February i, 1884.] 



THE TROPICAL AGHICULTURIST. 



605 



TKROUGH THE INDIAN TEA DISTRICTS. 



(by a ceylon plakteb.) 



Darjilin-g, Nov. 13, 1883. 



I paid a visit to the botanical ganleu here, which seemed 

 a very useless institution ; its ouly interest to me was 

 the fact that it had beeu almost eaten out by the cock- 

 chafer grub. Although the garden is only about 10 acres 

 iu extent, miUions of chafers and grubs had been destroyed, 

 it is three years since the pest appeared, and the Curator 

 said they were, he thought, on the wane. The damage 

 done exceeds anything 1 have seen in Oeylon, thousands 

 of shrubs and plants having beeu killed outright. Some 

 lields of tea adjoining the garden showed no signs of sulfer- 

 ing, but I was told that in a newly-planted clearing a 

 large percentage of deaths had been attributed to grub. 

 At the Muugpoo Cinchona Plantations, too, the chafer 

 swarms, but Mr. Gammie informed me that grub had never 

 done any damage to the cinchona; perhaps it would have 

 beeu different had there not been an ample food supply 

 of other vegetable growth. My visit to the Government 

 Cinchona Plantations was a particularly enjoyable and in- 

 teresting one, thanks to Mr. Gammie's ho-ipitality and in- 

 struction. Instead of finding the establishment iu danger 

 of ceasing to exist in another 3 or 4 years, I found it 

 steadily increasing in value and importance. Mr. Uammie 

 estimates that the^ wiil have eight years' supplj' of succi- 

 rubra bark at the rate of 400,0u0 lb. per annum; and then 

 the Ledgeriana and Robusta clearings, which are the vari- 

 eties now planted, will come in. In all about 2,500 acres 

 are in cultivation, l^ut this is scattered over treble that 

 acreage of land. The harvesting is nearly all done by up- 

 rooting, a suitable system where there is sufficient fresh 

 land to admit of the acreage being kept up by cheap annual 

 extensions. On the Kungbee plantation I saw some IG- 

 year-old succirubras, and. although we still have individual 

 trees in Ceylon better than on Kungbee, we have no patches 

 to equal some of the slopes there. On Muugpoo there is 

 a 60-acre field of robusta hybrids, 4 years old, which pro- 

 mises well. Mr. Gammie has classed them into nine sorts 

 — ail of these types we have in Ceylon — and finds that 

 there is a correlation between the botanical featiu-es and 

 the analytical value of the different types. The best, No. 

 7, which is a difficult one to give a recognisable descrip- 

 tion of, is something like a very broad-leafed officinalis, 

 and gives 612 per cent sulphate of quinine. The ledger- 

 ianas are of course the " pucka " article, just the same as 

 our Ceylon ones. They are 16 years old, and decidedly 

 " scraggy " in appearance, without any low branches. Al- 

 though they blossomed freely, they have this year set very 

 little of their blossom, and, as a consequence, the supply 

 of seed will be extremely luuited. As we have Dr. King's 

 authority for saying that these trees are the same as those 

 iu Java, I think we may safely limit the existence of Mr. 

 Howard's " ledgeriana " to his own writings. Mr. Gammie 

 was good enough to show and exj)laiu to me the whole 

 of his process of alkaloid extraction, aud even crystallized 

 some sulphate of quinine from Officinalis bark in order that 

 I might thoroughly understand the process. Mr. Gammie's 

 quinine is equal in appearance, and no doubt in quahty, 

 to the best European make The regular manufacture of 

 quinine is to be commenced shortly. There is a well-grown 

 7-year-oid specimen of Jicus elasticus in front of Muugpoo 

 bungalow. The milk flowed freely from punctures, and Mr. 

 Gammie expressed his opinion "that for many situations 

 this might be the best rubber to cultivate. It would j^rob- 

 ably grow in Ceylon at higher elevations than any of the 

 American rubbers, for the one at Mungpoo is growing at 

 3,800 feet, I think. Mr. Gammie was go»d enough to 

 promise me some seed later on. 



"Western- Dooars, Nov. 17, 1883. 



The Darjiling hill estates, as most of your readers know, 

 are planted on slopes which are very much steeper than 

 the average of 0!ir Ceylon cultivated hillsides. Owing to 

 its depth, I would consider the soil, on the whole, rather 

 better than ours, although wanting in any surface mould. 

