TEA. 



87 



himself still only on their confines ; isolated patches here and there 

 meet his eye, in place of the wholesale plantations he had looked 

 forward to, and on inquiry he finds that among the enumeration of 

 taxable lands sent in to the Emperor, tea land is entirely ignored. In 

 fact, until recently, the up-country farmer, who persists in growing 

 an inferior paddy almost on the highest mountain tops, on the theory 

 that each district should, as nearly as possible, be self-supporting, 

 grew a few shrubs in the corner of his garden, or gathered for his 

 own requirements from the wild hill plant. Although of late years 

 the country people have begun to see the value placed on a hitherto 

 almost worthless herb, the cultivation of the high tea plant is still far 

 from being carried on in a really systematic manner, and five or six 

 piculs is a large average yield for an individual farm." 



In China tea nurseries are seldom extensive, but every village has 

 its one or two acres devoted to the national product. 



Shanghai is the leading tea port in China, not only for shipments 

 to Great Britain, but also to America. To show its progress, I 

 append a few figures of the exports of tea from China to the United 

 Kingdom : 



1851 

 1861 

 1870 

 1875 



Canton. 

 42 

 .. 41 

 .. 17 

 .. 20 



Shanghai. 

 22 

 11 

 71 

 81 



38 

 53 

 62 • 



Amoy. 



*i 



Total. 



64 million lbs. 



90 

 142 

 163 



In addition to this, the American trade is important. Of the 

 fifty million pounds and upwards sent from China to the United 

 States, Shanghai exports more than half, nearly all green tea, which 

 is much more esteemed by the Americans than by ourselves, as may 

 be shown by the fact that while in the three years ending 1873 we 

 imported from Shanghai an average of nine million pounds of green 

 tea, America took over twenty millions. 



A quarter of a century ago the Americans used to take double the 

 quantity of green tea they did black, but now they are beginning to 

 give more preference to black. 



The American import of tea at the Atlantic ports, exclusive of 

 California, was as follows in — 



Lbs. Lbs. 



1845 20,762,558 1870 33,964,096 



]850 21,757,800 1874 52,424,545 



1861 17,482,000 | 



Eussia takes about one- seventh of the foreign exports of tea from 

 China. 290,000 pouds of 36 lbs. go yearly from Canton to Eussia. 

 In 1873 the three commercial companies established at Hankow sent 

 to Eussia 826,117 cases of tea, of which 10,000 were black tea. Two 

 Eussian steamers also loaded with tea at Hankow for Odessa, and 

 8000 cases were sent by the way of Nikolievsk and the Amoor river, 

 and a good deal by land via Tientsin and Kalgar to Kiachta. 



Quantities of each description of tea exported annually to foreign 



