Sept,  i,  1896.] 
THE  TROPICAL  AGRICULTURIST.  i75 
or  send  a inandore  to  India  to  collect  coolies.  For 
the  purpose  no  advance  is  given  except  for  expenses 
and  any  small  advance  which  the  cooly  has  to 
repay  is  placed  on  the  check  roll  and  the  ruandore 
has  nothing  to  collect  from  and  has  no  claim  over 
the  cooly.  I omitted  to  ask  what  inducement  the 
mandore  receives  to  collect  coolies.  The  natives  of 
Selangor  are  of  little  use  to  the  planter.  Chinese 
take  holing  contracts  and  Javanese  cut  the  deep 
drains  on  the  flat  lands  at  about  12  cents  a cubic 
yard,  the  drains  are  cut  before  the  jungle  is  felled, 
say  generally  in  10  chain  squares  and  three  and 
feet  deep.  Transport  is  good  but  expensive. — Briiiah 
North  Borneo  Herald,  July  1. 
INDIA  AS 
A FIELD  FOIi 
MEN  T.— TEA. 
INVEST- 
In  our  pages  some  seventeen  months  ago,  we 
gave  an  account  of  this  plant  based  on  a paper  read  at 
the  Society  of  Arts  by  Mr.  Stanton,  and  we  again 
turn  to  that  venerable  Institution  for  further  in- 
formation on  the  same  subject,  especially  as 
regards  the  development  of  tea  planting  in  the 
Dooars.  The  paper  read  on  4th  Mav  last  by  Mr. 
Geo.  W.  Christison,  before  Sir  Richard  iemple 
and  others,  was  good  itself  and  was  the  caiuse  of 
eloquence  in  its  hearers ; eloquence  to  which  we 
cannot  hope  to  aspire,  nor  can  we  pretend  to 
treat  the  subject  in  any  way  exhaustively,  seeing 
that  it  takes  up  six  pages  in  Balfour’s  Cyclopaedia 
(who  quotes  23  authorities)  while  Dr.  Watt  devotes 
eigthy-two  pages  of  his  Dictionary  to  the  Camellia 
Theifera,  of  which  his  authorities  or  references  take 
up  no  less  than  three  whole  pages.  By  the  way  it  is 
envious  [sic,  for  “curious’  ? En.  7.A.J  to  note 
that  both  these  great  authorities  give  the  Ger- 
man for  tea  as  Thi  whereas  it  should  be 
Thee.  And  further  some  three  months  ago  we 
ventured  to  give  a little  advice  to  the  planters,  a 
thing  we  had  seldom  done  before,  and  will  be  chaiy  of 
doing  too  often.  Our  purpose  is  now,  however,  not  so 
muc)i  to  give  a history  of  the  plant  or  a faithful  record 
of  work— but  to  show  to  those  fortunate  individuals 
who  havQ  more  money  than  they  know  what  to  do  with, 
that  they  might  invest  in  worse  speculations  than  m 
tea.  In  fact,  that  tea-planting  has  got  well  beyond  the 
speculative  region  and  that,  given  certain  well  known 
conditions,  there  is  nothing  pays  better  and  is  a more 
permanent  source  of  steady  income  than  a good 
^^S^RfSiard  Temple  only  did  them  bare  justice 
when  he  described  the  Himalayan  tea  planters  as 
the  pioneers  of  British  influence  and  \\  estern 
civilisation  in  regions  adjacent  to  Tibet  and  ^e 
Chinese  Empire.  “When  I look  at  him,’  said  Sir 
Richard,  referring  to  Mr.  Christison,  *•  I recall  the 
memories  of  the  glorious  views,  the  mighty  peak^ 
piercing  the  sky,  and  the  snowy  summits  and  the 
picturesqne  spur  on  which  the  Tukvar  plantation 
was  situated  right  over  one  of  the  affluents  of  the 
river  the  glorious  panorama  with  which  it  is  sur- 
rounded, the  magnificence  of  the  vegetable  kingdom, 
the  trees,  ferns,  and  flowering  shrubs.”  The  best 
soil  on  these  hills  is  found,  as  a rule,  from  2,.'i00  to 
5 000  feet,  though  the  plant  does  fairly  well  from 
C’OOO  to  even  7,000  feet  ; owing  to  the  broken  nature 
of  the  ground  the  roads  are  very  winding  and  can 
only  be  used  by  pack  animals  and  coolies,  still 
their  up-keep  is  very  expensive  in  proportion  to  the 
area  they  serve,  4J  miles  of  road  to  oOO  acres 
of  ground!  They  are  used  by  the  Forest  Depart- 
ment and  serve  vast  tracts  of  native  cultivation 
which  in  neither  case  contribute  malenally 
to  their  maintenance.  Valuable  as  the  Forest  De- 
partment unquestionably  is  “ profit  should  not  be 
its  chief  aim  ” and  if  it  were  charged  both  land 
revenue  and  road  cess  it  would  realise  all  the  more 
adeouatelv  “its  immense  reponsibilities  in  holding 
such  vast  territories.”  Of  llm  1,231  square  niUes 
comnosing  the  entire  area  of  the  Darjeeling  dis- 
trict the  Department  holds  438;  the  Government 
* March  2nd,  1895,  p.  127.  Yol.  XXIV. 
