April i, 1898.J 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
687 
curiosity and an ornamental plant. I-olated vines 
can be seen in many shambas, both in Zanzibar and 
Pemba, trailing up coconut and mango trees. To 
Jack Savey of Dumbwi, Northwera Valley, belongs 
the credit of first having demonstrated that Vanilla 
not only grows in Zanzibar but flowers and bears 
fruit in due season. Jack Savey or Abdullah Brahim, 
as he is more correctly known among the natives, is an 
old ship’s Krooman. He was attached to H.S. 
“ Thetis,” and was paid off when the ’‘Loudon” was 
first commissioned. He therefore carries us back to 
what to moat of us is prehistoric times. In early life 
he spent fifteen years in Seychelles and learnt, 
among other things, to fertilize the flowers of Vanilla 
and to prepare the fruit. So when in his old age he 
settled down to enjoy the repose of country life 
in Zanzibar he planted some vines in his shamba. 
Today the vines tower above him in huge tangled 
clusters, threating to overwhelm his house. 
Jack neither trained nor tended his charges but 
quietly bided his time till the flowers should come, 
when he deftly put in the fertilizing point. How 
many crops of fruit he has had is not clear, though 
it is more than one. Some of the pods we saw at the 
beginning of December were 7 inches long and had 
four or five months’ growth before them. There is 
every promise therefore of good quality beans as far 
as size goes. ., , , 
We have before pointed out that not until a plant 
has produced fruit can it be said that it has found 
a congenial home. There is always the after 
question whether the quality and quantity of fruit is 
sufficient for market purposes. The fruiting Vanilla 
in the wera Valley has, as if by an accident, cleared 
up one hitherto doubtful point about this product. 
Plantations may be put down with the reasonable 
certainty that they will in due course come to flower 
and fruit. If the industry were seriously taken up 
here we see no reason why Zanzibar should not in 
time become a large exporting country, and run in 
harness with Eeunion and Seychelles . — The Shaiiiba. 
PLANTING NOTES PROM BADULLA : 
TEA AND FOOD STUFFS. 
March 5. 
One cannot help but think that the low price 
of our staple “Tea” must be pressing some 
planters a good deal ; economy in field and 
factory must be the order of the day, to make 
ends meet. What a tale our different tea com- 
panies are telling this year compared with pre- 
vious years in the way of dividends ! ! and I 
am very much mistaken if we liave seen the 
worst yet. With exchange .so high, and stilt 
going higher. And dear rice still continues al- 
though it is difficult to see why this last should 
be ; the many Clietty rice dealers in Ceylon 
must have been making their pile ever since 
the slip on the raihvay at Allasralla. Prices went 
up then, not only for rice, but everything else 
in the way of food stuffs which our coolies and even 
ourselves require for our daily sustenance, and 
when they are likely to fall again is a problem 
difficult of solution.' There is no reason what- 
ever why a great proportion of the food stutfs 
which are daily consumed should not be grown 
by the labourers themselves, as a rule. In fact 
it is the exception to find coolies on an estate 
without sufficient space to grow vegetables, etc., 
but they seem to go a bout it in a half-hearted way, 
and evidently prefer paying the grasping kaddy- 
keeper his excessive prices. — Cor. 
CHANGED TIMES IN TEA: 
HOW TO MEET THE NEW CONDITIONS. 
In the happy days when the rupee was allowed 
to follow its bullion value; when there were 
no currency tinkers to interfere with the present or 
endanger the future ; when tlie Indian mints were 
open, and Eastern trade w%'5 douri'^h-ng and pros- 
perous, — the planters were every now and agMn 
reminded, as the London nveraue for their teas 
grew less, that they were ‘ , vin- on Exchange.” 
“ Whar, would we do, if it rvere to go agains 
us ? ” was tire question the long-sighted ones 
put to themselves and others ; but as there was 
no pres.sing call for an immediate, answer, and 
as “short views of life” — Sydney Smith’s 
philosophy of happiness — brings most content, 
the question remained unanswered, and it wa« 
a good time the planters iiad. Now the in- 
evitable is upon us, and currency tinkering has 
given to the world the astonishing spectacle, 
of an Empire, with a dishonest coinage and 
statesmen who uphold it — this today, and in the 
face of all that history has taught ! — and instead 
of “living on exchange,” as had been so com- 
fortably done in the past, the planters are now 
called on to face and answer the question 
“ What is to be done now that Excliange rules 
against us?” The steadily-increasing stream of 
rupees, which a falling Exchange provided in 
such an easy way for the producer, is dried up, 
and instead of now living on Exchange there 
is the prospect ahead, of either going back to 
tlie primal condition of earning bread by the 
sweat of the face, or like tlie Polar bear, in 
its winter, to living on one’s own fat ! The 
former of the two alternatives is the better 
one, and it is evident that, among the 
planteis, there is a buckling to, and a deter- 
mination to make the most of things, in the 
hints which have appeared in the public 
prints as to the crying necessity of careful 
and cheap working, and a general alertness in 
regard to all estate matters. As tlie margin 
of ])rotit grows less and less, the room for 
“playing the fool” without being found out, is 
circumscribed ; and to show well after a year’s 
working, now that things are cut fine, will 
demand the prominence of qualities which were 
only secondary when the majority were able to 
live well on Exchange. 
Prominence has been given to the cost of 
plucking and calculations have been made to 
show how Tea Companies and private proprietors 
would benefit, if, instead of day wage.s, there 
were payment by results. To reduce the cost 
of plucking from 8 cents to cents, is, it is 
said, quite within the reach of pla .ters if there 
be combination among themselves, and contract 
plucking be insisted on. Those who advocate 
the new order, have tempting figuies to offer 
as an inducement to follow it. Those who are 
against it, have a dread of coarse leaf, a lower- 
ing of the qualities of teas, :nid a further run 
doivn of prices. Qualil)'. quality, quality, is what 
they emphasise, and to p.iick fine is but another 
name tor high cost. Cash pluckings on estates, 
whether it be on Saturday or Sunday, are we 
are told, always a bother ; for although the 
quantity harvested may be excessive and the 
average per cooly something handsome, it has 
often to be gone over again to gather out 
the hard and coarse, and the trees fre- 
miently suffer from indiscriminate stripping. 
Cost of plucking must always be subject to 
the kind of tea aimed at ; for, a fane tea is more 
expensive to gather than a meaiuin quality. 
Still, whatever kind may be desired, to be able 
to produce it at the lowest cost is what should 
be the aim of all ; for now that we are not 
living on exchange, and we have before us the 
prospect in the near future, of a considerable 
