N0VEM8ER 2, 18^5-] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST; 



iOI 



TEA cultuel: in as«am. 



{From the Pioneer.) 

 The annual rei'ort on tea culture in Assam, bring- 

 ing facts and figures down to the end of I.SSI, is a 

 more interesting worlt than otiieial documents of tliis 

 sort nsually are. Not only does it;possess the adviint- 

 age of dealing with the living energies of a great 

 industry instead of dry statistics reprtseuting merely 

 the manipulation of Government machinery, but it 

 actually shows traces of an intelligent interest in the 

 subject. Pains have been taken to correct extravagant 

 estimates and to get at the true area and outturn of 

 tea gardens, or as near it as calculation can go in 

 those ca>es, yearly becoming rarer, where planters, 

 from suspicion or dislike, or inditfereuce, have refused 

 or neglected to furnish the needful information. The 

 fact which comes out clearly after all these corrections 

 is that in spite of llooded markets and low prices, 

 tea cultivation in Assam is certainly not going back- 

 wai^. If land has been relinquished, it is oi ly in 

 places which have been found unsuitable for tea, and 

 when the total extent of tea-grants is stated as 1)13,000 

 acres in lt'84 against 923,000 acres in the year pre- 

 ceding, it must not be forgotten that a good 

 deal of tWs apparent decrease is due to the more 

 exact ascertainment of acres, in the game way as 

 a more careful classification and numbering of gardens 

 h.asded to thiir reduction from 1.030 to 970. Of course 

 the whole of this OlS.OtK) acres is not cultivat(d ; the 

 Assam planter takes up large extra spaces of laud tn 

 view of future extensions, and also to supply the garden 

 with the needful timber for his buildings and forest 

 produce for the domestic requirements of" bis coolies. 

 The tea-producing area is little more than one one- 

 sLxth of the total extent of estatts, or 158,000 acres, 

 and 32,000 acres besides are under young plants, which 

 will be yielding tea in the next two or three years. 

 The extension of tea criltuie during the last si.'w years 

 is very remarkable; there were only 112,0f)() acres 

 of mature plants in 1379 and oidy ()()5,(!0O acres 

 of tea grants altogether, so that the increase since 

 that date has been one of 50 per cent , and there 

 is every prospect of its continuing, for the area 

 under young plants is larger at present than in any 

 previous year. A great advance was made in 18S3, 

 when new gardens to the extent of oO,000 acres were 

 opened on the southern edge of the Sylhet district 

 among the low hills and jungle-smothered plains 

 which abut upon the native State of Hill Tipperah, 

 a virgin border-land into which the dense pojjiilation 

 of the rice-tracts further north, though subsisting in sjme 

 places upon half an acre of cultivated land to each 

 human being, has not yet spread itself in its slow 

 southward overfiuw. Yet this fringe of hill and jungle, 

 though untenanted save by a few f.amilies of roving 

 Kookies, who practise the kind of nomadic agriculture 

 known as jhumiuy, is subject to claims on the pait 

 of distant iand-o^vners who have never even seen its 

 borders, and the company whose agents first discerned 

 the capabilities of the laud for tea have been obliged 

 to compromise these claims, or at least to purchase 

 the good-will of their most powerful neighbour by 

 sums which can be counted in lakhs of rupees. No 

 better example could be cited of the power of land- 

 owuersbip to tax the earnings of labour and capital. 

 The outturn of the tea gardens of Assam can be 

 estimated with tolerable accuracy by means of 

 statistics obtained from three different sources. 

 The Indian Tea A.s.sociaticn makes its own calc- 

 ulations on information supplied by planters. 

 The traile-registering stations at Dhubri and lihaiiab. 

 Bazaar give the declared exports from the Brahma- 

 putra aud Surma Valleys respectively ; and in the thir<l 

 place there are the figures furnished by the official 

 returns. The outturn rendered by each of these three 

 methods is respectively 48i, 4.54, if"' ol millions of 

 pounds. The trade-registrars do not catch the whole 

 export trade of the province, but only that by the two 

 main waterwaj's, and the lowness of their estimates 

 can thus be understood. It is doubtful, again, whether 

 the Tea Association embraces all the 970 gardens of 



Assam, but the discrepancy between its estimate and 

 the official one arises not so much from this cause as 

 from the high average outturn officially reported from 

 a single district; antl if this be correcteii into sunie- 

 thing more modest and probable, the otHcial estimate 

 of 51 inillioi\s fails to 49j millions of pounds, and 

 c^^mes into close agreement with the Tea Association's 

 return. These figures exceed the outturn of IS83 by 

 three million pounds, aud the average produce per acre 

 appears as o05 lb against 2St) th in ISf'S. The Sylhet and 

 Cachar planters, however, do not seeni to ha\'e shared 

 in the benefit of this increased productiveness, which 

 was pecu'iar to the valley of the IJrabmaputra, and 

 even there the season was not regartled as a gootl one. 

