594 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [March i, 1888. 
eonsumption in the United Kingdom is now far larger 
than all the rest of Europe put together. Tea was 
naturally looked upon as a fair subject for taxation. 
John Bull was John Bull in those days, and a thin 
small drink produced by foreigners was not allowed 
with impunity to oust home-brewed ales. The duty 
varied from 5$ per pound and an ad valorem duty, 
in which form an occasional squeeze was put on, to 
2*. 2%d. in 1845, when, in spite of all opposition, tea 
had to a great extent taken the place of stronger 
drinks. In that year the importation of tea into the 
United Kingdom was 40,000,000 pounds, and a pro- 
posal for a further reduction of duty was met with 
the answer that " Parliament was informed on high 
official authority that the imports of tea having 
reached 40,000,000 pounds, it was probable that the 
limit of consumption had also been reached, and that 
further reduction could only be accompanied by loss 
of revenue." Reductions of duty, however, from time 
to time took place, each reduction being accompanied 
by a largely increased consumption, and the 40,000,000 
pounds of 1345 grew into 180,000,000 pounds in 1886- 
It is hard to say whether the limit of consumption 
per head of population has been yet reached, but 
the increased strength of Indian and Oejlon teas, 
and the greater number of cups of tea obtained from 
a pound of these teas than from a found of China 
tea, as noticed by the Customs report of last year 
and by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the House 
of Commons, has for the present caused consumption 
to stand apparently still. 
In the annexed table (Appendix No. III.) it will 
be seen how far the consumption per head of popula- 
tion in England exceeds that of any other European 
country, and that the Briton when he goes to the 
Colonies carries his tea-drinking proclivities with him. 
"What the consumption per head of population is 
in China it is impossible to ascertain, but those who 
have had the opportunity of observation, estimate it 
to far exceed that of any other country, and it is 
remarkable that the British and Chinese nations, so 
dissimilar in habits and conditions of life, should 
stand out so prominently as the tea drinkers of 
the world. 
About fifty years ago, after several years of report 
and discussion, the suitableness of large tracts of 
land in Assam and elsewhere in the Indian Empire 
to the cultivation of the tea plant was recognised. 
Experiments were made in different places with tea 
seed from China, though, strangely, a far more valu- 
able variety of tea was growing wild in the forests 
near the scene of some of the experiments. Chinese 
labour was also imported, without which it was con- 
sidered at the time impossible to make tea. But with 
labour as with seed, it was soon found that the native 
material was more suitable; and after the errors and 
difficulties inseparable from an enterprise so entirely 
new, about which it was impossible to obtain any 
reliable information, had been surmounted, the cultiv- 
ation of tea began to advance slowly. 
What those early pioneers of the great Indian tea 
industry went through : the courage and endurance 
they showed in the face of difficulties which must 
have often appeared overwhelming; the sad fate so 
often attendant on pioneers which overtook many 
of them, form a memorable chapter in the peaceful 
victories of histcry. But their struggles, though severe, 
were successful, and tea culture spread. The Assam 
Company was soon formed, and though its career 
was at first chequered, and at one time threatened 
with extinction, skilful management brought it through 
its infantile difficulties, and to its financial success 
may in great measure be attributed the extension of 
tea planting to Cachar, Sylhet, the Dooars, Dar- 
jeeling, Kumaon, the Nilgiris, Travancore, and eventu- 
ally to Ceylon. 
The success attendant upon the working of the 
Assam and some other early-formed companies which 
had planted with .judgment and under favourable cir- 
cumstances soon began to be noised abroad, and a 
crowd collected eager to become shareholders in tea 
gardens. The investment was naturally au attractive 
one ; ic supplied an article of daily food which was by 
enormous strides increasing in consumption. There 
are fewer vicissitudes attached to the ingathering of 
a leaf crop thau a fruit crop. The harvest season 
was practically perennial; the yield per acre reported 
to be obtained was fabulous ; the prices realised by sale 
of produce splendid. The investment ha 1 all the ele* 
ments of temptation. It was an era of speculation. Tea- 
planting in India, coffee planting in Ceylon were the suo 
cessors of the railway mania in England. Tea companies 
were rapidly formed, many of them unstable and 
ephemeral. To possess shares in a tea company or a 
tea garden was generally supposed to place the key 
to fortune in the hands of the lucky owner. Moths 
fluttered towards the candle, and the candle spluttered, 
and was well-nigh extinguished by the singed wiogs ; 
but in spite of all, the enterprise grew. There were 
men engaged in it who could fate difficulties and 
overcome them, and the table appended (Appeudix II.), 
which shows how the cousumption of Indian tea has 
been steadily increasing in the United Kingdom, is 
the plainest gauge of the extent and success of the 
enterprise. 
It is in round numbers estimated that the tea in- 
dustry of India represents an investment of 18,000,000?. 
sterling, and the present annual value of the harvest 
is computed to be 4,500,000?. 
There are few plants so robust as the tea plant, 
and few, perhaps, which will grow under such altered 
conditions, or over such a large area of the globe- 
In India and Ceylon it grows with equal freedom at 
sea level and at 6,000 or 7,000 feet above the sea, so 
much so, that it is not yet an established fact whether 
hill cultivation or low cultivation is the more re- 
munerative. It has been introduced into the Straits 
Settlements, the Fiji Islands, Jamaica, Natal and into 
several other tropical or sub-tropical possessions of 
the Empire. In the four Colonies named it is being 
cultivated with apparent success. The adaptation of 
soil and climate have been proved, and samples of 
manufactured tea have been tested with satisfactory 
results, and there seems no reason why these Colonies 
should not in time supply their own and partially 
their neighbours' requirements. But, apart from being 
able to grow and manufacture tea, cheap labour, 
cheap fuel, and cheap transport are three factors 
necessary to success ; and though Fiji may have an 
outlet for all the tea it can produce in the Austra- 
lasian markets, the West Indies in the American 
markets, and Natal in supplying the expanding South 
African markets, unless accompanied by a hitherto 
unheard-of yield, no country where the average 
wage is Is. or upwards a day can be looked upon 
as a serious competitor in European markets. The 
enterprise is still too young in the Straits Settlements 
to form an estimate of probabilities, but it may in 
time enter for the tea race with China India, and 
Ceylon. 
Tea Cultivation in Ceylon. 
Nearly thirty years ago Emerson Tenneut wrote: — 
" There is no island in the world, Great Britain itself 
not excepted, that has attracted the attention of 
authors in so many distant ages and so many different 
countries as Ceylon. There is no nation in ancient 
or modern times possessed of a language and a litera- 
ture the writers of which have not at some time 
made it their theme. Its aspect, its religion, its anti- 
quities, and productions have been described as well 
by the classic Greeks as by those of the Lower Empire ; 
by the Romans, by the writers of China, Burmah, 
India, and Kashmir, by the geographers of Arabia and 
Persia, by the medifeval voyagers of Italy and France, 
by the annalists of Portugal and Spain, by the merchants 
and adventurers of Holland, and by the travellers and 
topographers of Great Britain." And Emerson Teu- 
nent's own charming, though now for practical pur- 
poses somewhat obsolete, contribution to the literature 
of Ceylon has done much to attract towards the varied 
interests aud resources of the island. Nor has literary 
efforts been since relaxed in portraying the beauties, 
the interests, aud the capabilities of Ceylon ; and the 
student, the sportsman, the intending investor, the 
casual traveller in search of novelty, have ample 
means, according to their varied inclinations, of 
