June  i,  1897.] 
THE  TROPICAL  AGRICULTURIST, 
827 
that  for  China  tea.  Now  they  have  in  addition  to 
study  Indian  and  Ceylon  kind?  as  well,  and  owing  to 
the  enormous  extent  of  some  of  the  districts,  especi- 
ally in  India,  there  are  infinitely  more  varieties  in 
the  character  of  tea  than  used  to  be  the  case.  While 
these  facts  imrose  increased  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
retail  blending,  they  at  the  same  time  afford  a far 
greater  opportunity  to  the  wholesale  blender  than  he 
could  possibly  have  had  a few  years  ago;  in  fact,  the 
increased  number  of  markets  and  varieties  gives  just 
the  opening  required,  and,  coupled  with  the  use  of 
machinery  and  the  other  causes  named  above,  mainly 
account  for  the  increase  in  the  trade.  The  standard 
for  blending  has  also  greatly  risen  and  is  more  difficult 
for  the  retailers  to  meet,  unless  they  work  on  a very 
large  scale.  Years  ago  ancestral  methods  of  tea  mixirig 
were  no  doubt  all  very  well ; but  they  are  useless  in 
the  present  days  of  keen  competition,  especially  as 
most  of  the  teas  and  flavours  that  used  to  be  the 
favourites  are  practically  obsolete.  The  public 
may  be  left  to  judge  for  itself  whether  it  is  not 
the  fact  that  the  grocer  in  a fair  way  of  busi- 
ness can  supply,  with  a return  to  himself,  teas  4d  to 
6d  per  pound,  or  say,  30  per  cent,  cheaper  than 
those  advertised  at  gigantic  cost.  Among  the 
special  points  for  the  ordinary  run  of  grocers 
to  study  in  connection  with  this  and  other  forms 
of  competition  is  undoubtedly  the  purchase  of  pro- 
perly blended  tea. 
Insult  to  In.iury. — When  will  a revision  be  made 
of  the  interesting  information  given  in  official  pub- 
lications about  tea.  No  product  is  so  maligned  as  tea. 
Indian  and  Ceylon  kinds  are  usually  ignored  altoge- 
ther, but  a correspondent  calls  attention  to  an  extract 
from  a “Manual  of  Military  Cooking”  which  is 
more  than  ordinarily  awful.  “ Tea  ; That  usually 
purchased  for  the  Army  is  black  congou  from  China, 
and  of  good  medium  quality.  The  following  is  a 
favourite  aud  inexpensive  mixture : — 1 lb.  of  Moning 
congou,  J lb.  of  Assam,  and  J lb  of  orange  pekoe.  It  is 
often  adulterated  bi/  the  addition  of  the  horse-chestnut, 
elm,  ivilloio,  poplar,  sloe,  hawthorn,  tCc.  Of  these,  the 
onhj  leaves  resembling  it  are  those  of  the  willow  and 
sloe."  Shades  of  Assam  pioneers — the  bare  sugges- 
tion of  sloe  leaves  and  horse-chestnut  in  the  same 
paragraph  with  Assam ; but  perhaps  the  compiler  of 
this  archaic  stuff  has  lively  remembrance  of  the 
cheap  China  tea  once  in  vogue. — II.  and  C.  Mail, 
April  2. 
CACAO  AND  COCOA  BUTTER. 
London,  April  1. 
