TEA CULTIVATION. 301 



and land to any amount available, provided that the officers in 

 charge of the districts " went the proper way about it." Mr. G. 

 Barnes, the talented deputj'-coinmissioner of the Kohistan, states 

 that 25 per cent of his districts might most advantageously be 

 cultivated with Tea. The commissioner of Kumaon, too, Mr. 

 Balten, states that land for Tea cultivation is abundant. Thus 

 regarding the district of Katere, he says, " Biejnath, situated on 

 the frontier of Kumaon with Gurwahl, and in the neighourhood of 

 Budbak Fort, was often, in all probability, the scene of border 

 conflicts and military exactions, and the desertion of villages once 

 having commenced and no means of restoring the population being 

 at hand, the deterioration of climate originating in the spread of rank 

 vegetation and the neglect of drainage, &c., may be supposed to have 

 gone on from worse to worse, till finally the heat and moisture were 

 left to perform all their natural ill offices, unchecked by the industry 

 and efforts of man." Viewing, however, the present slight improve- 

 ment in a hopeful light, and remembering the less favourable situa- 

 tions in which Tea nurseries are thriving, I am of opinion that the 

 district of Kuttoor( Biejnath) would be found theone most deserving 

 of selection for the future spread of Kumaon Tea cultivation. 

 Irrigable unoccupied lands, at between 3000 and 5000 feet above 

 the level of the sea, abound on the lower slopes of the hills, while 

 much of the good land in actual possession is occupied by migratory 

 tenants at will, unattached to the soil, in whose place the Pudhans 

 of villages could have no reasonable objection to see profit 

 paving wealthy planting gardeners. The very fact that at the 

 present settlement (which took place before any discussion arose 

 concerning the extension of the Tea experiment), seventeen 

 pottahs of villages were, in Kuttoor, obliged to be made over to 

 non-proprietary moostagirs, or farmers, the richer or less despond- 

 ing neighbours of the resigning pudhans, shows that available 

 ground was at our disposal. But there, and in Pergunnahs 

 < i ungolie, Sher, and Seera, the sole expense of securing the land 

 would have been (and even now in many places would still be) the 

 wiping off the Jumna from the revenue books, probably some 

 paltry sum of less than twenty rupees per annum. Again at 

 p. 342 of his excellent Settlement-report of Gurwahl, he states, 

 " those who look to the spread of the cultivated Tea plant over 

 these mountains as likely to change their financial position to the 

 state altogether, and convert them into treasuries of surplus 

 revenue, may not be far wrong. If this extension of the China 

 herb be at first carried on (in the way I have pointed out in 



