13« 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[August i, 1885^ 



luclia is hottfi- than China, localities were sought 

 which, uwiug to elevation, had more or less of a 

 tempi.-rati- cliniate, ;iud tljus the first nurseries estab- 

 lished w(-*re ou tlie iiimalayas. This was a mistake, be- 

 c:ni.-";, though surni; of the best Indian tea is produced in 

 those el< vuled rejjions, the growth of the plant is very 

 slow there, and ihe yieltl less than half what it is in moist 

 climates un the plains. The Indian Govurnnient was gener- 

 ous in tlmse days. Land, to grow tea in those mountains, 

 was ottered on easy terms to any individuals who would 

 essay the cultivation, .-md soedliii^s from the said Govern- 

 ment nurseries were ottered gratis. For five years, viz., up 

 to IS.'jU, however, tiovernnient were the only cultivators, 

 anil then private individuals, seeing it was a .stu:cess, com- 

 menced plantations in Kumaon and Gurwhal, which are 

 districts in the Himalayan range. 



While I hiK was being done in the north-west of India, the 

 Assam Company, as early as 1810, bad commenced cultiv- 

 ation in the south-east, vi?,., in Assam. There are now no 

 less than 13 tea districts in India, and the cultivation in 

 each w;i8 conunenced in the following years: — Assam 1810, 

 Kumaon and Gnrwlial Ifs'lJ, (Jachar lBo5, Dehra Dhoon 

 I.Soo, Sylln:t 1H.')7, Kangra ISW, D.irjee'ing IHOO, Tcrai 

 IsOU, Cliittagong 1860, Neilgherries 18G2, Chota Nagpore 

 1872 and Uooars 1875. Thus, with one exception, it may be 

 said tea planting in Imlia dates from 18.51), or only a little 

 more than :!ij years back. What wonderful strides it has 

 made in that time : wonderful in the quantity now produced, 

 more wonderful still the improvements in manufacture 

 over the old Chinese method. 



Mistakes are certain to be made in new fields of enter- 

 prize. With all its wonderful success, with all the per- 

 severance and energy which have made the Indian tea 

 industry what it is today, the mistakes made, looked 

 at with the knowledge experts have now, seem as 

 wonderful as the results achieved. It is very certain 

 that had a tithe of the knowledge existing now, been 

 available in the early days, many millions sterling wasted, 

 owing to ignorance, would have been saved ; the area under 

 cultivation in India would not have cost half what it has; 

 and perhap.s, more important than all, good as Indian teas 

 are, they would then have been far better. 



The last shall be the first explained. A Committee was 

 appointed in 1834 to report on the possibility of cultivating 

 tea in India, and, strange as the delav seems, it was not 

 till 1845 the Government took the first steps, and for some 

 years continued to import China seed. When the said 

 Committee was first formed (and strange to say it na.i 

 possible), had an Individual stepped forward and said, 

 " No such Committee is necessary, the question you are 

 asked to solve was settled by nature some hundreds of 

 years ago,"* he would have been esteemed mad ; but it was 

 no less true. Again when, in 184o, the Government began 

 importing China si'ed, had they been told tliey were in- 

 juring what was destined to bo one of India's great in- 

 dustries, they would only have been told the truth. At 

 that time, and for hundreds of years previously, many st^uare 

 miles of tea trees, the indigenous plant of India, existed 

 in the sondiic, (lecp and damp forests uf Assam and a part of 

 Cnchur. 'I'le re nun seed enough at hand for all the re- 



3nircments of Indin, and seed of a very superior kind, many 

 pgri'os liellcr than the China tea seed 1 The most 

 Viduiiliie livi received how from If.dift Is the p'-oduct of 

 th'i! iiidl;;enoiis «eed, Tlie best gardens ci'" thoes ll! Which 

 the tea pill '9, mnotly nmv hjbrid.", pB'ilinilatt' Uturest to 

 Uieidd'jretioU' litllltre. I'hiiR, Wlii'n India was Hooded with 

 Clliua lea S'ed.lricpdi'ald!' tnlschi. F wMR done to the cultiv- 

 ation. t The indigenous tea of India IVas fifft discovered 

 !n Assam, nbout 1830, by a Mr. ' ■, A. f.riire, to wl om 

 \(ii« grantee! It rccdal for the discov. ry. But it *a« not 

 till Jdiroafler that' it became known, as a certain fact, fhe 

 treps, nilrged tn be lea by Mr. Bruce were really so.* Our 



• ".Some liullilredl of years afio" I If, as is generally 

 believed, tea is IlidlBeno'is to Assam, it must have existed 

 far back iu time. — ho. 



t Colonel Money has constantly repealed tins statement, 

 but tlio vast majority of Indian planters hold lliat good 

 hybrids are preferable in many caaes to pure A'«am, being 

 IcS-i delicitte. — I'*D. 



