72 TEA 



activities India and Ceylon now feel it necessary to 

 take a watchful interest. 



Natal first turned her attention to tea growing as a 

 commercial enterprise in 1877, owing to the sudden 

 collapse of her coffee industry. The coffee planters 

 were on the verge of ruin when the chairman of the 

 Lower Tugela Planters' Association, Mr. (now Sir) 

 J. Liege Hulett, made his carefully considered sugges- 

 tion as to the most promising way of dealing with the 

 crisis. He pointed out that tea-plants were then 

 flourishmg in several parts of Victoria County. True, 

 they were not yielding good quality tea, but against 

 this fact he pitted another — the plants had estabUshed 

 themselves and were growing well in every district 

 into which they had been introduced in this County. 

 He argued, therefore, that the experiments which had 

 already been made in tea cultivation led to the con- 

 clusion that a tea industry could be estabUshed in Natal 

 provided suitable seed was obtained. A few enthusi- 

 astic supporters of this theory clubbed in with its 

 advocate to provide money for conducting a further 

 experiment, with seed from India ; and the Government 

 came to their assistance with the promise to provide 

 free freight for the seed from India to Durban. 



The seed was procured for the little syndicate by 

 a friend in Calcutta, and despatched from that port 

 early in January, 1877, in the chartered steamer 

 Umvoti. Upon its arrival at Durban, about the 

 middle of March of the same year, it was divided 

 amongst the members of the sjmdicate in proportion 

 to the amount of money contributed by each towards 

 its importation, and immediately planted out in 

 nurseries. 



