February i, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



6^5 



THE KAXGKA TEA PLANTATIONS. 



These lie along the slopes of the North-AYest Himalayas, 

 nestling at xhe feet of grand mountains of from 10,000 

 to 16,000 fe^t high, and comprising, between the Kavee 

 and the Sutlej, 8.000 square miles of couzitry. The district 

 of Kancra proper, leaving out the sub-division of Kulu, 

 and the highly picturesque native states of Mundi, Sooket. 

 and tlhumba, extends from the Beas, where the uatiu-al 

 watershed divides it from the Hooshiarpore district, to 

 the boundary of the llundi State, near Byjnath, on the 

 one side, and to Noorpoore on the other. It is in this 

 lovely valley that most of the European Tea-planters have 

 settled, and made around them comfortable homes and 

 homesteads, which remind the sunscorched visitor from 

 the plains of India of far-off English farms. 



At the upper part of the valley, and lying opposite to 

 a huge gorge in the mountains, from which the planters 

 obtain their daily supply of ice in the summer, lies Palum- 

 pore, the headquarter station of the Tea district, with its 

 Government offices, rest-house, dispensary, planters' club 

 and beautiful little church. Talunipore, which is 4,000 feet 

 above the sea-level, enjoys an excellent climate for eigh*^ 

 or nine months in the year; during the other months the 

 heat and rains are somewhat disagreeable, although ad- 

 mirably adapted to the growth of Tea. The beautiful 

 little station is situated on a serieL^ of gently sloping knolls 

 of green turf, thickly studded with C'heel trees (Pinus 

 longifolia), and has the universal Kangra background of 

 mighty mountains. The place is greatly indebted to the 

 exertions of Sir Douglas Forsyth, wuo did a great deal 

 for it and its immediate neighbourhood whilst he was the 

 Commissioner of the district. His attempt to estabhsh an 

 annual fair at Palumpore, to induce traders from Yarkand 

 and other distant provinces of Central Asia to open up 

 trade with British India, is matter of history; and the 

 causes of its failure are written in the records of the 

 diplomatic offices of England and Kussia. 



When land has been selected and purchased (no easy 

 tasks in a district where by a mistake in the settlement 

 a great portion of the waste, or uncultivated lands suit- 

 able to Tea were given to the natives, and where the 

 bargains have for the most part to be made with the wily 

 intrigiung Hindu), and whilst it is being cleared of jungle 

 and prepared for a Tea garden, the seed for the future 

 plantation must be sown. The original seed which was 

 used in the district was introduced by Dr. Jameson, the 

 official Government pioneer of Tea cultivation, who selected 

 Hotta, Bawarnah, and Negreta as gardens, and sowed that 

 seed which he had brought from the Dehrah Doon and 

 which became so reproductive in the soil of the Kangra 

 Valley that it now supphes the planters of its uative Doon, 

 and many of the younger Tea districts. H. H. the Maha- 

 rajah of Cashmir has of late been a large purchaser of 

 seed, for, not content with energetically pushing on the 

 growth of Vines and Hops, His Highness seems bent at 

 the same time on producing something with which his people 

 may cheer them.selves and escape inebriation. 



The seed is carefully removed from all Tea bushes in 

 the garden during October and November by boys, girls, 

 and women. A large yield of seed is an indication of 

 something wrong in cultivation, or season, or soil. The 

 planter's object is to grow as much new, vigorous leaf as 

 possible, and cultivation suited to leaf production is not 

 productive of an abundance of seed or fruit; and, there- 

 fore, all that advertising dealers and brokers tell the public 

 about flower and seed is simple nonsense to those who 

 unders-tand the business, and have ever seen Tea grownd 

 and made. 



The ripe seed, which is picked in the autumn, has not 

 shed its outer husk, and is sown entire as it comes from 

 the bush in neatly made nursery drills a foot apart and 

 4 inches deep, a shaded spot being selected for the seed 

 bed that it may be protected from the cold of winter 

 and the parching heat of the full summer's sun. As the 

 necessary decay of the seed takes place in germination the 

 outer husk decays and feeds the young plant. Although 

 this care is necessary in raising seedlings in th,- comparatively 

 temperate climate of Kangia, the hot steaming climate of 

 Assam, where Tea is iudij^enous, picduces all vegetation 

 in such luxuriance that the seed has but to be dibbled 

 into the land which it is permanently to occupy like a 

 row of Beans. 



