May 2, 1898.1 
THE TROPICAL AGRICLLTURIST, 
PRODUCE AND PLANTING. 
Regulation of Sales. — At a Committee meeting 
of the Indinn Tea Association held on Tuesday, 
approval was given to the following notice, which 
has been issued to the trade by the Tea Brokers’ 
Association of London, with reference to public auc- 
tions of Indian tea : “ For the better regulation of 
sales, Indian tea importers have agreed to adopt the 
following rules : 1. That Indian tea sales be held 
on Mondays and Tnursdays during eight months of 
the year, and on Mondays only from the first Monday 
in April until the last Monday in July. 2. That 
the quantity limit for Mondays be from 25,000 to 
30,000 packages regulated so as not to require the 
sale to be continued later than 4 p.m. 3. Any sur- 
plus unsold from Monday’s sale shall be offered on 
Wednesdays, no catalogue to be printed for Wed- 
nesday. 4. Small breaks appertaining to the tea 
offered to be sold at the close of each day’s sale. 
Tea Cultivation in the Southern States of N. 
America. — The sale of Indian and Ceylon teas in the 
United States is not likely to suffer on account 
of the development of home-grown tea, for at 
present the experiment does not meet with 
any marked success. The British Consul at 
Charleston states that an experimental tea 
farm is conducted by Dr. Charles U. Shepard, at 
Pinehurst, Summerville, South Carolina, twenty-two 
miles from Charleston, under the auspices of the 
United States Government. The results appear to 
show that although it is possible, under such careful 
cultivation as Dr. Shepard has' given to the plants 
under his charge, to produce in that climate a fairly 
good quality of tea so far as appearances go, no serious 
competition with imported teas is likely to arise. The 
product of the South Carolina farm has been sold 
for two or three years for 1 dol, per lb. (equal to about 
4s), but the beverage made from this article had a 
yellowish, muddy colour, and a weedy taste in 
comparison with the ordinary grades of Chinese and 
Ceylon teas sold in the market. 
Planting Operations in Last Africa. — In 18H1 
an Indian planter, Mr. W. VV. Fitzgerald, was eijgagc.d 
by the British East Africa Company to establish ex- 
perimental plantations on the coast lauds, and to 
examine the soil of the great unexplored tract that lies 
between Lamu and Port Durnford. Mr. Fitzgerald 
has just issued a book entitled “Travels in British 
Bast Africa, Zanzibar, and Pemba,’’ in which there 
is an account of his labours. The Arabs had already 
established plantations in the neighbourhood of 
Melindi, but with the abolition of slavery, large tracts 
of land were falling out of cultivation for want of 
labour. There were, however, settlements of runaway 
slaves who were induced to engage as plantation 
hands by the novelty of a promise of wages, and Mr. 
Fitzgerald, with that rare combination of tact and 
kindliness which was conspicuous throughout his 
dealings with the natives, had a strong and loyal 
body of labourers at work upon the land within a 
few months of his arrival. While his crops were 
ripening he scoured the country in search of other 
promising fields, with his eyes always fixed upon 
the main object of his expeditions. Mr. Fitzgerald 
takes a cheerful view of agricultural prospects. In 
the Sabaki Valley he found a soil in which cotton, 
tobacco, sugar, fibre plant and coconuts, flourish 
with equal luxuriance, which can be tilled with a 
light bullock-plough, and is never subject to the long 
droughts of the Indian plains. But the planter has 
to contend with his old enemy — the dearth of labour. 
Mr. Fitzgerald would apply the old panacea — the 
importation of Indian coolies, but he does not say 
how the Indian Government is to be induced to 
waive restrictions and safeguards that are greater than 
any Protectorate is in a position to give, or how, 
with a minimum wage of shilling a day added to 
the cost of iatroduction, housing, and hospital, the 
East African planter is to compete with the Indian. 
With the exception of rubber, British East Africa 
does not produce anything that cannot be grown in 
tropical countries where the labour difficulties are 
7 S 3 
less acute, and what has failed to pay in them 
scarcely likely to prosper in a colony where the condi- 
tions are less favourable.— 7/. S C. Mail, April 1. 
CURIO— AND CEYLON TEA. 
London, April 1st. 
Mes.srs. J. & M. L. Tregaskis, the well known 
aiitiquanan book.selleis of Higli Holborii lia.l 
lately a carved coconut for sale, de.scribed as 
fol ows : 
1950 Coconut Flask, carved, with stopper, 7in 
high, 10/6 • ^ ’ 
On one side a lady with a bottle, parting with a 
soldier holding a glass, beside a ship ; on the other, an 
elephant with rajah in howdah and other figures 
royal crown and Ceylon. Also the verse : ’ 
‘ Ihe mother of me is a coconut tree, 
Her liquor is excellent sound ; 
Aiuack and toddy proceed from her body, 
So drink and be merry all round.’’ 
ADVICE TO CEYLON TEA PLANTERS. 
There are many complaints by tea buyers that 
Ceylon teas are not leaf\ and whole, but are 
too much broken. Lately a London firm sent 
a crack orange pekoe to the Continent and 
heard that tlie purchasers had to sieve out the 
dust before it would sell. A small, well-twisted 
leaf, fiee from all dust, is ttie tea to sell at 
piesent. l^ar too nuicli “broken pekoe” is 
s upped, buyers here are no fools, and know 
that when 75 per cent “Broken Pekoe” is 
shipped. It IS only a namo. Above all, make 
planters burn tlie “Red Leaf” and other trash 
too often shipped, and which is only dt to he 
condemned by H. M. Customs. It gives a bad 
name to all Ceylon tea and does not pay. If 
planters v/ouid agree to pluck finer arid re- 
du. the yield by 20,000,000 lb. they would not 
have lo ciy out etbout jirices, A few yeais 
ag-o Oolongs were oocasionally shipped. If care- 
fully made, and in very small quantity, these 
would pay, but the demand is limited. 
COFFEE IN BRITISH GUIANA. 
-Liana ot Lanaan, 
Q R.n • Sept. 1897. 
b. JbeJlaus, Esq., Hony. Secretary, 
Agricultural Committee, Georgetown. 
Dear Sir, -To procure a good .sample of Liberian 
cotfee, sweating is absolutely is necessaray. The berries 
must he fully ripe before they are taken from the trees. 
If the weather is wet, the berries as they are taken 
from the trees, may be made np iu heaps in some shaded 
pait of the held. Each heap should not be less 
than three feet high by five feet wide. The ber- 
ries so heaped should be covered with plantain 
leaves and allowed to remain from four to fiv“ 
be black 
then com- 
pleted. ihe pulp should be washed off and the 
beuies dried and prepared for use. If the weather 
is diy the hemes should be taken from the field 
and placed under cover and the heaps watered and 
covered with plantain leaves. The heaps should be 
watered every second day, with a watering pot, tlie 
saine as used for garden work; heavy wateriug will 
injure the sample of the berries. After fer- 
mentation has fully commenced, the watering should 
be stopped but the berries must be kept covered 
until the .sweating is completed. I will send for the 
infection of your committee the following samples :- 
Barries as taken from the trees. ^ 
Berries with the sweating completed. 
J'jeLTies washed after sweating. 
Berries dried and prepared for use. 
neMred“iT*am ‘be information 
pesired, I am, ifec., (Signed) C. ROSS. 
