April i, 1892,] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
741 
TEA VS. COFFEE. 
(From the Financial World, Jbd. 9th.) 
The pleasant air o( a family tea party which 
usually distingaisbes the meetings of the Ceylon Tea 
Plantation Company was quite absent from the 
gathering at Winobeater House on Wednesday. 
There were no motions — the sbatebolders are far 
too decorous for that — but the proposition of the 
board to buy a ooSee plantation in the Straits Settle- 
ments was as distasteful as strong Mocha would be 
to the drinker of tea who reckons coffee to be 
rather " ’eating.” In fact, they would have none 
of it. 
The first proportion of the business wont smoothly 
enough. Mr. David Beid, the Chairman, said that 
the policy of the board had been directed to 
increasing the area of cultivation in high altitudes 
by acquiring estates of an exceptionally high quality. 
It bad been arranged that they should never boy an 
estate whose average quality did not come opto 
the quality of the company’s estates, so that it was 
by no means an easy matter to acquire 
an estate of this character without having 
to pay fancy prices. The directors, so far, 
bad been successful in carrying out that policy, 
and the purchases which the board now 
asked them to sanction fulfilled those condi- 
tions. The highest price they had as yet paid for an 
acre of tea-planted land was for Yoxford, which was 
undoubtedly a very fine property, and well worth 
the £18,000 paid for it. It would, they believed, 
easily give 16 percent, on this outlay. Begelly was 
a small tea estate adjoining Tangakelly, which the 
owner found too small to work as a separate estate. 
It had been bought cheap for £1,081, and would be 
a valuable addition to Tangakelly. In conclusion 
be moved a resolution autharisiog the directors 
to purchase the Yoxford, Olenlyon and Stair, and the 
Begelly estates, or any part of them, with the 
buildings, maobinery, implements, etc., at such 
price or prices hot exceeding in the whole £38,681, 
payable in cash. 
This was all very well, and it was agreed to ; 
but the coffee business was another matter alto- 
gether, Mr, Beid was eloquent in praise of the 
Straits Settlement coffee. It had been proved that 
the soil and climate of the Straits were well suiteld 
for the growth of coffee. There were diffioulties 0 
be encountered connected with labour, supervision, 
and unhealtbinesa of climate ; but it these were 
overcome he had no doubt that coffee-planting in 
the Straits would be a financial snocesa. As to 
the incurring of any risk, he believed that they 
would know in two years with nearly absolute 
certainty bow the scheme was going to answer, 
and the very worst that could happen would be 
to have £6 000 badly invested. If it succeeded— 
and he saw no reason why it should not — they 
would be in a splendid position to select the beat 
jand obtainable, and to develop a most remunerative 
industry, Begarding the funds to carry on the 
enterprise, they were aware that their reserve fund 
was derived from two souroes, via., surplus profits 
and premiums on the issue of stock above par. 
The surplus profits were available to equalise divi- 
decds, but the premium on issues of stock above 
par was not available for that purpose. This was 
a capital reserve fund, and they proposed to use 
it to plant coffee in Perak. The whole of the lest 
UB. DAVID BSID 19 OOKIBIiDID XO ASANDOK BIB COmE. 
