444 
THP TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [December i, 1891. 
AEEAHUNDER TEA IN INDIA AND CEYLON 
B|AND|'^PRESENT APPROXIMATE CROTS. 
The figures for India are embodied in the fol- 
fowing : — 
Memo, of the Approximate Area of Land under 
Tea Cultivation in the following Districts in India 
in 1891:— 
Area in Acres- 
Mature Immature Total Planted 
Plants. Plants. Area. 
Assam 112,708 18,542 131,250 
Cachar 50,472 6,090 56,502 
Sylhet 37,448 5,748 43,196 
Darjeeling 35,978 5,993 41,971 
Terai and Dooars .. 23,658 5,399 29,0.57 
Chittagong 3,876 187 4,063 
Chota Nagpore . . . . 3,280 607 3,887 
Dehra Doon & Kumaon — 
Kangra Valley .. 8,680 518 9,198 
Madras 10,868 — 10,868 
286,968 43,084 330,052 
Of 330,000 acres under tea in India, it will be 
Been that little more than 10,000 are credited to 
the southern end of the contirent; All the rest 
is in the extra tropical region of the north, mainly 
on the slopes of the HimBla;^Bs cr in the valley 
of the Brahmaputra. In Ceylon the area under tea 
in all stages is 250,000 acres. It follows that of 
the tea cultivation of India andOeylon (aggregating 
580,000 acres, or perhaps now the round 600,000) 
260,000 acres are within the tropics, between 7° 
and 11° north of the equator, the Ceylon por- 
tion of it at least experiences no real winter, 
although there are ooeasional frosts in and around 
Nuwara Eliya and cold still more pronounced on the 
Nilgiris. The conditions under whioh 320,000 acres of 
this truly cosmopolitan plant are cultivated in the 
fra north of India are very different, there being an 
unmistakable winter and a cessation of flushing from 
November until March. The crop grown in con- 
tinental India is already equal to 110,000,000 lb. ; 
and even if no addition is made to the cultivation, 
the quantity is likely to rise to 150,000,000 in 
the course of a few years. The quarter of a 
million acres of tea in Ceylon will certainly yield 
66,000,000 lb. in 1891 and the round 70,000,000 is 
not improbable, while our island, at the present 
rate of progress, is likely to show an export 
of 120,000,000 ib,, by the time India reaches 
150,000,000, say by 1895. With an aggregate pro- 
duction this year of 180,000,000 lb., and the early 
prospects of 
From India ... 150,000,000 lb. 
„ Cejion ... 120,000,000 „ 
or a total of ... 270,000,000 lb., 
there is need that both countries should bestir 
themselves to secure, in addition to expanding old 
markets, the opening up of new Especially is this a 
necessity in the case of Ceylon, where the annual 
increase is not moderate as in India, but, " by leaps 
and bounds." This is not the time to withhold 
liberal help for an eSective effort to capture the 
American and other markets by the proper re- 
presentation of our great staple products at the 
Chicago World's Fair. 
EMIGRATION INTO ASSAM. 
There are two thicga which make ABeam interesting 
to the outer world : one is that the little Provinco prac- 
tif-aliy reprnseiits tlie north-eastern ftouiier of India, 
Biiil oomcH into contact with almost asgieat a variety 
of savage and iudepetideut races as Burma it^-elt ; the 
other in the fact thiti As.Ham uud its tea gardeuy 
Dwallow up Bome of our surplus populotion, Th 
migration cannot be compared with the depletion of 
Ireland, it is true. Assam in the first place is hardly 
an Indian America in the temptations it offers to set- 
tlers, nor is it likely that any emigrants would find 
their way thither but for the labours of the agencies 
variously known as sirdars, arlcatis, contractors and 
so forth ; still Assam does absorb a large number of 
emigrants. The figures for the last five years are 
30,894, 36,463, 46,293, 55,658, and 36,080. A total 
migration of over 200,000 souls in five yesrs is a not 
inconsiderable drain from the crowded parts in India, 
and it is important to notice that the whole of this 
relief to the corgested districts is effected by private 
enterprise and is paid for ultimately by the British 
tea drinker. Government inteiftros indeed in 
regulating the routes by which the emigrants 
travel, and provides depots ard medical and 
other supervision. But this is chiefly paid for 
by the planters, which means of course that the 
money comes ultimately and very properly out of the 
pockets of the drinkers of Assam tea. What becomes 
of the emigrants after they reach their bourne eeems 
dcubtrnl. There appear to be no reliable statistics of 
coolies who make the homeward jcuruey, though it is 
stated that many do return, while some even return 
temporarily and take friends and relatives back to 
the tea gardens. Again some settle in Assam as cul- 
tivators though the proportion, so far as the Provin- 
cial statistics show is disappointingly small. At the 
end of 1890 the total labour force of the Province 
was over 400,000. One might fairly hope that a Krgo 
fart of these would take up land, whioh, in the Assam 
valley at all events is held on remarkably eaty terms. 
Yet the land known to b© held by time-expired coolies 
is only 32,000 acres or thereabouts. If the rew pro- 
verbial three acres and a cow be attributed to tho 
settlers, this gives us only about 10,000 imported cul- 
tivators in tbe Province, out of a population of some 
five millions, as the result of many years of migration, 
That so many as 10,000 (and our eetimate is prob- 
ably a low one) can be found goes to si ow that there 
is no inherent reason why coolies should not s»ve 
enough money to set up (armin? on their own 
account. Possibly coolies in time acquire a taste for 
an existence in the lines, as so'diers have bfen 
known to acqire a passion for barrack-life. It seems 
curious, however, to the independent observer that 
it is not possible to find out more accurately what 
becomes of coolies on the expiry of their agree- 
ments. Every coolie's history is probably known to 
his employer, and it would seem to be within the 
hmits of possible ingenuity to j)ut this information 
into a concise tabular from. 
The chief interest of the last Proviucial Report on 
Immigration lies, however, in the fact that immigra- 
tion into Assam has suffered a notable check ; not 
only is this the case, but planters, we are told go 
further afield for their labour. There is a marked 
increase in the importations from Madras, where the 
hilly parts of Ganjaia sflFord a field for recruitment 
not dissimilar to Chota Nagpur. The drain on 
Chota Nagpur seems to be telling at last, while 
gold mines and coal mines and other losal temp- 
tations probably provide a serious competition with 
the tfijrts of the agents of Assam planters. But 
Chota Nagpur was still far and away ahead of the 
other exporting districts in 1890. 
Tbe district of Sylhet, with a labour force of 
82,000, seems to have got all the labour it wants 
and recruits but iittle. This is the noore satisfactory 
that many of the largest tea gardens in Sylhet are 
comparativ'ely new. Probably the same is true of 
the neighbouring district of Cachar, which only in- 
creased its labour force by less than two per cent 
in 1890. Apparently many of the gardens in the 
Surma valley are favourably situated from a coolie's 
point ol view, are healthy, or well supplied with bazaar 
produce, circumstances which not only make it cheaper 
to import labour, but enable the managers to main- 
tain a larger labour force in proportion to the work 
to be done. This again helps to make the gardens 
popu'ar. On the other band, the great tea-planting | 
districts of upper Assam, which employ hard upon 
