THE SUPPLEMENT TO THE 



Tropical Agriculturist and Magazine of the C. A. 8. 



No. Li 



THE PRODUCTION OF TEA. 



POSITION OF GROWERS. 



It is well for those who drink tea that after 

 many years' indifference to the discovery made 

 about 1820 that trees wore growing wild in 

 Assam the Indian Government procured young 

 plants from China, and seed for distribution in 

 different quarters, in order to promote experi- 

 ments in tea culture. Upon these foundations, 

 laid seventy years ago at Chubwa, in Assam, has 

 arisen in the eastern dominions of the Crown 

 the industry which now yields 420,000,000 lb. 

 a year, provides fifty millions of our British 

 fellow-subjects with what has become almost a 

 necessary of life, and has something left to 

 spare to meet the call for tea, more tea, that 

 comes from nearly every other country in the 

 world. The story of the industry's uprising — 

 its ebb and flow as the tide of fortune receded 

 or ad vanced— cannot here be recited in detail, 

 but a few points emerge well worth recording 

 at a time when thoughts are turned to enter- 

 prise abroad, and many wish to know what is 

 the true position of producers. 



Passing in quick review the Government's 

 experimental gardens before 1840, most of which 

 were transferred to the Assam Company formed 

 in 1839, the beginnings of culture in Dehra 

 Doon, Kangra, and Kumaon soon after, some 

 early plantings in Madras, and the successful 

 experiments in Cachar, Darjeeling, and Sylhet 

 before 1860— in that year 1,000,000 lb. were sent 

 to England from estates already on a commercial 

 footing— we come to planting in the Terai, 

 which followed about 1862, and in the Dooars 

 about 1875, and within the last twelve years the 

 opening of many of the large estates in Travan- 

 core. In the meantime tentative experiments 

 were being made in Ceylon, but it was not until 

 its valuable coffee plantations were threatened 

 with extinction, and other products had been 

 tried, that earnest attention was given to tea 

 and the basis laid of the industry which has 



[Vol. II. 



proved of such great value to the colony. A 

 garden opened more than five and thirty years 

 ago still sends good tea to market, but 1880 was 

 reached before 100,000 lb. were exported— this 

 year the total will be as much as 178,000,000 lb. 



The gardens first laid out in India were 

 planted with the Chinese variety of bush, but 

 by degrees this has been widely superseded by 

 indigenous or hybrid kinds, which are more 

 remunerative in many sites and soils ; the 

 China plant yields much less weight of leaf, 

 but in Darjeeling fine flavoured tea is made 

 from it. Until quite recent times some of 

 the original stock was still bearing after 

 the lapse of 40 or 50 years, and a little still 

 exists where first planted. Nothing short of 

 that age is accounted particularly old, and the 

 endurance of young bushes treated with the care 

 now given to them is expected to be still longer. 

 Duration of Bushes. 

 These facts supply the answer to questions 

 which some are doubtless asking— Is the soil 

 durable, is the bush a long-lived one, is there 

 promise of permanence for this industry ? It 

 is true that in India some very ancient plots 

 have been abandoned, as in Cachar and Assam, 

 and that of plantings in Terai perhaps one-fifth, 

 which low prices had made unprofitable, has 

 gone out of cultivation, while in Oeylon, it is 

 said, there are some gardens which are not 

 likely to last. No secret is made of it. In the 

 beginning the pioneers lacked experience i 

 wrong sites were sometimes chosen, such as 

 steep hillsides which have been denuded of 

 their soil, while bushes were treated in a way 

 that a modern planter would deem brutal. In 

 those days there were no scientific experts as 

 there are now, continuously advising growers 

 about their soil, manure, catch crops, and 

 insect pests, while the genius of inventors had 

 not then devised the machinery that now 

 simplifies, hastens, and cheapens the work in- 

 side the factory. It is stated that no gardens 

 made on the Darjeeling hills during the past 



JANUAEY, 1908. 



