IN'DIA TRirMrn.WT 11 



by ("liina is much larj^iM- than the ainoMiit exported by 

 Iiulia. Rut inueh of tlie Chinese output is very inferior 

 in quality. A great deal of it eould not, and does not 

 att«'inpt to, enter into eonipetition in the open market, 

 but it happens to have found spceial markets in Tibet 

 and some parts of Russia. This \x)ot product, con- 

 sisting of twigs and very coarse leaves which undergo 

 a rough-and-ready method of so-eaHed manufacture, 

 is not what the worhl at large understands by tea ; 

 hence it is not taken into consideration in the com- 

 pilation of statistics for the world at large. And even 

 if China be credited with the whole quantity of her 

 export, India must still be honoured as the superior 

 competitor ; for the money value of India's animal 

 export exceeds that of the total amiual export from 

 China. 



Both countries, however, make between five and six 

 million pounds sterling per annum by the sale of tea 

 to outside customers. 



I have told you that the first British tea-plantations 

 were laid out in India in the early forties of the nine- 

 teenth century, withs eeds and plants obtained from 

 China. Some years previous to these ex|>eriment« in 

 the cultivation of China tea, travellers had begun to 

 report that a sj>ecies of tea-plant was growing wild in 

 Assam. By 1834, the Government of India had be- 

 come so interestetl in a number of such reports. sjHH'i- 

 mens of the .fVssam plant in question, and tea culture 

 in general, that a Committee of Tea Culture was ap- 

 pointe<l to report on the po.Hsibility of the supposed 

 tea-plant of Assam being identical with the tea-plant 

 that had so long boon under cultivation in China, and 

 to express an opinion as to the advisability of planting 



