The Cheyenne Daily Leader

LEDUC TEA FRAUDS.

A Visit to the Tea Farm Leased by LeDuc.

Chicago, July 25.-A Washington special says: LeDuc's famous tea farm appears to be a miserable sham and pretense. Commissioner Saunders, long connected with the agricultural department, and well known in connection with the national grange, was recently sent to Laceralena by Commissioner Loring, to investigate the experiments in tea culture, of which LeDuc had made such extensive advertisements. Saunders has made his report to Commissioner Loring, which shows that the tea farm is simply one of those exhausted plantation of which the south has so many, worn out by successive crops without care or fertilizing. There is upon the place the ruins of an old mansion, once occupied by the former governor, and an artificial lake in which there is not a drop of water. The money expended by LeDuc thus far seems to have been mainly appropriated to the removal of old ruins, and in attempting to rebuild the old mansion and laying out avenues through the grounds. It does not appear what particular relation the expenditure of money for that purpose has to do with the cultivation of tea.

Gen. LeDuc proposed to fill up the lake with water, build an iron bridge over it, and possibly cultivate his tea, planted in pots, on this bridge. The soil, according to Saunders' report, is poor and sandy, some portions of which may possibly once have been classed as poor sand loam, but it can now only support the scantiest vegetation, and has scarcely a trace of loam. It is in no sense adapted to tea culture. He thinks that tea experiments, if they are to be made at all, should be made much further south, and believes that Florida presents the most favorable condition. He reports that at present some $300 per month is paid for the supervision of $60 worth of labor, and the only results of the $15,000 appropriated by congress for tea culture are to be found on this farm. The place has not even a stable for mules. Saunders recommends that the farm be abandoned and one person retained to take charge of the tea plants already there. Dr. Loring will take the matter under advisement.