Chap. XIX. 
REMARKS ON TEA-CULTURE. 
295 
order, and promise to be abundantly successful. Land 
suitable for the cultivation of tea is plentiful in all 
directions, and at present of very little value either to 
the natives or to the Government. 
In these days, when tea has become almost a neces- 
sary of Hfe in England and her wide-spreading colonies, its 
production upon a large and cheap scale is an object of 
no ordinary importance. But to the natives of India 
themselves the production of this article would be of the 
greatest value. The poor paharie, or hill-peasant, at 
present has scarcely the common necessaries of life, and 
certainly none of its luxuries. The common sorts of 
grain which his lands produce will scarcely pay the 
carriage to the nearest market-town, far less yield such 
a profit as will enable him to purchase even a few of the 
necessary and simple luxuries of life. A common blanket 
has to serve him for his covering by day and for his bed 
at night, while his dwelling-house is a mere mud hut, 
capable of affording but little shelter from the inclemency 
of the weather. If part of these lands produced tea, he 
would then have a healthy beverage to drink, besides a 
commodity which would be of great value in the market. 
Being of small bulk compared with its value, the expense 
of carriage would be trifling, and he would have the means 
of making himself and his family more comfortable and 
more happy. 
Were such results doubtful we have only to look 
across the frontiers of India into China. Here we find 
tea one of the necessaries of life in the strictest sense of 
the word. A Chinese never drinks cold water, which he 