; Dr Wallicli di layed llie uti'iz'ng of the indigenous plant 

 for teverol years, by insisting that it was a camtllia and not 



knowledge of the tea plant was, at that time, confined to the 

 China bush which is say 3or4feet in height. The trees, 

 said to be tea, found in Assam were 3U feet high I liut, 

 little by Uttle, the fact became patent. The trees were cut 

 down to ii or 4 feet from the ground, new branches and 

 leaves sprouted, tea was made from the latter, sent home, 

 and pronounced Ijy the brokers to be wonderfully good. 

 Then came a great rush for the forests where those trees 

 were, others were removed, the indigenous seed was sown 

 in the vacant spaces, and many of those gardens are the 

 best and most valuable toilay. The indigenous plant of 

 Iniiia is far the better, but it lacks the hardihood of the 

 China bush. Had the knowledge we have now been avail- 

 able then, a little China seed of the best kind should have 

 been imported, and hybrids carefully reared with a dash 

 alone of the Cldna in them. We should then have had a 

 very perfect plant for India, whereas now the plant most 

 common, in the Himalayas at least, is much more Chinese 

 than indigenous, some of it entirely Chinese. 



Two distinct teas, the produce of high and low elevations, 

 or in other words of tropical and temperate climes, are re- 

 ceived from India. They vary much. The high tea is the 

 more delicate in flavour, but much weaker than the low kind. 

 In case of those essaying Indian teas for the first time, 

 th<; former is preferable; but the latter, owing to its greater 

 strength, goes much farther, and is the more econonucal to 

 use. After a time it is preferred by many to the hill teaa. 

 Until 4uite lately the only use iu England made of Indian 

 tea was to mix it with Chniese, to give the latter the strength 

 in which some kinds were deficient. Now, of the 64 mil- 

 lion pounds imported, certainly not more than the odd 4 

 million are retailed pure. But the taste for Indian teas 

 grows apace, and yearly more and more will be used un- 

 mixed with the produce of the fiowery land. Because 

 Indian is dearer than Chinese tea, the more of the latter 

 there is in any blend or mixture retailed, the larger the 

 profit of the vendor. Pure Chinese or pure Indian tea 

 today is rpiite the exception : the former simply 

 because the public won't have it, as lacking the body the 

 partial use of the latter has lately accustomed them to. 

 i'ure Indian tea is the exception, partly because the educ- 

 ation of tbe public in that way is not yet complete, partly 

 owing to its higher cost. The moss of the tea consumed 

 in Great Britain, today, is a mixture of about two-third« 

 Cliinose and one-third Indian. 



In 183!) the first of the Indian teas were sold in 

 I/Ondon. The quaotity was small, and fancy prices, 15 to 

 3.5 shillings a pound, were paid 1 Xot before 1865 had it 

 eome home in sufficient quantities to attract much atten- 

 tion, but after that year it increased (juickly, till in 1870 

 thirteen million pounds were imported, four years after, 

 viz. Irt74, the imports rose to seventeen million ; 8j;ain 

 4 years, 1878, they had more than doubled-being thirty- 

 six niilliftn ; and they went on increasing until last year, 

 when they stood at sixty-four million, or abov(; one-third 

 of the total tea imports. While India ha.s been thus ad- 

 vancing, the imports from China have been actually 

 decreasing. The yearly largo increase in the consumption 

 Is more thun supplied by India alone, a« the following 

 hgurcj (pounds; show i — 



China. 



85,704,000 

 U8,89G,C00 

 110,880,000 

 The above shows 

 lion of China is 

 is advancing with 



Years. 

 IS04 

 187-1 

 l8«4 



Percentage 

 Indian. To al. China. Indian' 



2,708,000 88,600,000 07 3 

 I8o2»,000 137.424,000 87 la 

 61,212,000 1"5,002,000 (j3 a? 

 at a glance, that, while the consump- 

 stfadily decreasing, Indian tea 

 giant strides, for, whereas twenty 



years ago India only supplied 3 per cent of the 

 tea eonsunit'd in the t'nfted Kingdom, last year 

 her proiinrlion was 3? per cent, that Is nio»c than one- 

 lliird of the whole. The above figures are also Interest- 

 ing as sho«ing the enormous inerea.se in the tea con- 

 sumption each di'cade, an<l that during the last, while 

 the said total increase was 38 njillion, the increase of 

 Indian tea was 46 million. Thus there is some ground 

 for saj ing, as some do, that Indian tea will be the tea 

 of the future. 



A" regards financial results to the growers, Indian tia 

 has been scarcely a success. AVhen the industry first 

 Btarted, both tbe cultivation and the manufacture were 



