406 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[November i, 1884, 



what they ought to do to encourage the .people 

 of the laud to cultivate a plant which has so evid- 

 ently found its home in Ceylon ? Surely the Agents 

 and Headmen might be made the medium of distrib- 

 uting tea seed and instructions to the villagers to 

 secure a start in all the districts suitable for the 

 growth by Sinhalese and Tamils. What will 

 be said in England — if a collapse of the China tea 

 trade concentrates attention on India and Cey- 

 lon — when it is made known that while 50,000 

 acres were planted with tea in this island by private 

 agency, chiefly colonists, its Paternal Government 

 was so fully engaged in developing a grand Irrig- 

 ation policy for the future, that no notice was taken 

 of an industry which is clearly destined to become 

 the most important in our Agricultural record and 

 which will probably exercise a greater influence on the 

 material improvement of the people, and on the general 

 revenue of th e Government, than all the local grain cult- 

 ivation. If the Sinhalese and Tamils learn to grow tea 

 freely, in addition to their palm and fruit trees, they 

 will soon in nearly every populous or occupied dis- 

 trict, have plenty of means to indulge in the necess- 

 aries and even luxuries of their most prosperous 

 days. They will understand what it is to sell in the 

 dearest and buy in the cheapest market. 



The romance of our tea cultivation will indeed become 

 a story of world-wide interest, should the Chinese 

 lose even a single season ! Very speedily would the 

 estimated maximum of 150,000 acres (of old if not 

 new land) in estates' be planted up and capital flow 

 to Ceylon for investment. But„even without a Chinese 

 blockade, our tea industry is bound to advance 

 steadily and the encouragement to plant (carefully 

 and judiciously) ia as great as could be desired. 



THE INDIAN TEA INDUSTRY : A POPULAR 

 RESUME ON PRODUCTION, CONSUMPTION, 



THE PLANTER'S LIFE AND PROSPECTS. 

 In the last number of Punch Mr. Linley Sainbourue 

 depicts India in the form of a homely barn-door fowl sit- 

 ting expectantly on a tea-chest, while the epauletted 

 Gallic cock and his peacock-tailed rival of China breed 

 tear one another to pieces. When the Crimean war 

 took place India first found that she could supply 

 Europe with linseed and jute. The American war 

 gave an immense stimulus to the Indian cotton trade, 

 and the last war between Russia and Turkoy was not 

 without its influence in creating the trade in Indian 

 wheat. Mr. Punch's artist has happily hit oil the 

 idea that the wars of other nations are India's 

 opportunity, and that this country may step in as 

 chief purveyor of another important staple of hostilities 

 between France and China are carried to an extreme. 

 Although Bombay is the only presidency in which the 

 tea plant has not found a home, our prosperity is 

 very closely concerned with that of the rest of India, 

 and at this juncture it will probably interest many 

 of our readers to have some details of the history of the 

 tea trade placed before them. Indigenous tea was 

 first discovered in Aesam in 1830, but the Indian tea- 

 plant of commerce is chiefly a hybrid between the 

 indigenous and China varieties. Tea plantiug was com- 

 menced in India by the Assam Company in 1840, 

 and it was not until ten years later that the in- 

 dustry was taken up by others. For twenty years 

 afterwards cultivation expanded slowly, and we liud 

 that in 1S70 the imports into England, to which market 

 nearly the whole trade was directed, amounted to only 

 ten millions of pounds. Since then, however, the 

 increase has been rapid, as the yield of 1S83 amounted 

 to 59,215,7631b., while that of 1884 is estimated at 

 66,064,3591b. There is ample room for further ex- 

 pansion, as the United Kingdom consumes 165,000,0001b. 

 of tea, the United States and Canada 80,000,0001b., 



and Australia about 15,000,000 lb., while the local 

 Indian market is still largely supplied by China. In 

 1878 the consumption of tea per head in England and 

 Australia was as follows .-—United Kingdom 4 66 lb., 

 Victoria 6 "92 lb., N. S. Wales 7 "53 lb., Queensland 

 9'16 1b., New Zealand 11 -05 lb. The rough open air 

 life of the colonies thus appears to make their in- 

 habitants the largest tea drinkers in the world. Indian 

 tea hag not hitherto made much way in any country 

 except England, but there its excellent qualities which 

 are so thoroughly appeeiated among ourselves are 

 enabling it gradually to supplant the produce of Chins, 

 We annex the approximate figures from 1S78 to 1882 

 in millions of pounds : — 



1878. 1879. 18S0. 1881. 1882. 

 China... 121 125 115 111 110 

 India... 37 35 44 49 54 



Total... 158 160 159 160 164 

 It thus appears that although the total consumption 

 of tea increases but slowly, that of Indian is as 

 steadily growing as that of China is diminishing. No 

 very rapid change is possible, as the tea plant takes 

 quite four years to arrive at maturity, but the posi- 

 tion of the Indian planting community will be much 

 improved and the prospect of increased export in 

 future years greatly enhauced if the war which has 

 recently broken out%ffeots any stoppage of shipment 

 from China. 



Two or three new books on tea-cultivation are now 

 before us, and they do not present a very pleasant 

 idea of a planter's life. Colonel Money, a high 

 authority, gi#s it as his opinion that " a really pleasant 

 climate to live in cannot be a good one tor tea," and 

 Mr. Barker, in his " Tea Planter's Life in Assam," 

 says, that on the whole " a planter's life is not a 

 happy one." Many, however, who are engaged in 

 sedentary occupations in big cities will look at the 

 picture he displays much more wistfully than Mr. 

 Barker does. It is Mr. Parker's business to depict 

 with a somewhat sketchy pen the life of a planter in 

 Assam, that vast but little-known province in the 

 valley of the Brahmapootra, which lias been redeemed 

 from primeval juugle by English enterprise and is 

 . now the principle source of supply of Indian tea. 

 He begins with the well-worn subject of the overland 

 route with its reminiscences of diving boys at Adeii 

 and snake men at Madras, while a whole chapter 

 is devoted to the novelties which arc disclosed to 

 the stranger on arriving in Calcutta. The journey 

 thence by rail or river steamer has also a chapter to 

 itself, and tea only puts in an appearance far on 

 the book. The Assamese are singularly independent, 

 even if they are not, as Mr. Barker says, "incon- 

 ceivably and supremely happy." They owe allegiance 

 to no one but their Gossain. They cultivate their own 

 little plot, and utterly decline to work tor the tea 

 planter, who is entirely dependent upon imported 

 labour. The planter, at all events in Assam, has to 

 make up his mind to rough it. Ueli\es lor the most 

 part iu a bungalow of wood, thatch and mud, gener- 

 ally divided into three rooms, and sufficiently uncom- 

 fortable to send him on to the verandah for the chief 

 portion of his time. From the want of dak bunga- 

 lows, every private bungalow is an asylum for the 

 traveller, aud a ' ' more hospitable set of men than 

 Assam planters dues not exist." A manager of a 

 tea-garden must, Mr. Barker tells us, be " a rather 

 out of the ordinary sort of man. To be of any use 

 he must be of strict integrity in order to gam the 

 confidence of his employers ; sober, business-like, a 

 good accountant, not easily rniUed, handy at carpenter- 

 ing and engineering know something about soil, and hav 

 a smattering of information on all subjects ; or, to put il 

 concisely, he must be a veritable jack-of -all trades." We 

 should judge from Mr. Barker's book that he i* 



