^.^4 the tropical agriculturist. [March i, 1898 . 
that the capital of the house was altogether American 
— being supplied by Messrs. Charles Ahrenfeldt & 
Co., of New York (Nos. ,52-54 Murray street) and 
Paris. Every employe of this large Iquitos establish- 
ment is a fair-hired German ; even the officers of their 
various steamboats give their orders in German. 
The largest and longest tributary of the Amazon 
is the Ucayali, formed by the Junction of the Tambo 
and the Urubamba rivers, in the foothills of the 
Andes, and flowing northward for about 1,000 miles. 
It reaches the Amazon some five or ten hours’ travel 
above Iquitos. The Caucho supply, once so plentiful 
on the Ucayali, has become almost exhausted along 
that stream, and on its afiiuents flowing from the 
west. By their reckless methods of destroying the 
trees, the armies of caucheros have ruined their occu- 
pation within the old limits, and are obliged now to 
go to the headwaters of the Ucayali, and to the 
tributaries which now from the east, having their 
source in Bolivia and Brazil. Whenever the latter 
are reached, the divide is soon passed which marks 
the watershed of the Jurua, another large tributary 
of the Amazon, parallel with the Ucayali, but 
claimed by Brazil. The effect of the destruction of 
the Caucho on the Ucayali, in connection with the 
opening up of communication by these numerous 
affluents reaching the Jurua, in Brazil, would seem 
to be bad for Iquitos. Naturally the route from the 
Caucho fields via the Jurua or even the Purus to 
Manaos will be very much more direct than via 
Iquitos. There would be a saving of 1,000 miles, at 
least, and the ad van age of the market of Manaos, 
with telegraph communication and regular steamer 
service, might more than offset the low export duties 
charged on Caucho in Peru. Brazil exacts 22 per 
cent of the value of all rubber exported from her 
territory, while Peru requires only 5 centavos per 
kilogram on Caucho and 8 centavos per kilogram on 
India-rubber. 
Para, Brazil, December 4, 1897. 
A SIMPLE RECIPE FOR LIVING TO BE A 
HUNDRED. 
1. Eight hours' sleep. 
2. Sleep on your right side. 
3 . Keep your bedroom window open all night. 
4. Have a mat to your bedroom door. 
6. Do not have your bedstead against the wall. 
6. No cold tub in the morning, but a bath at the 
temperature of the body. 
7. Exercise before breakfast. 
8. Eat little meat and see that it is well cooked. 
9. (For adults) drink no milk. 
10 Eat plenty of fat, to feed the cells which destroy 
disease germs. 
11 Avoid intoxicants, which destroy those cells. 
12 Daily exercise in the open air. 
13. Allow no pet animals in your living rooms. They 
are apt to carry about disease germs. 
14. Live in the country if you can. 
15. Watch the three D’s; — drinking-water, damp 
and drains. 
16. Have change of occupation. 
17. Have frequent and short holidays. 
18. Limit your ambition ; and 
19. Keep your temper. 
Sir James Sawieb, in Church Sells. 
[Written for residents in a temperate climate. 
—Ed.] 
Coffee in B.C. Africa. — If the export of coffee 
as given in the “Gazette” i.s the total for the 
year, it shows — says the C. A. I'imes— that we 
have over-estimated by some fifty tons last year’s 
crop. 853,080 lb. is only equal to 380 and about 
three-quarter tons, wliereas the estimate was about 
450 tons. A certain amount must be allow^ed for 
the coffee retained in the country for seed and 
consumption, but that, we should think, would 
not exceed 15 tons at the outside. 
“SORTING TEA : NO. 1.” 
Machinery has done much to spoil thesortingof tea. 