CULTIVATION. 



The periodical rains commence in the Kangra district 

 on or about June 15, and, if they be not too heavy, the 

 seedlings may be transplanted to their places in the garden 

 at the beginning of July. For this planting out arrange- 

 ments will have been made during the winter months. 

 In rich soils, where the growth of the bushes will be 

 quick and luxuriant, the seedlings are put in at greater 

 distances from each other than in poorer soils, where th« 

 bushes will be longer in approaching each other. Accord- 

 ing to soil, these pits, 2| feet deep by li foot wide, are 

 dug in rows varj-ing from 5 feet by 5 feet in good soil, 

 to 3 feet by 4 feet in poor soil, and into each of these 

 pits from ten to twelve seedlings are planted. The coolies 

 who put them in are drilled by a jemadar, or headman; 

 who takes his place and orders from the planter him.self; 

 and so well is the work done in this way that the plants 

 are rarely an inch out of the direct line, or of the proper 

 depth in the soil. Under the magic wand of Euglish energy, 

 what was but now virgin soil of the forest or the village 

 common, or the arable land of the natives, is a young 

 Tea plantation, not yet ready to be blucked, but growing 

 wondrously fast, needing to be carefully terraced to keep 

 the soil up, if it be on a slope, and to be sometimes 

 irrigated in hot, dry weather. In three years the plants 

 in good soil begin to be profitable, and need no further 

 waterings, although they are not in full bearing for, perhaps, 

 seven or eight years. 



During their minority each plant requires careful culti 

 vation, constant hoeing, fah-ly liberal manuring, and 

 judicious pruning. In November the winter cultivation of 

 the matui-e bushes begins. Divisions of men — the strongest 

 and possibly the least intelligent — are told off to hoe the 

 garden throughout 1 foot deep; and this hoeing work 

 shoidd go on all the year round with variations at different 

 seasons of the depths of hoeing. 



Simultaneously with the hoeing, so that all that is cut 

 off the bushes may go back and be buried in the soil, the 

 pruning commences. As pruning is one of the most im- 

 portiiut works on a plantation, so is it one on which there 

 is the greatest diU'ereuce of opinion. A great many ex- 

 periments have been made in the art, and probably planters 

 have not yet learned all the science of the subject. Ten 

 years ago an indiscriminate slashing off of the top of the 

 bush and cutting three or four large holes into the body 

 of the plant, to let in light and air, was the style of 

 pruning most in vogue, chiefly on account of its fancied 

 economy. By this method of pruning number-less shoots 

 no doubt sprung up in the spring, but from the very fact 

 of their being so numerous the bush was choked up as 

 to all ofter-growth, and became a mass of unproductive 

 crows'- feet. 



Thorn pruning was next tried, and it may answer ad- 

 mirably in a cold climate, but certainly it is not the 

 proper method for shrubs in a high temperature, such 

 as i'ea requires, for they need protection from the sun's 

 rays and from electric and winter hail, without which the 

 wood branches and the sap dries. 



Coppicing, as a last remedy for old woody plants, was 

 then tried ; but the remeily is a most severe one ; the plant 

 loses much strength by the inevitable bleeding which takes 

 place, and consequently the new shoots it makes are weak 

 and feeble. 



A new method of pruning which has been introduced 

 into the valley is at present the approved one. The old, 

 white, gnarled wood, and all the " whipcord," is cut off 

 entirely an inch or two below the surface of the soil in 

 such a way as shall cause the bush to bleed as little as 

 possible. Then all the long, strag:gling shoots are cut back, 

 no matter how good their material may be; and Irstly, all 

 the shoots are cut back close to the finest bud growing 

 from the axilla of the leaf, which is left to act as shelter 



Bushes of about 4 feet in height are the most convenient 

 for boys and girls to pick from, and some of the finest 

 bushes in the Kangra Valley gardens are of this height, 

 and or 7 feet in diameter. 



Pnuiing operations are going on from November to the 

 end of the first week in March. Buys in India are almost 

 always sharper and more active anil willing than men. 

 Strong, picked men cut out the thick, tough wood from 



