of the ticker interests the American
taking a flier in stocks. The story is told in two or three lines, and
by a presentation of numerals appearing exceedingly unimportant to the
sojourner whose operations in tea never exceeded the purchase of a pound
package.

[Illustration: TAMIL GIRL PLUCKING TEA]

Yes, the figures tell the story--a tale of occasional success, but often
of failure and woe. A bracketed set of fractions explains the range of
prices for broken pekoes, another set deals with common pekoes, another
with orange pekoes, and still another with common souchongs. Then follow
such words as "steady," "generally firm," and "somewhat lower"--each a
phrase with potential significance. The crux of the communication, like
that of a school-girl's letter, comes last. If it reads "general market
closed 1-8th penny up," the planter has visions of happiness and
affluence, and forthwith orders a "peg." But if the postscript says
"1-8th down," the young planter foresees nothing but disaster, and may
consider levanting with the bags of rupees by the next steamer from
Colombo. A planter is always a bull on prices, while the important buyer
in Europe is chronically bearish.

The yearly tea product of Ceylon is aggregating 155,000,000 pounds, and
of this Uncle Sam purchases 12,000,000 pounds, while 98,000,000 go to
Great Britain. The value of the annual output varies little from
$21,000,000--and from this Ceylon supports itself so comfortably that
the tea-plant seems to merit adoption as the emblem of the colony.

The rise of the industry affords one of the most remarkable instances of
rapid development of an agricultural pursuit. Coffee used to be the
dominating crop in the island, until "coffee blight" ruined the
industry. Tea was then experimented with. In 1875 barely a thousand
acres were under tea; now the acreage is 385,000. A journey from Kandy
to Nuwara Eliya, in the mountains, is through an interminable
tea-garden, and on every hand is proof of substantial investment of
capital. The choicest crops are raised between five and six thousand
feet above sea-level, and lands in this zone are worth as much as $500
an acre. The scientific cultivation of tea paid its pioneers handsomely,
but the current opinion is that overproduction is killing prices, and
that a new crop must be sought--probably rubber.

Ceylon's important tea estates are the property of companies, whose
shares are dealt in on the London and Colombo stoc