March i, 1895. 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
Europe to penetrate her country. May the result of 
the present war, with its terrible lessons to this great 
empire, be a means of opening that vast tract of 
country to European influence and civilisation. 
RISE OF INDIAN TEA. 
Considering the popularity of tea in Great Bri- 
tain, it is not surprising that some of our 
own countrymen should have conceived the idea 
of growing tea in British dependencies, and 
thus supplying the home demand from British-grown 
produce, instead of from the produce of a foreign 
power. There is strong ground for believing, and, 
indeed, it seems to be now an admitted fact that tea 
is indigenous to India, itnd that it may have been 
conveyed from there to the Chinese Empire : in any 
case, it was found about the year 1819-21 in a wild 
state in the jungle of Assam ; but so little weight 
was attached to this important discovery, that the 
Indian Government actually imported plants and 
native cultivators from China, to teach our country- 
men in India how to grow and manufacture the im- 
ported product, China tea, actually ignoring the wild 
indigenous plant growing on their own ground. Much 
harm has resulted to producers from the hybridisa- 
tion of the China variety with the indigenous plant 
of Assam. But I do not propose to trace in details 
the rise of the tea industry of India, from its birth to 
this hour. An admirable paper upon this subject was 
read here some few years since by a well-known 
tea-planter, Mr. J. Berry White. Let us, therefore, 
pass over the period of its early history, the trials 
through which it passed, after the speculative 
fever of about 1863, when the British public 
ran wildly into tea speculations, and imagined that a 
fortune lay in every new tea-planting venture, the un- 
fortunate effects of which are still felt by many strug- 
gling tea companies, nearly strangled in their infancy 
by overloading of capital, and the consequent annually 
recurring difhculty of paying an adequate dividend 
upon a piincipal amount greatly in excess of the ac- 
tual value of the property. Since that date several 
districts have been opened up at a much smaller cost 
per acre, and the money has been sent from Europe at 
a lower exchange. Increased facilities have been af- 
forded by the introduction of suitable machinery, im- 
proved means of communicatioa, and the greater gen- 
eral experience and consequent knowledge of the sub- 
ject, together with concentration of labour, and a 
steadily falling exchange. In consequence of this, the 
dividend-earning powers of some of these later con- 
utih were far greater in proportion to their capital 
hikI they have thus been placed under greater advan- 
tages, and have given far more lucrative returns than 
many of the older companies. 
The cost of production might be still further 
reduced if the Government could see their way 
to resume the old policy of giving grants in aid of 
local funds which are now rather starved. 
From the small beginning which was made when, 
in L884, the Indian Government caused plants to be 
obtained from China, and tried to open tea planta- 
tions in Kumaun and at Luckimpore, in the Province 
of Assam, where one of the first Indian tea plan- 
tations was started in 1835, the industry has spread 
slowly but surely, and, for the most part, protitahlv, 
until now not only Assam proper, or the Brahma- 
)utra Valley, but Cachar and Sylhet, in the Surma 
/alley, Chittagong, East and Western Dooars, Terai, 
and l)arieoling, have become great tea-planting dis- 
tricts, while Chota-Nagpur and the districts of ivangra 
Valley, Kumaon, and Dehra Doou, celebrated for 
the Government plantations, where strong efforts to 
foster the industry were made in 1850, still continue 
to grow tea. 
In Southorn India, Neilglu rry and Travancore have 
added their quota to the general production, the 
latter-named district being the most recent anions 
all Indian tea-producing localities. 
Tho total acreage under tea in India has in- 
creased until it has at present reached ovei 
370,000 acros, and the yield in the present 
season is expected to bo about 12rt,0Q0,000 lbs. | 
SHOWING THE APPROXIMATE ACREAGE UNDER 
TEA CULTIVATION IN INDIA FROM 1875-76 
TO 1892-93, WITH THE ANNUA fl 
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CEVLON TEA. 
There is something pathetic about the rise of the 
Ceylon tea industry, for it rose as a Phoenix from 
the ashes of the ruined coffee plantations, which had 
brought golden harvests to the fortunate proprietors 
and were suddenly destroyed by the terrible ravages 
of the lleiuilcia I astatrix, large tracts of coffee- 
bearing land covered with fruitful bushes being sud- 
denly reduced in value from thousands of pounds to 
almost nil. The planters after trying cocoa, cinchona, 
cardamoms, &c, with but partial success, finally 
turned their attention to tea. The extraordinary 
suitability of the tea plant for the climate compared 
with the coffee plant was strikingly illustrated by the 
fact that tea, when left untended, was found to force 
its way through the undergrowth and jungle, and to 
thrive and luxuriate in the midst of this tropical vege- 
tation, triumphing alone and uncared-for over the 
surrounding difficulties, while coffee untended was soon 
found to sicken and die. So much more suitable 
did the climate of Ceylon, with its abundant rain- 
fall, prove for the leaf crop of the tea plant, than 
for the fruit crop of the coffee plant, that planters 
soon grasped the fact that, at last, they had found 
a product pre-eminently suited to the soil and climate 
of their island. 
Hence, once tea was fairly started in cultivation, 
thousands of acres were quickly planted up, until 
in the course of a few years large tracts of land 
were covered with tea plantations some '280,000 acres 
being under tea cultivation in 18'.) I. So rapidly did 
the export increase that it rose from about 3001b in 
187G to 81,000 tb in 1879, and 611,0o8 tb in 1882, 
and 4,352,895 tb in 1885, and about 81,000,000 lb in 
1894 ; and the rise of the tea industry, which com- 
menced when almost the whole island was in a state 
bordering upon ruin through the failure of the coffee 
industry, has resulted in the restoration of - pros- 
perity and comfort to the sorely-tried planters. 
Tea has, indeed, proved a blessing to them, and not 
only staved off the wolf from their door, but has 
again brought comfort and prosperity into their 
midst. 
A Table is given showing the acreage and out-turn 
since the commencement of the industry, together 
with the average prices obtained in Miuclng-lane for 
the crops each year. 
A paper uj on the Ceylon tea industry was read 
before the Society of Arts a few years ago by Mr John 
Loudoun Khand, so I do not propose to go further into 
the history of Ceylon tea. 
