in  time,  anatto,  cacao,  ground- 
nut, indigo,  jule,  ramie,  spices,  manila,  .and 
doubtless  other  marketable  commodities. — Keiv 
VISIT  OF  A JAVA  ESTATE 
PROPRIETOR 
COFFER,— CACAO,— TEA. 
Mr.  Van  Solin— the  owner  of  e.xtensive  tea, 
colfee  and  cinchona  property  in  Ja\a,  who  has 
just  closed  a brief  visit  to  our  pl.anting  districts, 
— is  an  exceptionally  bright  ititelligent  Dutehman, 
speaking  English  admirably  and  entering  with 
gusto  into  all  modern  improvemen.s  connected 
with  a planter’s  life.  In  his  Tea  Factory  in  Java 
he  has  a turbine  developing  24  horse-power, 
half-a-dozen  rapid  rollers,  3 or  4 Britannia  driers, 
and  all  needful  accessories,  and  he  has  just  bought 
a Roll-breaker  at  the  Colombo  Iron  Works.  His 
factory  and  bungalow  are  lighted  with  electric 
light,  and  that  he  and  his  partner  are  fully  alive 
to  the  difference  between  high  and  low  prices 
and  coarse  and  line  plucking  may  be  judged 
from  the  fact  that  while  in  1895,  as  much  as 
595,000  lb.  of  tea  was  made  in  his  factory,  for 
1896  the  return  is  only  330,0001b.  from  the  .same 
acreage  of  550  acres— chielly  due  to  liner  plucking, 
though  partly  to  a drier  season.  Mr.  Van  Sohn’s 
prices  have  gone  up  to  Hid  per  lb.  and  he  can 
turn  out  his  tea  for  3id  per  lb.  (but  that  perhaps 
was  with  the  larger  crop).  He  confirms  our  view 
that  the  basis  of  the  Java  Currency  is  a gold 
standard,  though  they  use  silver  chiefly— ex- 
change affecting  the  Java  planters  no  more  than 
3 cents  above  and  3 cents  below  the  12  guilders 
they  count  to  the  £. — In  coffee,  fresh  planting 
is  confined  to  the  Liberian  variety  in  the  older 
and  more  settled  districts  of  Java  ; although  in 
East  Java,  the  Arabian  variety  is  persevered 
with,  notably  by  the  Ceylon  planters  wh<j  are  there 
interested.  Mr.  Van  Sohn  has  only  a few  bushes 
of  cacao  : and  he  says  the  industry  generally  is 
not  at  all  promising  in  J.ava  any  more  than  in 
Ceylon.  Its  worst  enemy  in  Java  is  a boring 
beetle.  Mr.  Van  Bohn’s  tea  is  chiefly  in  the 
lowcountry  not  more  than  1,000  feet  above 
sea-level,  and  helopeltis  is  sometimes  troublesome, 
his  only  eflective  remedy  being  cleaning  the  stems 
of  the  bushes  and  letting  in  light  and  air 
generally. 
Very  important  for  Ceylon  planters  to  know 
is  the  fact  that  Mr  Van  Bohn  does  not  expect  that 
the  Java  Tea  Exports  will  increase  by  more 
than  half-a-million  lb.  per  annum  for  some  years 
to  come,  t^uite  as  interesting,  too,  is  it  to  know 
that  all  the  tea  from  Mr.  Van  Bohn’s  property 
goes  direct  to  Holland  and  that  successful  efforts 
are  being  made  to  extend  the  consumption  of  tea 
(in  place  of  coffee)  in  the  Netherlands  and  Bel- 
gium. 
Mr.  Van  Bohn,  who,  besides  visiting  Nuwara 
Eliy.a,  passed  through  Uimbula  and  Hikoya  to 
Maskeliya,  was  much  astonished  to  see  some 
of  the  soil  in  which  tea  grows  and  flour- 
ishes in  Ceylon  as  compared  with  the  rich 
deep  volcanic  soil  of  Java.  “ Even  on  little 
more  than  bare  rock,  tea  seems  to  grow 
with  you  ” is  one  of  his  rem.arks ; but 
in  such  cases,  the  roots  doubtless  find  their 
way  unobserved  far  into  a subsoil. 
Without  benefitting  by  exchange,  Java  planters 
prosper  because  of  cheaper  labour  and  a more  regular 
supply  and  also  we  suppose,  on  the  whole,  through 
richer  tea  crops.  Our  visitor  left  last  month  by  the 
French  steamer  for  Bingapore ; and  some  day 
we  trust  to  be  able  to  look  in  upon  him  on 
his  fine  Java  property  and  get  an  idea  of  the 
island  generally  with  its  great  planting  riches 
and  capabilities. 
