300 TEA PLANTATIONS. 



owing to their boulders which form the substratum, the levels 

 have not been altered. Nowhere does the soil occur above a few 

 feet deep, and on digging it is found to rest on the boulder formation. 

 The town of Kangra, situated in the middle and southern side 

 of the valley, is elevated about 3000 feet, on the same altitude as 

 Nugrotah, where the Tea nursery is formed ; Bobarnah is 4000. 

 Here the Tea-plant is thriving equally luxuriantly as at the former- 

 mentioned place. Holta, w : hich we have selected as a site for a 

 Tea plantation, is a fine open and gently inclined (with a southern 

 exposure) waste plain, of about four to five miles in length ; and in 

 altitude from 4000 to 5000 feet, and commanded by, as already 

 stated, two considerable-sized rivers. The soil consists of a thin 

 stratum of black mould, with a subsoil of a stiff but friable reddish 

 clay, resting on boulders. Throughout this fine valley there are 

 many tracts of waste land at altitudes varying from 3000 to 5000 

 feet, equally well adapted for Tea cultivation. In the adjoining 

 province of Kooloo, a rugged and bold mountainous country, there 

 are also many places well fitted for the Tea plant. But the Kangra 

 valley, from the facilities of exportation and the advantages of 

 water-communication to Bombay, is second to no place, the road 

 to the plains being adapted for camels and bullocks, most of the 

 grain there grown being thus exported. It has been asserted that 

 Tea could not be cultivated on a sufficiently extensive scale in the 

 North-western Provinces and the Kohistanof the Punjab to supply 

 the home market, owing to the want of land. But this is a great 

 mistake. Land there is in abundance in the British hill provinces, 

 and much of it lying waste, and possibly the time is not far 

 distant when this cultivation may be carried into the valley of 

 Cashmeer and the lower valleys of Hazara, which will be found 

 well adapted for the purpose. In Kumaon and Gurwahl vast 

 quantities of waste land, admirably adapted to Tea cultivation, 

 exist, and all that is wanted is capital to clear the jungles. Major 

 Madden has stated, in his account of Kumaon, that the Zemindars 

 give up their lands for the cultm*e of Tea with difficulty, and that 

 but little waste land exists. The latter assertion is erroneous, 

 but the former, regarding the people of Bheemtal, is true. Not so 

 with others in Gurwahl, and this I give not only on my own 

 authority, but on that of a person* high in rank, who, on a late 

 tour through Kumaon and Gurwahl, found the Zemindars most 

 anxious and willing to undertake the cultivation of the Tea plant. 



* Mr. Robinson, of the Revenue Board, N.W. Provinces. 



