TEA. 



79 



departed. They had it in Brazil, and it is gone ; and if there is no 

 trace of leaf disease in Java, the borer is very destructive. Noticing 

 in passing that the alang-alang of Java is the Hook grass of Ceylon 

 {Imjperata Koenigii, P. de B.), we may, we think, finally adopt the con- 

 clusion that, whatever the • disadvantages we in Ceylon labour under 

 may be, we are certainly, in many respects, far in advance of our com- 

 petitors in Brazil and Java, favoured as both may be in large areas 

 of rich soil. We have good land tenures and liberal government, 

 a fairly adequate supply of labour, a climate in most respects unsur- 

 passed for salubrity by any in the tropics ; our means of communica- 

 tion, though not yet perfect, are extensive. If Providence will remove 

 the plague of leaf disease, and Government will with energy carry 

 out railway extension, while the breakwater is advancing, we do not 

 know that there would be much room left even for the most typical 

 of Englishmen to exercise his hereditary and proverbial privilege of 

 grumbling." 



TEA. 



Extensive as the production and consumption of the preceding 

 articles of commerce described — Coffee and Cocoa — are, they cannot 

 be compared in importance with Tea, the consumption of which over 

 the world is enormous, and continually increasing. 



The progress of the production of tea in other countries than 

 China is necessarily interesting, as calculated to make the world more 

 independent for its supplies. 



Besides India, Java, and Japan, in the East, where it has made 

 good progress, efforts are making to introduce it in parts of Australia, 

 such as Queensland and Victoria, in Jamaica and Mauritius. 



From Ceylon shipments are already made. It is said to be also 

 cultivated in the Corea, TonkiD, and Cochin China. 



Parts of North and South America afford a vast field for tea 

 culture. And it has long been attempted with some degree of success 

 in Brazil and parts of the United States. 



Madeira, Teneriffe, Portugal, Spain, France, Algeria, Italy, Austria, 

 Turkey, and the Crimea, might all grow tea, for their climates are 

 quite suitable ; Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand are admirably 

 adapted likewise, but they have little or no labour to bestow on such 

 a cultivation. Java has long taken up tea culture, and produces 

 seven or eight millions of pounds. 



Tea is a very accommodating plant, both as respects climatic range 

 and the nature of the soil in which it is planted. We find it 

 growing from Pekin — which frequently has winters of Eussian 

 severity — to Canton and Macao, where the sugar-cane and pine-apple 

 find sufficient heat to render them sure and profitable crops. The 

 plant seems quite capable of withstanding winters of very intense 

 frost, provided the summers are of sufficient duration and heat to 

 mature perfectly the newly-formed wood which it makes. Any 

 country, therefore, having a long and hot summer and a cold winter 

 can grow tea. 



So far back as 1844 some success attended the efforts of a private 