 The cost price of a pound of tea varies greatly oii 

 different gardens, but in 1884 it may be reckoucil, on 

 the whole, at about 3 annas 8 pies for cultivation and 

 4 annas for miinufacture, or 7 aunas 8 pies altogetlier. 

 This is a .small figure ; but the cost of production has 

 not yet been cut down to the level of the low prices, 

 which must henceforth be expected. In 1884 prices 

 fell unprecedentedly low. The average of the Calcutta 

 s.ales from May to December was 8 annas 11 pies per 

 pound, and generally the fall is estimated at 2 annas 

 per pound — a decrease which, for the majority of 

 gardens, means a frightful diminution of jjrotit upon 

 the tea delivered in Calcutta. The causes or the fall 

 in prices are vaiiousiy alleged as the extension of tea 

 cullivation, the rapidly increasing supply from Ceylon, 

 the plucking of coarser leaf, the spoiling of the lea by 

 too rapid drying in the new machinery, and, in the last 

 resort, climatic causes which give a crop of inferior 

 Haveur. It is certain that the London brokers have been 

 complaining of the poor quality of Assam tea, but the 

 main reason why tea is so cheap seems to be the fact 

 that the production of tea has increased faster than 

 the habit of tea-drinking. A few figures will illuslrata 

 the strides which production is making. The crop of 

 lsS4 throughout all India (e.xcluding Ceylon) was 63 

 million pounds, of which Assam furnished 4,S| and Dar- 

 jeeling lui millions. The crop of 1885 is estimated at 

 bSJ millions. Then Ceylon exported li million pounds 

 in nine months of 1883-84 and 2| million pounds in 

 the same nine mouths of 1884-85. The increase in 

 production during a single year may therefore be reck- 

 oned at four or five million pounds, even altera large 

 reduction for over-liberal estimati s. This means an 

 ailditional supply sutficicut to meet the wants of a 

 million new consumers, and it is evident that consumers 

 cannot go on incn-asing at the rate of a njilliona year. 

 The talk about raising the duty gave a momentary 

 disturbance to trade, but something like a revival of 

 activity has now set in. There are only too good rea- 

 sons for suspecting that this cannot last. Tlii^ stocks 

 of Indian tea in London have suffered a tempoiary 

 diudnution, and stood at II J- million pounds hist June 

 aganut 17 million in .June 1883 ; but Ih'y will soon bo 

 replenished if export go on at their present rate. During 

 the months of May ami June. 2^ million pounds were 

 exported to the Ij'idteil Kingdom in ISbo, 2^ million 

 in 1884, and nearly 4^ million in 1885. Any deficiency 

 there may be iu stocks will obviously soon be made 

 good, and if the crop of 1885 answers to expectations, 

 stocks will be larger than ever by the end of the yi'ar. It 

 is becoming plain that the Australian market cannot be 

 counted on to take any larger quantity. It took 1.'. 

 million pounds in 1884, but this is hardly worth count- 

 ing, and the time is not far distant when Au.stralia 

 will begin to grow its own tea as it now grows its 

 own sufiar. The Assam planters feathered a dart 

 against themselves when they sent tea-seed to Noumea, 

 where the introduction of the new industry has caught 

 the eye of the Australians. In short, tea cannot hope 

 to escape the influence of the geneial tendency to 

 lower prices, which our best authorities" on 

 economic matters arc beginning to recognize as a 

 great characteristic of thi- modern industrial age. 

 Il seems on the whole improbable that tea cultiv- 

 ation in. Inilia will ever seriou.sly decrease. Gardeis 

 are not likely to be ab.indoned because it no lorger 

 pays the owner to produce tea upon them. Thecffcct 

 of falling prices will rather be to awaljeu effuits 



