$8i 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [Dec. r, 1885, 



practice' is that inf tea^l of mixing a little r/ood 

 olasseil China with it to soften clown the tone of 

 the India, they use cheap stuff to enable them 

 to reap a larger profit. 



I believe, Mr. Sam. Davidson, an old planter, is 

 about to start a big retail store in Belfast for the 

 sale of his tea at one price, iv>., two shillings a pound. 

 He will have the advantage over most of us — I 

 mean those who have gone or intend going into the 

 tea trade at home — from the fact of his being 

 in a position to offer to the public tea direct from 

 the gardens in which he, the retailer, is largely 

 interested, where but one kind of tea will be pro- 

 duced, /.('., one hundred per cent, put through a 

 Pekoe sieve, miiws the dust, as well as from the 

 knowledge that he is a man who " can live where 

 others starve " or, in jilainer words, he will succeed 

 where others have failed. More power to his arm, 

 say I, and may his shadow never grow less. But 

 this is a digression. Finding the tea trade, like 

 every other trade in England, overdone, and no 

 money to be made in it, I drank the profits, 

 smoked the losses, gathered together the pieces 

 that nothing (more) might be lost, as well as to 

 pay the rent, and returned again to " sudden 

 death" and curry bliat, a wiser and certainly a 

 lioorer man.— Indian Planters' Gazette. 



THE 



UEOWTH OF THE INDIAN TEA 

 TEADE. 



It is apparent that the rapid growth of the Ind- 

 ian tea trade of late necessitates some departure 

 from the customs which have hitherto regulated 

 its sale. Some correspondence has recently ap- 

 peared in these columns on this subject, and the 

 letter of Mr. Shillington draws attention to a state 

 of friction in one department of the trade, which 

 requires a remedy. The question is not one be- 

 tween broker and dealer alone. The planter is inter- 

 ested in the removal of all obstacles in the way 

 of the development of the Indian tea trade and 

 although he he has no control over the method of 

 transacting business in Mincing Lane, he will be 

 anxious that any " clog to the machinery " as one 

 correspondent puts it, which regulates the customs 

 of broker and dealer should be removed. 



There i.s another and in some respects a kindred 

 question, vi?.., that of tasting samples. Consider- 

 ing the magnitude of the trade now as compared 

 with a few years since, it must be recognised that 

 the work of tasting is rapidly becoming a super- 

 human task. 



Some suggestions have been discussed among the 

 Indian tea buyers for lessening their laborious work 

 of tasting '200 to 250 samples before the noon sales. 

 In giving publicity to some of the ideas mooted 

 in the Lane we are desirous of hearing both sides 

 of the question, and willingly open our columns to 

 buyers aud sellers alike for their opinions. As a 

 means of facilitating the work of tasting it is sug- 

 gested, in the first place, that the size of non- 

 sampling breaks be raised. The minimum of sampl- 

 ing breaks at present is : — 



8 chests, or about . . . . (JSOlb. 



8 half-chests -lOOlb. 



20 boxes , 40nib. 



We think the net weight of tea, rather than the 

 packages, should be taken as a basis to %\ork upon, 

 and if the limit be increased to 12 chests, 20 half j 

 chests, .and .'iO boxes, the weight in each instance j 

 would be about 1,000 lb. j 



Next, it is suggested that the plan of general | 

 bulking should be adopted by importers. Breaks of 

 10 or 15 chests of similar teas might be bulked into 

 one lot wherever it was at all practicable. This would ! 

 dispense with the numerous small sampling breaks ' 



found in every catalogue. It is thought that buyers 

 could not grumble at 30 chest lots' as they do at 

 three lots of 10 chests each. The dift'erent garden 

 marks could be given or if too numerous could be 

 printed as "various," Thirdly it is thought that 

 greater facilities should be afforded by the 

 Custom authorities to the importers for bulk- 

 ing two or more shipments together, especially in 

 the case of garden invoices airived by different 

 steamers, and, lately, the opinion is that second- 

 liand teas should follow on with the small breaks 

 at the close of auctions, — only a very small minority 

 of the trade being interested in either of them -~ 

 II. d- C. Mail. 



THE PEOGEESS AND PEOSPECTS OF 



INDIAN TEA. 

 Thanks to the compiler of the Directory and 

 Handbook published at this office, there are fairly 

 accurate figures available showing the progress of 

 the tea enterprise in Ceylon, and that progress is 

 such as to create astonishment and even alarm in 

 the breasts of our Indian friends, who seem by no 

 means sure of the correctness of the figures" re- 

 presenting the progress and position of their own 

 great tea industry. On the one hand, we see it 

 stated that large areas taken up for tea cultivation 

 have been abandoned, not because the land was un- 

 suitable for the culture, but because the culture itself 

 had become unremunerative. The Indian Plantera' 

 Gazette contends that it must be so in aU cases 

 where the annual average yield per acre does not come 

 up to .5 maunds, that is 400 lb. per acre. In that 

 case the vast majority of Indian "Gardens" must 

 be worked at a loss, for no returns that we have ever 

 seen for India as a whole have exceeded 4 maunds or 

 820 lb. per acre, although in exceptional eases ;'>00 lb. 

 7001b. and even 1,0001b. per acre have been gathered. 

 The figures contained in the official returns 

 are denounced as too low in some case 

 and too high in others, and certainly, when (iov- 

 ernment oJficers attemijt to guess the cost at which 

 tea is produced, they make a mess of the matter, 

 their estimates varying from the ridiculously low 

 figure of 4i annas per lb. to the equally ridicul- 

 ously high figure of 8 annas !) pie, or more than 

 halt a rupee. The Deputy Commissioner of 

 Nowgong is considered to have come near 

 the mark when he stated the cost of cultivation 

 at E70 per acre per annum and the cost of 

 manufacture at 7 annas per lb., the equivalent of 

 nearly 44 Ceylon cents. It is dilficult to sec how 

 any price less than one shilling per lb. in the 

 London market could leave the slightest profit in 

 such a case. But much Indian tea sold for 

 considerably less than this average last year, a 

 year in which yield is asserted to have been 

 specially lessened by the almost universal preval- 

 ence of drought and blights, drawbacks from which 

 Ceylon has been remarkably exempt. In all 

 the tea districts of India, without exception, 

 the rainfall is said to ha\'c been less tliau 

 the average of the previous five years, aud 

 this is taken to account for the poorer quality 

 as weU as the lesser quantity of tea made. But 

 in the face of all difficulties, including heavy 

 Government cesses, and while some have aiian- 

 doned land taken up originally for tea culture, 

 others have gone in for large extensions, especially in 

 Sylhot. The truth seems to be that only by extension 

 can some old and unprofitable places be retrieved, 

 aud many Indian planters, especially companies, 

 have enormous areas over which to operate. Tlie 

 original Assam Company, for instance, possesses 

 somewhat over (i,000 acres of land. In many such 

 cases, plots on which to cultivate rice and other 



