JulV- I, 1897.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRlCULTtJRIST. 
25 
LARGE BRAZILIAN COEFEE 
PLANTATIONS. 
The largest coffee estates in Brazil comprises 
110,000 acres of which 13,000 acres are planted with 
coffee, and 20,000 more are suitable for coffee trees. 
This plantation was sold to an English syndicate 
for §5,838,1 00. 
The United States Vice-Consul at Santos furnishes 
the following statement of the trees in bearing and 
of the yield and profits from 1892 to 1895 and estimated 
profit for 1896 ; 
Year. 
1892 
1893 
1894 
1893 
1896 
Estimated. 
Coffee trees Yield Profit 
ill bearing. pounds. dollars. 
1.300.000 
1.400.0 iO 
1.500.0 0 
2,069,700 
2,476,500 
3,897,600 
4.200.000 
5.107.000 
8.400.000 
9,000,000 
269,895 
349 645 
432,946 
637,266 
*711,133 
The total number of trees in this plantation was, 
in June, 1896, 4,426,604, of various ages, including 
194,000 planted in October and November, 1895, and 
it is estimated that two-thirds of the trees being new, 
from 1897 on an average harvest of 100,000 bags 
(13,200,000 pounds) may be expected, and that, when 
all the trees will have arrived at an age of three 
or four years, the yield may increase to 250,000 bags 
of coffee, or about 32,500,000 pounds per annum. 
The next largest estate is owned by Carlos Schmidt, 
who arrived in Brazil from Germany some thirty- 
five years ago. The area of his property is 9,785 
acres, with 1,800,000 trees, populated by nine colonies 
with 280 f-arailies, furnishing some 1,500 labourers. 
There are several other plantations on which grow 
more than 1,000,000 coffee trees . — American Grocer, 
April. 
THE INDIA TEA TRADE. 
Reuter informed us yesterday that a motion to 
reduce the duty on tea to 2d per lb. had been re- 
jected by Parliament by 209 against 95 votes, a re- 
sult which is not extraordinary, considering that 
the adoption of the motion would have involved a 
diminution in the revenue dring the current official 
year of, roughly, I 4 millions sterling. The present 
duty on tea imported into the United Kingdom is 
4d per lb., and the total imports during 1897-98 are 
estimated at 270 million lb., which gives £4,500,000 as 
the amount of the duty to be received. The Chan- 
cellor of the Exchequer has estimated for a surplus 
during the year of £1,569,000, so the reduction of the 
duty on tea would have swept away all this, as well 
as a further largesum, assuming, that is, that the es- 
timates were not exceeded. The advocates for the 
reduction of this duty have been rather too precipi- 
tate, and placed their demands too high. If they 
had moved that the duty should be redued a penny 
per lb., it is possible that success might have crowned 
their endeavours to secure this further and important 
advance towards a “ free-breakfast table.” The time 
may come when this will be brought about, but it 
is not yet. Since 1711, the duty on tea imported 
into the United Kingdom has been altered very many 
times. Commencing in the above year at 5s 6d per 
lb., it continued that figure until 1750 when it was 
reduced to 3s 4d. In 1760 it was reduced to 3s and 
to 2s 6d in 1770. In 1780 it was raised to 3s Id, but in 
1790 it was reduced to 7d. In 1800 it was increased 
to Is 6d and to 3s lOd in 1810, but in 1820 it was re- 
duced to 3s 2d and at the end of the four following de- 
cades the duty was as follows; — 2s 6d, 2s Id, 2s 2d and 
Is 6d. In 1870, the duty was reduced to 6d, at which 
figure it remained until 1890, when it was reduced to the 
present figure, 4d per lb. As regards the average price of 
tea per lb. in the United Kingdom, it has fallen 
from 18s in 1711 to 9gd in 1896, while the con- 
sumption has risen in the same period from 142,0001b. 
to 258,000,000 lb., the record, which will, if the esti- 
mates are worked up to, be largely exceeded during 
the current year. 