This  letter  ought  properly  to  be  headed  “ Clnb- 
Echoes  and  Cocoa  Nibs”  tliis  week,  for  I have 
heard  a good  deal  more  about 
COCOA 
than  tea  during  the  last  two  or  three  days, 
having  been  in  the  company  of  a cocoa  expert 
during  a great  part  of  the  time.  The  cocoa 
manufacturers  are  all  on  the  qui  vive  at  pre- 
sent, a certain  new  maker  whose  name  must 
be  familiar  to  every  person  who  opens  any 
newspaper,  but  need  not  here  be  more  explicitly 
referred  to,  having  arisen  among  them,  who 
is  advertising  so  extensively  and  so  unblush- 
ingly  that  all  the  old  established  firms  are 
“ sitting  up”  as  the  saying  is.  This  gentleman 
or  firm  rather  I suppose,  for  it  is  freely  asserted 
there  is  a company  behind,  is^  calculated  to  be 
getting  £20,000  a year  by  the  .sale  of  a brand 
of  cc  '.oa  lie  pays  £40,000  to  adverti.se,  and  the  con- 
sequence of  this  tremendous  adverttsement  is  that 
retail  dealers  are  deluging  tlie  old  established  manu- 
acturers  with  letters  telling  them  as  Demetrius 
id  of  old,  that  their  trade  is  in  danger.  How- 
ver,  as  my  informant  said,  “ working  at  such  a 
eavy  loss  can’t  go  on  very  long  in  the  nature 
of  things,  and  ultimately  we  will  all  benefit  by  this 
immense  booming  of  our  article.”  This  remark 
struck  me  as  bearing  on  the  great  question  of 
tea  advertising  so  frequently  referred  to  in  the 
Tropical  Agrieulturist  and  I started  on  an  enquiry 
as  to  how  cocoa  was  pushed  in  new  countries 
eliciting  the  following  information  which  may 
be  interesting.  “ When  we  introduced  our  cocoa 
into  America,”  said  the  expert,  “ I gave  our 
man  a year  to  do  it — to  his  disgust  rather,  for 
he  had  not  been  anticipating  such  a prolonged 
time  of  it  over  tliere,  but— it  \vas  a year  and 
a half  before  he  got  back.  He  travelled  all 
over  the  states  opening  cocoa  shows  and  starting 
demonstracion  lectures  in  every  good-sized  town, 
as  well  as  advertising  liberally  in  the  papers. 
He  couldn’t  work  by  advertisement  alone.  You 
need  to  show  the  good  folks  in  America  in  a 
practic.al  manner  that  what  you’ve  got  to  sell  is 
worth  buying.  Now  we’ve  established  a £rood 
market  over  there,  and  cocoa,  which  in  this 
country  in  1861  was  only  used  in  the  proportion 
of  one-eighth  of  a pound  yearly  per  head  of  the 
population,  is  now  gone  up  to  rather  more  than 
a half  of  a pound  annually  per  head.  The  ad- 
vance of  cocoa  is  slow  certainly  in  comparison 
witn  tea,  but  it  has  all  along  been  wonderfully 
steady.  Another  thing — the  sale  of  pure  as 
opposed  to  adulterated  cocoas  has  also  grown 
steadily.  The  public  are  beginning  to  know  what 
good  cocoa  means  now,  and  won’t  drink  the  mixtures 
of  sugar  starch  and  potatoes  that  used  to  be  sold 
for  cocoa.” 
In  regard  to  the  sale  of 
COCOA  BUTTER, 
w’hich  is  an  article  in  considerable  demand  among 
the  sweets  manufacturers,  it  is  rather  curious 
to  note  the  effect  of  the  recent  duty  on  the  import 
of  the  butter  into  this  country,  a duty  that  was  in- 
tended entirely  to  benefit  the  home  manufacturers, 
but  which  has  had  precisely  the  opposite  result. 
The  duty  has  raised  the  price  by  two-pence  a 
pound  to  the  home  manufacturers  and  chemists, 
who  were  dependent  on  the  foreign  makers  for 
their  supply,  and  has  cheapened  the  market  for 
the  foreigner  in  his  own  country.— So  much  for 
protection. 
♦ 
PROGRESS  IN  STRAITS. 
Kinta.— Agriculture  is  ruakiug  gradual  but  steady 
progress  throughout  the  district.  There  are  now 
seven  estates  alienated  to  European  planters,  and 
negotiations  are  pending  for  the  granting  of  several 
other  important  concessions.  Almost  all  these  estates 
are  being  taken  up  for  the  cultivation  of  Liberian 
coffee,  which  has  also  been  extensively  and  success- 
fully planted  upon  land  held  by  natives  in  all  parts 
of  the  districts. — Iteport,  Commissioner  of  Lands,  1896, 
B.  C.  AFRICA:  TANGANYIKA. 
Mr.  John  Gibbs,  manager  of  the  African  Lakes 
Corporation,  Ltd.,  recently  returned  from  a journey 
to  Lakes  Tanganyika  and  Mweru.  We  are  in- 
formed by  Mr.  Gibbs  that  he  went  up  Tanganyika 
as  far  as  Ujiji.  It  is  probable  that  Mr.  Andrew 
Law,  the  Company’s  agent  on  Tanganyika,  will 
next  May  make  a voyage  up  to  Ujiji  and  the  north 
end,  and  inland  from  tliere  towards  Lake  Victoria 
Nyanza,  so  as  to  obtain  particulars  about  the  route 
from  Tanganyika  to  Uganda.  Mr.  Gibbs  informs 
us  that  while  at  Ujiji  he  saw  English  newspapers 
ted  24th  October  last,  which  had  reached  Ujiji 
