2 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF TEA. 



places, but failing either of these success must not be hoped 

 for. 



It was madness to expect aught but ruin, under the con- 

 ditions which the cultivation was entered on in the Tea- 

 fever days. People who had failed in everything else were 

 thought quite competent to make plantations. 'Tis true 

 Tea was so entirely a new thing at that time, but few could 

 be found who had any knowledge of it. Still, had managers 

 with some practice in agriculture been chosen, the end 

 would not have been so disastrous. But any one literally 

 any one was taken, and tea planters in those days were a 

 strange medley of retired or cashiered army and navy 

 officers, medical men, engineers, veterinary surgeons, 

 steamer captains, chemists, shop-keepers of all kinds, stable- 

 keepers, used-up policemen, clerks, and goodness knows 

 who besides ! 



Is it strange the enterprise failed in their hands ? Would 

 it not have been much stranger if it had not ? 



This was only one of the many necessities for failure. I 

 call them " necessities" as they appear to have been so indus- 

 triously sought after in some cases. I must detail them 

 shortly, for to expatiate on them would fill a book. 



No garden should exceed 500 acres under Tea. If highly 

 cultivated one of even half that size will pay enormously, 

 far better than a larger area with low cultivation. Add, say, 

 400 acres for charcoal, &c., making 900 or say 1,000 acres 

 the outside area that can be required, and the outside that 

 should ever have been purchased for any one estate. Instead 

 of this, individuals and Companies rushing into Tea bought 

 tracts of five, ten, fifteen, and twenty thousand acres. The 

 idea was that, though it might not be all cultivated, by 

 taking up so large an area all the local labour where there 

 was any would be secured. Often, however, these large 

 tracts were purchased where local labour there was none, 



