THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[Aug. 2, 1897. 
118 
bnr», and on to Johannesl)urg. [ saw McLure 
& Co, They are doing good work for Ceylon and 
sell nothing but pure Ceylon tea. Tliey have good 
tea rooms, which are crowded from morn till 
night. But settlers must be thing.s in this 
country. That is to say, they are wholesale 
and retail and general merchants — all rolled into 
one. They will buy a bag of mealies and they 
can buy a 1,000 bags of mealies. The same 
with everything else, f had not tasted a cup of 
even passable tea until I got to .lohannesburg 
and got .some from McLure & Co. The tea and 
coffee in the hotels is vile stuff ; and in nine 
cases out of ten, it is intended to be. A elass 
of whisky costs Is, and a quart bottle of English 
beer is 4s. In most of the hotels that I have 
been in, there are men parading the dining rooms 
and calling out “Any orders for the bar?” So 
tliat with such prices for liquor you can easily under- 
stand why hotel proprietorsarenot w’orking to push 
the sale of tea, cocoa or coffee. The P. A. will have 
to come to the rescue of S. Africa. There is an enor- 
mous quantity of tea used in the country and nearly 
all low-class Chinas. I have hardly seen any 
Indian and Ceylon tea altliough I have been 
in the country nearly a month I have seen 
very little of it. I go to Bloemfontein toinor- 
row, capital of O. F. S. , and then on to East 
London. Cliarming country and such a climate ! 
If you have never been in South Africa, come 
straight away ; you will get enougli material for 
your pen to' keep you going for a very long 
time — and such a climate to settle in. lalk of 
Nuwara Eliya : it is not in it wdth sucli a 
climate as the Cajre Colony, 0 . I. S. and S. A. R 
The Kaffirs are tine big men and their women are 
big too for the matter of that. They are a cheery, 
good-natured lot of people. I have hardly any 
time to amuse myself — I have such a lot of 
writing and have to read up a lot to get along 
on my journeys in the best possible w.ay. Good 
farms can be bought at lOs per acre. My bi'other 
has a farm of 12,000 acres, for wdiich he paid 
£5^000— good for horses, cattle and sheep. 
PLANTING NOTES. 
^ OF Te^v. — A London buisinessmau 
^vrites:— “I think the late Correspondence in the 
Ccvlon Observer, must be regarded by all im- 
na'rtial readers as of particular merit, and witii 
a really practical end in view'. Seriously I think 
the matter requires immediate enquiry, tor I hear 
from private friends in the Tea trade that Ceylon .s 
are not what they used to be. I have heard 
th.at samples of soil and manuie are now^ being 
freely analysed for teamen in India and very 
flw for Cevlon. This .lid not use to be the case. 
Jamuca Of.ange Receipts ix New York.- 
Tlm tollowing statistics are from the I<ruit 
Tmirnal and show the receipts of .ramaica 
o"s at the port of New York for the past 
f-rn'r vears up to December 1 , 1896 . Last year 
Ce^ was more than twice the quantity of 
lamaica oranges received than the year previous, 
and three or four times as many as was received 
SiptJ oT'jlmaica Or mges at New York, from 
i^eoL.i SepUmber to May. 
Year. 
1892-93 
1893 94 
1894- 95 
1895- 96 , 
1890-97, to Dec. 1st. 
Boxes. 
7.088 
5,446 
13,290 
40,322 
25,928 
Barrels. 
43,050 
20,201 
88,951 
199,974 
180,777 
553,013 
Tea Bulking. — “ Senex” sends us some sensible, 
practical hints for the benefit of hi.s brother 
planters on the subject of Tea-Bulking in a 
letter elsewhere. We commend what fie says 
to the attention of those concerned. Everj'thing 
that can conduce to careful accurate bulking 
in the factory, is of impoitaiicr- at this time. 
The Coffee IMarket.— Is the following an 
indication of wliat may come to “tea” if the 
planting of “ .5,000 acres ” by one Conqnny here 
and there continues? — 
— The Triesfer Zeituny represents the position of 
the coffee market to be utterly hopeless, and blames 
the Brazilian coffee-growers, whom it accuses, not 
only of under-estimating their crops, but of continu- 
ing to place their coffees on the market in ever 
increasing quantities, to the utter ruin of any chances 
of profit by their competitors. The recent reports 
of the extent of the Brazilian coffee crop have, 
according to this newspaper, completely knocked 
the bottom out of auy hopes that the coffee trade was 
not in such a bad position as was represented to be 
the case. In the opinion of the Triester Zeitung there 
is only one thing which will remedy this state of 
affairs, namely, the formation of a strong syndicate 
to bny the whole of the present visible coffee supply 
of Brazil, and all that remains in the 
interior, and lock it up until better times come 
round. Our contemporary thinks that this operation 
would be by no means difficult at the present 
moment, and that a capital of £6,000,000 would pro- 
bably be all that would be lequired to carry it out. 
Inasmuch as the Triester Zeituug thinks that large 
profits might be made by this scheme, it sees no 
reason why capitalists should not go into it. 
The JIamhurger Tlandchhlatt rather ridicules this 
proposal, and asks why, if there is so much money 
in the coffee trade, a proposal requiring £6,000,000 
for its realisation should be made at all? It also 
suggests that schemes of this kind have more about them 
of the quack doctor than the legitimate practitioner. 
A Productive Guava Tree.— The “minor 
industries?” being the question of the day, I 
think it may interest you to know the output of 
one guava tree, of a very ordinary description 
growing in my place “ Gully Castle.” From the 
nth February to March lltli, the fruit was 
gathered every other day and converted into 
jelly, stewed guava and sometimes dolce ; of the 
two latter no account wa.s kept as it was used 
at home ami given away freely, but the jelly 
we kept an account of and at the end of the 
month during which it was being made we liad 
got 5 dlb. wh.'u we stopped, a sit was a very 
good supply to keep us going for a long time. 
Since stopping, the tree has continued bearing 
abundantly, and 1 have no doubt but that an 
equal or even greater quantity could have been 
secured, but the birds have lieen having a good 
time, which judging from the numbers that 
come to the tree, must find it very welcome in 
these hard times, and I don’t grudge the poor 
little beggars their enjoyment. The stewed 
guava and dolce I put down roughly at 201 b. 
and feel sure that I am under rather than 
•ver the mark : that gives 701 b. of preserves 
from one tree in a month. I don’t know what 
figure tlie stuft' sells at wholesale, but if one 
wishes a pound of guava jelly you must pay 
Is 6d for it. I understand it does not cost 9 'd 
per lb. to manufacture, consequently if retailed 
a good profit would result. There are in some 
parts oi the island an unlimited supply of 
guavas fit for converting into jelly, etc., and 
yet I believe guava jelly is actually imported 
from Barbados. We should be able to beat 
them at that, don’t you think ? — A. Cameron Mais, 
Kingston, April 8 th, 1897 . - J ournal of the Jamaica 
Agricultural Society. 