In all the other processes machinery has improved tea' 
but in this, which is perhaps a very important factor to’ 
good prices, it has helped the managers to get the 
work done quickly and cheaply, but it has done away 
with the old “nicetiei” of the work. In the 
old days, when our tea was about three times 
the present price, we used to make Broken Orange 
Pekoe, two Orange Pekoes, two Pekoes, Broken Pekoes 
Pekoe Souchong, Pekoe Fannings, Red Leaf Fannings’ 
Pekoe Dust, and Dost ; that is to say, eleven “• sorts ’’ 
of tea. And all these teas used to get different prices 
ranging from ten annas as the lowest to two 
rupees or so for the highest, thus allowing several 
annas between the No. 1 and No. 2 of the Pe- 
koes and Orange Pekoes. Nowadays, when per- 
haps we have only two annas difference between our 
best and our worst tea, it may seem absurd to “ sort ” 
carefully, and arguing on these lines, some managers 
have come down to three sorts— Pekoe, Pekoe Sou- 
chong and Broken Tea. Each one has come to 
his own conclusions from experience or expedi- 
ency, and we have concluded that careless sorting is 
nearly as harmful as carelessness in any of the 
other processes of tea making. We argue in this wav • 
If you take five pounds of Orange Pekoe and throw 
It into 1001b. of Broken Tea, |ou have lost sevewl 
annas. Suppose that the Orange Pekoe sells for 12 
annas and the Broken Tea sells for six annas 
then you have lost 5 6 = annas. Then bv 
way of experiment you throw 8 lb. of Pekni 
into 100 1b. of Pekoe Souchong, the one being sold 
for 8 annas and the other for 7 annas, then you have 
‘han this and 
put 20 lb. of Orange Pekoe into the Broken Tea you 
may raise the price of the Broken Tea bv 
two pice (=50 annas), but you lose 20 x 6 = 120 
annas. It is impossible to be definite ; but the con- 
clusion is that you lose good te.a by putting it into 
lower class tea without raising the price of the lower 
grade; and by leaving lower grade tea in the grade 
above it, yon reduce the price of the higher grade 
No one makes tea so coarse as to have no Orange 
Pekoe in it; and, however small a percentage it may 
be, it would pay to separate it from the coarser teas 
It IS possible to carry this idea too far ; for instance' 
by repeated cutting and sifting through a No 14 sieve 
one can each time get tea of the size of Orange Pe 
koe, but all these mixed together would make a very 
bad Grantee Pekoe : it would cease to be real Oranxyp 
Pekoe after the first cutting, and after that It 
would be cut up Pekoe and cut up Pekoe 
Souchong, and these would also be vmv 
grey and unsightly The perfection of sorting is as 
follows : The whole tea is put over a No 14 sieve 
either untouched or gently disintegrated by hand it 
must be a Land sieve made of cane and shaken uAtil 
tea ceases to faff through freely ; this makes Orange 
Pekoe No. 1. The tea above the No. 14 is thfn 
passed over a No, 12 sieve, and you get Pekoe 
No. 1. The, tea is now cut up by any sort of 
machine or crushed by hand and again put over No 
14, which yields No. 2 Grange Pekoe ; therover a No' 
12 which gives No 2 Pekoe. The residueTs then 
sifted through a No 10 sieve, and itis cut up time after 
toe till all goes thrqpgh This when famied makes 
Pekoe Souchong and Broken Tea. Broken Pekoe is 
got out of the Orange Pekoe by fanning, also out of the 
tea which drops through the sieves when firing and 
nowadays a good deal of Orange Pekoe and B^ken 
Pekoe IS obtained by sifting the leaf before firing 
The cru lest method of sorting is to cut up the 
tea with a machine breaker, and put it through a 
cylinder consi.sting of a No. 12. No. 10 and No 8 
then cut up the residue, or tailings, and send them 
through the cylinder again. By this means the work 
18 done very speedily, but the result is, that each 
pade consists of a mixture of each sort more or 
less cut up. This sty e of machine accounts for the 
small difference in price to be found in many marks 
between the Broken Tea, Pekoe Souchongs, Pekoe 
and Orange Pekoe. The Orange Pekoe hfa Brok^ 
