TEA AND SILK FARMING IN NEW ZEALAND. 185 



tea industry may be, and is, satisfactorily conducted at a height 

 above the sea which altogether precludes the presence of a very 

 high temperature. On the estate of Abbotsford, at a height 

 of from 4500 to GUOO feet, tea, closely resembling that pro- 

 duced at Dajeeling and Kangra in India, has been grown. At 

 6300 feet the hybrid Assam plant flourishes ; even at 7000 

 feet some of the Ceylon planters are not disappointed with 

 their experiments ; and at the altitude of about 4600 feet ten 

 years' observations by a Mr. Heelis show the mean temperature 

 there to be 66*50° of Fahr. In short, it has been said on 

 good authority that in Ceylon " tea will grow wherever coffee 

 grows, and that it thrives at points too high, at levels too 

 low, and in climates too moist for coffee." Such statistics, how- 

 ever, could prove of comparatively little value without some 

 practical details of competitive results; but these we are fortunate 

 in being able to furnish. At the recent International Exhibition 

 at Melbourne the tea-planters of Ceylon took a distinguished 

 place by carrying off eleven first-class awards out of a total of 

 forty-nine bestowed; or altogether they secured thirty-six honours 

 for the seventy-eight samples of tea they exhibited out of a total 

 of 276 certificates of merit earned by the 506 samples sub- 

 mitted by the various tea-producing countries of the world. 



That the indigenous tea of India, as grown in the gardens of 

 Assam, Cachar, the Terai below Darjeeling, and the Western 

 Dooars, is produced in a hotter, damper, and less healthy climate 

 than that of the districts already referred to cannot be disputed. 

 The outcome under such conditions of forced vegetation is shown 

 in very frequent flushes of leaves and great strength in the finished 

 tea ; but the penalty exacted by Kature seems to consist in the 

 sacrifice of that delicate and much-valued flavour so characteristic 

 of the mountain-grown article yielded at Darjeeling and else- 

 where, and of the fragrance and exquisite aroma which distin- 

 guishes the best teas of China. Ascend the Himalayas, however, 

 it may be only a few hundred feet, or it may be several thousand 

 feet, when the traveller will reach gardens producing tea similar 

 in most respects to that grown in Ceylon, and not unlike some 

 of the products of China, except that it lacks the charming 

 perfume. 



The elevation of the Indian tea-gardens varies considerably. 

 At Nainee-Tal, where a landslip and appalling loss of life occurred 

 a few years ago, tea-bushes grow to an enormous size at 6700 

 feet above the sea-level. The Darjeeling gardens are perched at 

 a height of 5000 feet; in Kangra Valley tea is grown, mulberries 

 are cultivated, and silkworms are successfully reared at 4000 

 feet; the Dehra iJhoon plantations are at the height of lUOO to 

 2000 feet; Assam is only a few hunched feet above the sea; 

 and the Chittagong gardens but thirty feet. 



