PART I. 



Historical and Geographîcal. 



CHAPTER I. 



Tea cultivation in Java and British India. 



The beginniiigs of tea cultivation in both countries offer very much 

 the same aspect, The very first trial to introduce the tea plant from China 

 into European colonies was made by private persons for purely fancy 

 purposes (in Java by Governor-General Camphuys + 1690, in india by 

 Captain Kyd :\2 1780). The respective East-Iiidiaii Companies hâve made 

 projects to try the tea cultivation seriously, the Dutch Company in 1728, 

 the other in 1788, but neither of them carried the plan out. Between the 

 years 1825 and 1835, however, they at last did so. 



In 1825 the Dutch Government ordered tea seed from Japan (and net 

 from China, owing to the close commercial relations with the former country) 

 through the intermediary of the renowned expert of Japanese affairs, the 

 physician Ph. F. von Siebold. and in following years ever increasing 

 quantifies of tea seed as well from China as from Japan were imported 

 and sown in Java The first tea gardens were laid out at Buitenzorg, Garoet 

 and Tjisoeroepan (the latter tv^o in the residency Preanger Regentschappen), 

 also in several other residencies, but principally at Wanajasa, in Krav^^ang, 

 in which place there v^ere about one million tea plants in December 1835, 

 the total number of tea plants in Java amounting to about double that 

 number at the time. This resuit had been principally achieved by the un- 

 resting zeal of J. J. L. L. Jacobson, tea-expert in the service of the 

 Dutch Trading Company (Nederlandsche Handelsmaatschappij), who between 

 the years 1827 and 1833 travelled six times to China in order to get 

 the necessary data on cultivation and manufacture, and to fetch skilled 

 Chinese labourers with their tools; promoting this new industry personally 

 by ail possible means, until private companies were able to carry on the 

 business. 



1 do not intend to dwell any longer upon this subject; particulars are 

 to be found in my Dutch paper; suffice it, that I hâve just pointed out 

 how Chinese and Japanese tea seed hâve been spread ail over Java, where 

 they hâve left a numerous posterity. Up to the présent day some of 

 those very ancient gardens remain in cultivation, thus plainly contradicting 

 the assertion, met with in old text-books on tropical agriculture, that the 



