MARCff I, 1892.] 
THE TROPICAL A0R10ULTURI8T. 
639 
MALODOROUS SUBSTANCES AND TEA : 
TOBACCO TABOOED. 
As it is the Uat straw wbiob breaks the aamel’a 
baok, 80 the refusal of the shipping agents to 
arrange freight for the tobaoeo the; had grown 
and prepared seems to have been the final mis- 
fortune whieh led to the oollapse and liquidation 
of the Ceylon Tobacco Company. The shareholders, 
most of whom are tea producers and exporters, 
must have oordially approved the good judgment 
of the shipping agents. It is nevertheless a ludi- 
orous position for the tobaoeo to occupy that it 
can neither be exported nor sold locally. The leaf 
must bo of a superior quality lo that grown at 
Jaffna, and there is the objectionable distinolion made 
by the native government in favour of Coimbatore 
tobaoeo, or we should feel inclined to say “Try 
Travanoore.” We suppose the objection to carry the 
tobaoeo in steamers wbioh load tra is, that the former 
substance is in bulk. To small quantities of cigars 
well secured in boxes we fancy no more objection 
would be offered now than in the past. Bat stalks of 
leaf tobacco, in large quantity even if enveloped in 
gunny cloth would give out an odour pervading every 
portion of the ship in wbiob they were carried,— an 
odour which, if absorbed by so sensitive a substance 
as tea, would be ruinous in its effects on the absorbent 
substance. It may be taken for granted that 
neither now nor in the future will the same vessels 
carry tea and tobacco ; and as the production of 
the narcotic leaf has not reached such pro- 
portions in Ceylon as to render any quantity 
that can bo offered for cargo an inducement to a 
vessel to carry tobacco to the exclusion of tea, 
this freight qnestion alone seems to constitute such 
a “ heavy blow and great discouragement " to the 
tobacco enterprise in our island — we arc of course 
referring to the finer leaf grown by Europeans, — 
that wo may look on its knell as having been 
sounded ? Wo are of course sorry for those who 
invested money in what promised lo be a 
profitable enterprise, and which has belied all 
the expectations formed regarding it by men 
whose sagacity is not generally at fault. The lands 
seem to have been far too widely separated to 
render good management easy and as a matter 
of fact the management, w'hethcr from want of 
attention or paucity of money and labour, seems 
to have deserved denunciation as disgraceful. 
The difficulty of obtaining freight for tobacco, 
even if it had been grown in quantity and 
of the right quality seems not to have been 
foreseen. We suppose wo may now take 
it for granted that tobacco of the finer 
descriptions and as the object of enterprise 
by Europeans is not likely to rank amongst the 
leading exports from eylon. For that consum- 
mation we cannot porsonnally express regret. _ Soil 
suitable lor tobacco, which must bo rich in all 
the elements of fertility, especially potash, can be 
much more legitimately devoted to the growth of 
our really staple products, valuable for human 
food and economical purposes: — tea, cacao, coconuts, 
cardamoms, &o. Happily those of our leading 
exports which possess a markpd odour are 
pleasantly odorous, and we do not suppose that 
s-ny objections ever have been or ever will be of- 
fered to the carriage of cinnamon and cardamoms in 
the same ships with tea, such as have “ tabooed ’’ 
tobacco. Pepper does not enter into our exports, 
while coconut oil and the essential grass oils 
Are so well secured as not to give forth their 
special odours. Coconut oil and tea are, however, 
uot stowed in the same holds, we believe. The odour 
91 cinchona bark and coffee would scaroely affect tea 
mjatiously oven if they teavbod it in any save a very 
diffused form. The only pleasant feature in 
the report of the unfortunate Ceylon Xobaeeu 
Company, Limited, is that which indicates the 
jealous care of shipping agents to prevent the pre- 
lanoe in vessels which carry our now great and 
leading staple product — sensitive in proportion to 
its delicacy — of any substance, the odour of which 
might injure that flavour, on the purity of whieh 
the value of tea so essentially depends. For tha 
emphatic assurance of this fact we are indebted to 
a report which is otherwise not pleasant reading. 
FROM THE METROPOLIS. 
THE OKVLON TEA PLANTATIONS CO., LD. 
Jan. 8 th. 
You will doubtless hear from your regular corres- 
pondent about the meeting of the Ceylon Tea 
Plantations Company as repotted in the Times and 
other journals. The purohase of Olenlyon and 
Stair estates as well as Begelly and Waverley is 
intereeting to Ceylon readers, as also the oontinued 
prosperity of the Company, whieh is, I enppose, 
the most important and most truly representative 
of Ceylon and its groat enterprise amongst all 
the Tea or Planting Aasooiations eonneoted with 
the island. For this very reason, apart from other 
reasons, I for one am pleased, rather than dis- 
appointed, that Sir AVillism Gregory has been able 
to prevent this Company extending its operations 
to coffee even in the Malayan Peninsula- I cannot 
see any oanse to doubt the good aocoaute given 
of the prospects before coffee plantations in 
Perak ; and Sir Graeme Elphinetone, Mr. Beid, 
and others will, I trust, profit largely by 
their operations and investments there. But it 
there is work suitable for a Company there, let it 
be a new and distinct one — The Coffee-growing 
Company of Perak or Malayan Peninsula— rather 
than an extension of the institution so generally 
identified with Ceylon and tea. There is the ex- 
ample of the Ceylon Company, Limited, before ns 
and the many years that the good name of 
“ Ceylon ’’ suffered through the inonbus of 
Mauritius sugar-planting business on this old 
‘ 0 . B. C." Company. It may, and 1 trust will, 
be quite different on the ease of coffee and the 
Straits; but far better that Ceylon should have all 
the honour, or the blame, attending the suooess 
or failure of its premier Tea Company, than that 
there should bo a mixing up of investments 
belonging to two different colonies under the name 
of our island, Mr. field and his oo-direotors have 
therefore acted wisely, I think, in listening to Sir 
Wra, Gregory's objection and in giving up the 
idea of extending the Company’s businese to cofloa 
in Perak. There need be no fear that a separate 
Company to deal with the latter will be liberally 
supported if promoted by Messrs, field, fiuthorford, 
and the many who have the fullest confidence in 
their shrewdnees, experience and sound judgment 
as men of business well acquainted with tropioal 
plantations, 1 append the report of the Com- 
pany’s meeting which has appeared in the Daily 
Chronicle, feeling sure that the one from the 
Times (rather different in some parts) will reach 
you from your regular correspondent : — 
PUBLIC COMPANIES. 
CEYLON TEA PLANTATIONS. 
An extraordinary general meeting of the Ceylon Tea 
Plantations Company, Limited, was held yosterdav 
nt Winchestor House, Old Brood-street, Mr D field 
presiding.- 'The Chairman said that the shareholders 
{lad been called together in order that their aptiroval 
of cerwin acts u£ the dixcctOTs inighi be askefl. Iq 