4 
We have in previous years contrasted the remark- 
able increase in the production of Brit'sh-growu teas 
with the equally remarkable decline in the production 
of China teas, and the partly estimated returns for 
1896-97 show a continuance of the one and the others 
fjr while the former figure at 223,000j0 )0 lb., an 
increase over tlis previous year of about 22,000,000 1b., 
the latter figure at 35,000,000 lb., a decrease of about 
6,000,000 lb. The following statement, compiled from 
Messrs. Geo. White & Co.’s interesting annual report, 
shewing the fluctuations in the production of tea, is 
instructive : — 
India. Ceylon. 
1875-76 .. lb. 25,500,000 200 
1885-86 . . „ 67,250,000 6,361,000 
1895-96* .. „ 118,182,000 83,388,000 
1897-98* .. „ 135,000,000 100,000,00 
* Estimated. 
China. 
149,000,000 
143,00 1,000 
40,859,000 
30,000,' 00 
As regards last year’s crop of Indian tea, the quality 
appears to have been ordinary, with some very choice 
descriptions in the autumn, and the average price 
for eight months was 9|d, compared With 9J in the 
same period in 1895 96 and lOgd in 1894 95 — the 
Ceylon average for those periods being respectively 
8|d, 8|d and 9id. During the current year, no ad- 
vance in price is anticipated, and Messrs. Geo. White 
& Co. consider that the tendency is to a lower range, 
the demand being for a cheap, i.e., low-priced, tea, a 
large proportion of the imports going into consumption 
at the retail price of from Is to Is 4d per lb., while la 
6d to Is 8d is considered a liber, xl figure for the 
better descriptions. This being the case, and with a 
possible higher rate of exchange, this firm regards 
it as “ more than ever a matter of necessixy that the 
sale of British-grown tea should continue to be 
pushed in countries other than Great Britain with 
all possible vigour.” Much has already been done 
in this direction, and the shipments of India tea to 
Australia, to countries in Asia, to America and to the 
Continent of Europe have increxsed from 9,406,000 lb. 
in 1894-95 to 12,648,000 lb in the past year. But 
this is not sufficient, especially as the exports to the 
same countries from Ceylon have increased in the 
same period from 9,091,000 lb. to 14,532,000 lb., the 
exports of Australia last season having been very 
nearly double those from India. The groat Indian 
and Ceylon Tea Associations have worked with a will 
in the past to push sales in new fields, but it is of 
paramount necessity, as Messrs. George White & Co. 
remark, that their efforts should be persisted in 
with even greater stress than heretofore if they do 
not wish prices to fail, owing to the supply exceeding 
the demand. 
India and Ceylon may again have a formidable 
competitor in China, where modern machinery and 
modern systems of manufacture may shortly be 
introduced. What the ultimate result of this up-to- 
datedness on the part of China will be, remains, 
of course, to be seen ; but from the opinion which 
tea-brokers in the United Kingdom have ex- 
pressed about some of the “ new-process” tea 
from Foochow, the reformed methods of manu- 
facture may exercise a powerful and maleficent in- 
fluence on the consumption of the British-grown 
article. From a circular issued by Messrs. F. Cave- 
Thomas & Co., of Foochow, we learn that Messrs. 
Andrew Melrose & Co., an old established firm of 
tea dealers in Edinburgh, have stated that ‘‘if John 
Chinaman sends Home all his tea as strong as 
this ” — a sample of the machine-made tea which 
had been submitted to them for their opinion — “ho 
will very soon give a good account of himself against 
the overwhelming flood from India and Ceylon, be- 
cause there is in this sample much more of what 
the public consider the style and taste of tea than 
much of the woodytasted stuff that comes from many 
of the Indian estates especially.” This sample, it 
appears, was ordinary third-crop Pakling leaf, and 
it is fondly anticipated by a China paper that first- 
crop leaf from the leading districts in the Yangtze 
Valley, prepared according to the new method, would 
be infinitely superior thereto. A Shanghai firm in, 
commenting on the enthusiastic manner in which 