 Nearly all the land on which tea is now planted had been 

 previously cropped by natives, and no signs of trees or 

 stumps remain. The estates are greatly broken up bj' 

 ravines, waste patches aud landslips, which, added to the 

 weeds and grass-gro\vn roads, are to the Ceylon eye moi-e 

 suggestive of abandonment than cultivation. Aftt-r snoing 

 fields of tea from 20 to nearly oO years of age, which. 



without a particle of manui-e, look vigorous and give good 

 yields, one is greatly struck with the apparent permanency 

 of the cultivation, and the Darjiling planters would scoff 

 at the idea of danger from old age. Most of the tea 

 factories are very substantial, expensive buildings, similar 

 in style to the coffee stores built in days of yore on Delta 

 and other Pussellawa estates. Machinery is invariably used 

 for rolling, but I was surprised to see that nearly all the 

 firing was done on chulas, even in factories where driers 

 had been put up, the reason for this being that during 

 the heavy pluckings, the weather is generally so wet and 

 cold that the heat from chulas is necessary to heat the 

 factory and effect the withering. I noticed that, on the 

 hill estates, leaf is only weighed in once a day, but on the 

 plain estates, twice. Having met Mr. Kimmond, of mach- 

 ine celebrity, I have heard the pros, and cons, of most 

 machines well discussed, and I have seen almost every 

 roller yet invented. The one which interested me most 

 was Thompson's "Challenge," it being different in prin- 

 ciple to any of the others, with the very great advantage 

 that the smaller sizes can be worked by hand. The machine 

 consists of a drum, horizontally laid with two cones re- 

 volving at slow speed, apex to apex, in opposite directions 

 inside the drum. The large open feeding hopper on the 

 upper side of the drum enables the leaf to be seen during 

 the rolling, and gives free passage to air, so that the leaf 

 never heats. One of these machines which I saw at work 

 on Rungueet estate had given great satisfaction. The qual- 

 ity of the tea had improved and the saving in labour was 

 very considerable. AVith that machine, four men had rolled 

 off 18 maunds of leaf in the day, but I think sLx or eight 

 coolies would be necessary were such a quantity taken in 

 regularly every day. Another planter, who also used hand- 

 power, spoke very favourably of tUe machine, but, on the 

 estate from which I write, one of the large forms of the 

 same machine driven by steam-power does not do well, as 

 I saw this morning when it was in use. There is no rea- 

 son why it should not do equally well with steam or water- 

 power as it does with hand, if the machine is well made ; 

 but hitherto the machines have been made in Calcutta, 

 and the workmanship is not what it should be. I believe 

 arrangements are being made to have the machines con- 

 structed in England, and such machines would be of great 

 use in Qpylon, where we have so many small gardens. 

 They would be to the large rollers what Walker's discs were 

 to the pulpers. The price of the smallest is rather high, 

 viz., K700. It takes one maund of leaf, and rolls it in a 

 little over half-an-hour. 



This estate is one of the largest in the Dooars, and 

 has a large factory, with 4 rollers, 4 drying machines, 2 

 sifters and 2 equalizers, all driven by a powerful engine. 

 Regarding machine-sifters, I find that free access to the 

 tea during sifting is a sine qvui non. The hand must get 

 in to throw back the leaf, break knots, and break through 

 the leaf which sticks in and clogs the mesh. I have seen 

 several estate-made ones, which, although they take up 

 room, do the work quite satisfactorily at the rate of 30 or 

 40 maunds of tea per day with four men employed. The 

 soil here in the Dooars is good, of great depth, the land 

 being originally very heavy grass land, which seems nearly 

 as good as forest land. The "lay" of this estate is much 

 like that of Jlariawatte, and good driving roads run in 

 all directions over it. An elephant is kept to plough and 

 harrow new clearings and to cross the rivers in the wet 

 season. The rivei's are a source of great inconvenience. 

 The largest one, the Teesta, is a broad hea\^' stream, fed 

 from the snows, which it would be almost impossible to 

 bridge. Other drawbacks to the Dooars are fever and 

 droughts. One drought of six months' duration occurred 

 some years ago, and in ordinary seasons there are really 

 only seven plucking months, during which, however, the 

 growth is very strong, quite as much as in Cordon during 

 a similar period. My visit to the tea districts has caused 

 me to modify, amongst others, my opinion as to the suit- 

 ability of various climates for tea cultivation. I would no 

 longer consider a two or three months' drought much 

 disadvantage, and, other conditions being suitable. I can 

 se.^ no reasou why the climate of Uva should not prove 

 well suited for tea, and, with a shorter plucking season, 

 give a sufficient yield. Ambegnnuiwa nmy grow very good 

 tea, but I think it would grow bt^tter if the rainfall was 

 less and the drought more prunoiuiced. The tea ma«le in 



