Tea 



163 



district of Kumaon, in the Himalayas — the seeds and plants used being imported 

 from China. No sooner had the experiments been initiated than attention was drawn 

 to the statement that a tea plant indigenous to Assam had been discovered some 

 years before, and that this variety was probably more suited to cultivation than the Chinese 

 plant. The announcement was received with a certain amount of scepticism on the part of 

 experts, but a travelling commission was sent to Assam to settle the matter. Although an 

 undoubted tea plant, now known as Thea assamica, was found to occur abundantly, 

 it was regarded as a degenerate form of the Chinese variety; the committee therefore 

 recommended the further cultivation of plants from China. In 1837 and the years imme- 

 diately following, discoveries .of extensive tracts of country in Assam bearing the indigenous 

 tea were made, and in 1838 the first consignment of Indian tea^ consisting of 488 lbs., was 

 sent to London, the price obtained being 9s. 5d. per lb. About this time the principal planta- 

 tions came under the control of the famous Assam Company, and by 1854 the Indian export 

 had risen to a quarter of a million pounds. Planting was then started in Cachar and Sylhet, 

 and in 1858-9 the plantations of Darjeeling were commenced. Since that time the industry 

 has made enormous strides, and several other districts have imitated the example of Assam 

 and planted out large areas in tea. At the present day the tea districts of India.are Eastern 

 Bengal and Assam, with 422,335 acres ; Bengal (Darjeeling and Chota Nagpur), with 53,024 

 acres ; Northern India (United Provinces and Punjab), with 17,346 acres ; Southern India 

 (Madras and Travancore), with 38,789 acres : a grandjtotal of 531,494 acres, with-a total pro- 

 duction last year of 221,068,000 lbs. ! In 1875 the total production was about 26^- million 

 pounds. Of the total export in 1905 the United Kingdom took no less than 166,754,000 lbs., 

 or, roughly speaking, seventy-six per cent. The next best customers were Canada, taking 

 15,018,000 lbs., followed by Russia with nearly 10,000,000 lbs., and Australia with over / 

 7,000,000 lbs. Other important buyers were Asiatic Turkey, the United States, Ceylon, Persia^ 

 China, and Kashmir. 



TEA IN NATAL 



Next to Ceylon and India, Natal is by far the most important of the tea-producing colonies 

 of the British Empire, and the industry is one of considerable value to the country. From 



7 



!/- 



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V 



V 



y 



TEA FACTORY AT BATOUM 



