1 17 
Imports of Tea for consumption into: — 
Year. 
United Kingdom 
United States 
Million pounds. 
Million pounds 
i8go 
194 
83 
1891 
202 
82 
1892 
207 
90 
1893 
208 
88 
1894 
214 
92 
1 895 
222 
96 
1896 
228 
93 
1897 
231 
113 
1898 
235 
68 
1899 
24^ 
73 
1900 
250 
83 
An interesting feature of the development of the tea trade, so 
far as the United States is concerned, is the increasing proportion 
which India and Ceylon supply of the imports into that country. 
J he exports of tea from India to the United States increased from 
228,000 pounds in 1895 to 1,414,000 pounds in 1899, an d those 
from Ceylon increased from 183,000 pounds in 1895 to 2,060,000 
pounds in 1899. Journal of the Society of Arts — August, 1901. 
NOTES ON THE VALUE OF THE INCIDENTAL 
INCREMENT OF PLANT FOOD IN SOILS. 
The value of the incidental increment of plant food in soils 
covered with certain crops, is hard to estimate. One difficulty has 
been, that the cultivator who depends solely on analysis of the soil, 
as a guide to its fertility, has often found a certain amount of 
available food in his land unaccounted for, /.<?., the plant has 
obtained food in some way which the analysis of the soil did not 
show. It is a favourite maxim of the Agricultural Chemist since 
Liebig expounded bis mineral theory of manures, that there is so 
much available plant food in the soil, and if a plant takes up and 
uses a certain amount of this, that there must be so much left. 
This has since been modified by Ville and others. While allowing 
that the basis is one which necessarily must always be a guide to 
the cultivator, it is known to the experienced that the theory is 
unsound, and that plants uncultivated or cultivated, as a rule, get 
more food than could possibly be afforded by the soil alone, the 
fertility of which may have been determined by careful analysis. 
In temperate climates the incidental increment of plant food is not 
so large as in the tropics, where it is an element in cultivation 
which has to be taken into account by every planter. Soils, which 
on analysis show themselves to be poor and barren and which 
would indeed be poor and barren soils in a temperate climate 
where there is less incidental increment, prove in the tropics to be 
soils on which excellent crops can be grown, in fact, the soil 
appears merely to act as a medium for the absorption of food by 
