juNE 1, 1903.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
805 
THE TEA FACTORY OP THE 
FUTURE. 
By Claude A, Lowe, 
The geueral idea of this article is to present, in an 
orderly and more or less comprehensive form, the 
probable future development of the modern tea estate 
and factory, showing;, in some detail and parallel, the 
various difficulties and inconveniences of present day 
practice, and the methods likely to be evolved in the 
near future to override and abolish them. 
It has already been pointed out in the editorial and 
correspondence columns of this journal, that such nos- 
trums as a comprehensive reduction of output —even 
if all concerned were agreeable to join in the move- 
ment—would merely resnlt fiually in throwing wide the 
door to the gleeful competition of foreign teas from 
China, Java and elsewhere ; and even the more obviously 
practical endeavour to devote a large capital to opening 
out new markets while meeting with opposition from 
some planters of exceptional experience and ability, 
gives no substaotial guarantee to the planter that 
the price of hia commodity will permanently rise to 
the old scale of high profits. Looking at the subject 
from the consumer's point of view, it will require no 
great imagination to suppose that the members of 
the great army of working classes in Great Britain 
who have got accustomed to obtaining their weekly 
pound of tea for one price, will refuse to submit to a 
rise in the same ; rather it will probably be found 
that the grocer who caters for them will be willing, 
aa has happened before with other products, to sell the 
same quality of tea at the former price without profit 
for a time, in order to retain or increase their custom 
for general groceries. 
Even from the planter's point of view, the position 
under existing circumstances would be no firmer in 
the long run, as, given an increased demand who is 
to prevent companies or individuals who own un- 
developed land, from extending their gardens ? 
Certainly not the Tea Association, and it is not prob- 
ab'e that Government will step in with a veto on 
the subject, and lay themselves open to the charge 
of fostering the China trade at our expense. 
We thus come by a process of exhaustion to the 
old question of reduction of working costs, but even 
here, under existing conditions, a dead-lock must 
Boon be reached, a? it cannot be doubted that many 
concerns which continue to pay good dividends, are 
accomplishing the same as the result of stringent 
economies, many of which they will be unable to 
maintain without ultimately bringing about either 
directly or indirectly a deterioration in the asset value 
of their estates. 
That stress of circumstances has brought about a 
series of permanent and practical economies ia un- 
deniable, and that these same economies have been 
most immediately beneficial \^ here practised on large 
conoerns combining several estates under one supreme 
local authority, is equally evident to the seeing 
observer ; it is therefore highly probable that the 
greater the concentration on a .central local office 
under a really capable Superintendent, the higher 
will be the economic efficiency attained. 
From this point to the Tea Trust or Combine is but 
a step, and now that we are hearing and reading 
80 much about Trusts and Combines in every branch 
of commerce, it can hardly be doubted that, sooner 
or later, the eyes of the monied world, roaming 
around in search of new outlets for idle capital in 
bulk, will alight on the confusion of conflicting in- 
terests and antiquated farming procedure of the vast 
tea districts, struggling or sleeping under the pro- 
tecting arm of the British Raj. 
lOg 
That really serious opposition could be maintained 
in the face of a movement to acquire whole provinces* 
in the tea districts is questionable, when we look 
at the backing off and wrangling that takes place every 
time the Association calls for combined action on 
any subject; indeed the mere attempt to fight a really 
formidable corporation would in itself be suicidal, aa 
one of the first logical effects of consolidation under 
enormous capital would be the local abolition of the 
Planters' Association as at present constituted, and 
therefore any isolated estate would be entirely at 
the mercy of a conscienceless and invisible power. 
Even without this huge and wholesale combination 
the near future must show a modification of the 
principle in self-defence, and combine at least whole 
districts under their own respective cenires, in order 
to produce a certain uniformity of method, and reduce 
the number of individual units to a comprehensive 
whole. 
Let US enquire now why even on adjoining gardens 
under one ownership, one so frequently finds factories 
set up within a couple of miles of one another. It 
appears when all t)ie pros and cons are sifted, that 
the real difficulty resolves itself into a question of 
locomotion. Because leaf packed into large baskets 
and carted in a slow bullock gharry or on coolies backs, 
heats and turns red on arrival or soon after, therefore 
another factory must be built and a special staff 
and plant of machinery must be maintained. There 
are as secondary reasons, the difficulty of managing 
the withering, and the size of the plant required to 
deal with what is considered to be an unwidely 
quantity of leaf, both of which may be summed up 
under the head of want of courage and enterprise 
on the part of those concerned. 
We will now, however, proceed to consider these 
objections in detail, and find how they can be over- 
come in a combination of estates under one owner- 
ship working towards a central factory from a radius 
of eight or ten miles in every direction. 
The question of the actual working of the land ia 
not likely to change very considerably. It ia possible 
that machinery may to a modified extent be used for 
cultivation, but actual plucking must for obvious 
reasons be always carried out by hand, the only likely 
change is that the estates will be re-divided into lots 
of about five hundred acres, and each placed in charge 
of one European who will be responsible under the 
Chief Superintendent for cultivation and quality of 
leaf alone, having nothing whatever to do with the 
sale or manufacture. We will therefore take the 
factory of the future and consider, as first in order, 
the question of transport. 
TRANSPOBT. 
The two methods of rapid transit available for 
use on tea lands at present, are the narrow gauge 
railway, and the wire rope tramway ; but seeing that 
in the majority of cases the ground in the vicinity 
of tea estates is cut up by nullahs and jhoras, 
and in some districts ia actually mountninons, the 
railway system would be not only cumbersome, but 
prohibitive in first cost. There remains, however, 
the wire rope tramway, which is able to make a bee- 
line for any desired point, irrespective of the contour 
of the land over which it has to pass. This latter ig 
worked on various systems at the present day, chief 
among which are (Ist) that in which the carrying rope 
ia also itself a traveller ; (2nd) the carrying rope ia a 
fixture, and the trolleys hanging therefrom on running 
wheels are hauled by a lighter eudlss rope passing 
round a pulley at the end station and so back to the 
winding engine, and (3rd) that in w'hioh the trucks 
[• It is probable that no attempt at consolidation 
which did not aim it acquiring at least the whole of 
such a province as Cachar, Sylhet, Darjeeling or the 
Dooars would be effective, as it would be a sine giui 
non that the means of oommuuication should be under 
the Company's control.— C. A, L.] 