Cinchona  Department,  70 ; and  native  cultivators 
have  an  un-alienable  right  to  397,  leaving  only  329 
square  miles  as  grants  to  tea  cultivators.  Although 
hardly  any  land  on  the  kills  suitable  and  available 
for  tea  remains  unplaiited  in  the  old  hill  District 
only  “about  7.i  per  cent,  of  the  entire  district  is 
actually  bearing  tea  at  the  present  time.”  Of  the 
480  square  miles  forming  the  new  Daling  Hill 
District  no  less  than  421  square  miles  have  been 
reserved  by  Government  for  Forest,  Cinchona 
and  natives  ; of  the  remaining  05  reserved 
for  tea  grants  only  8 or  9 square  miles  have 
been  taken  up  for  the  purpose  and  of  thi.s  only  1,200 
acres,  and  these  close  to  the  Dooars,  have  been 
opened  out  in  spite  of  the  eagerness  for  these  grants. 
The  141  square  miles  reserved  for  natives  and  now 
largely  in  possession  of  Nepalis,  who  are  aliens,  and 
of  aborigines  and  semi-aborigines  in  smaller  propor- 
tion, consists  of  beautiful  slopes,  most  desirable  as  a 
place  of  residence  for  Europeans  and  is  as  suitable  a 
district  for  European  colonisation  as  can  be  found  any 
where  in  the  East.  The  pity  of  it ! Noia  the  land  has  been 
“ tortured,  impoverished  and  bared  of  forest  and 
would  require  to  be  allowed  to  lie  fallow  for  many 
years  before  it  would  be  suitable  for  growing  tea.” 
The  Terai,  measuring  271  square  miles,  was 
opened  out  with  “ inordinately  sanguine  expecta- 
tions ” and  at  present  “ has  become  unduly  depre- 
ciated in  public  estimation.”  The  climate  is 
undoubtedly  unhealthy,  but  “ under  an  improved 
water  supply  and  sanitation  this  district  should 
become  more  salubrious  and  with  liberal  and  suit- 
able cultivation,  and  efficient,  but  economical 
management,  the  Terai  should  yet  compete,  not 
unsuccessfully,  with  most  other  districts.” 
It  would  appear,  therefore,  that  the  only  exten- 
sion possible  on  a large  scale  is  tow'ards  the 
South-East,  where  in  the  Dooars,  there  is  enormous 
areas  capable  of  tea  cultivation,  where  the  land  is 
much  more  suitable  for  this  purpose  than  in  the 
Daling  Hills  as  it  piroduces  a vastly  larger  crop. 
Here  the  planter  w'ould  have  the  same  advantage 
with  regard  to  labour  as  his  neighbours.  To  quote 
Sir  Steuart  Baylcy,  ‘‘  The  Napalese  labourer 
had  probably  more  intelligence  and  industry  than 
those  of  any  other  ^lart  of  India  ; and  among  the 
advantages  which  the  Darjeeling  tea-planters  had 
over  their  neighbours  in  Assam — and  there  were 
many — was  the  fact  that  they  drew  their  labourers 
from  the  neighbouring  country.  “ As  pointed  out 
by  Sir  Charles  Elliott,”  the  two  Tukvar  gardens, 
including  the  one  over  which  Mr.  Christison 
presided,  were  instances  of  what  could  be  done  by 
good  management.  They  did  not  recruit  labour; 
they  bred  more  labour  than  they  could  employ. 
The  labourers  lived  upon  these  estates  permanently ; 
children  grew  up  there  and  magnified  to  such  an 
extent  that  one  of  the  chief  difficulties  w'as  to  find 
employment  in  the  garden  for  the  children  bred  on 
the  estates.”  The  only  rift  in  the  lute  is  that  Gov- 
ernment, according  to  the  planters’  story,  compete 
with  them  in  the  same  recruiting  ground  and  take 
the  pick  of  the  men  for  the  army  and  the  police, 
whereas  there  are  plenty  of  other  places  whence 
recruits  could  be  had  and  where  planters  or  their 
agents  come  not.  Sir  Charles  gave  the  official  view 
of  the  question.  “ The  immigration  from  Nepal 
referred  to  by  Mr.  Christison,”  he  said,  “w'as  em- 
ployed in  three  different  ways — part  went  on  to  the 
gardens  as  they  were  extended,  the  greatest  part  went 
on  to  the  land,  especially  independent  Sikkim,  where 
agricultural  extension  had  been  very  large ; and 
a small  portion  was  recruited  by  the  Government 
for  military  and  transport  service.  All  that  could 
be  done  was  to  try  and  arrange  that  the  competition 
should  not  be  an  unfair  one.”  In  the  Dooars  then 
we  have  climate  suitable  to  Europeans  and  to  the 
growing  of  tea,  we  have  good  soil  and  plenty  of  it, 
and  cheap,  abundant,  excellent  labour,  and,  further, 
every  new  tea-garden  laid  out  creates  a fi'esh  de- 
mand for  machinery.  For  it  is  by  the  use  of  machi- 
nery alone  that  India  and  Ceylon  has  ousted  the 
Chinese  products,  and  if  only  this  fact  should  be 
driven  into  the  heads  of  the  vast  host  of  tea-drinkers, 
the  sales  of  Chinese  teas  to  Europeans  at  any  rate 
would  dwindle  down  to  zero — that  is,  as  long  as 
