178 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF TEA. 



The finest Chinese Tea sells in London in bond at 2s. 4^. 

 to 2s. 6d., while the finest Indian in bond fetches 35. to 

 3 s. 6d* . 



What, then, will be the future of Indian Tea ? It is an 

 important query. The industry is one which, if successful, 

 might attain to wide limits, and help not a little to relieve 

 the Indian State Exchequer, while it would afford occu- 

 pation to many a class of Englishmen who at present look 

 about in vain for employment. 



Tea speculation has passed through the first two pre- 

 liminary phases to which most new ventures are liable. 

 First, we had the wild rush, the mad fever, when every man 

 thought that to own a few Tea bushes was to realise wealth. 

 In those days existing plantations were bought at eight and 

 ten times their value ; nominal areas of 500 acres were paid 

 for which, on subsequent measurement, proved to be under 

 100 ; new gardens were commenced on impossible sites, 

 and by men as managers who not only did not know a Tea 

 plant from a cabbage, but who were equally ignorant of the 

 commonest rules of agriculture. Boards highly paid, with 

 secretaries still more liberally remunerated, were formed 

 both in Calcutta and London to carry on the enterprise ; 

 and, in short, money was lavished in every conceivable way, 

 while mismanagement ran rampant in each department. It 

 is not strange that the whole thing collapsed : the wonder 

 is it did not do so earlier. 



The second stage was then entered upon. Numbers had 

 been bitten, and the idea, once formed, grew apace, that 

 Tea could not pay at all. Everyone wanted to sell, and 

 down went all Tea shares to a figure which only increased 

 the general panic. Many companies, and not a few indi- 

 viduals, unable to carry on, had to wind up and sell their 



* Note to Third Edition. In 1876 the average prices of the two kinds in 

 bond were: Chinese, is. 2d.; Indian, is. lod. per Ib. 



