[iii]

THE
CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE
OF
TEA.

[v]

THE
CULTIVATION & MANUFACTURE
OF
TEA,

BY
LIEUT.-COL. EDWARD MONEY,

THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF WHICH SECURED THE PRIZE OF THE GRANT GOLD MEDAL AND Rs. 300, AWARDED BY THE AGRICULTURAL AND HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF INDIA IN THE YEAR 1871.

FOURTH EDITION,
REVISED AND SUPPLEMENTED BY ADDITIONAL CHAPTERS.

LONDON:
W. B. WHITTINGHAM & CO., 91, GRACECHURCH STREET.
CALCUTTA: THACKER & CO.
1883.

Six new Chapters are added. So much has been done in Tea since I last wrote, I found it impossible to embody all in the former book, and so preferred to give it separately. The new Chapters treat of—

• Countries outside China and India that produce Tea.
• Tea Statistics.
• Markets for Tea outside Great Britain.
• Making Indian Tea known in the United Kingdom.
• Tea Machinery.
• Weighing and Bulking of Indian Teas at Custom House.

A separate and full Index of the subjects treated of in the additions to this Fourth Edition will be found at the end of the Book.

EDWARD MONEY.

East India Club, St. James’s Square,
July, 1883.

[ix]

PREFACE
TO
THE THIRD EDITION.

The experience of four more years, which includes six months’ residence in the Neilgherries, is embodied in the following, while the whole of the letter-press of the Second Edition has been corrected and revised.

EDWARD MONEY.

London,
April, 1878.

[xi]

PREFACE
TO
THE SECOND EDITION.

Three years’ further experience, and visiting two Tea districts I had not seen before, have enabled me to amend whatever was faulty in the First Edition. The whole has been revised, and much new matter is added throughout. A new Chapter at the end on the Past, the Present, and the Future of Indian Tea will, it is hoped, be found interesting. An Index (a great want to the First Edition) is added, so that all information on any point can be at once found. The manufacture of Green Tea, of which I was ignorant when I last wrote, is given, and the advisability of that manufacture is discussed.

In its present form I hope and believe this little work will be found useful and interesting to all connected with Tea.

EDWARD MONEY.

Darjeeling,
May, 1874.

[xiii]

PREFACE
TO
THE FIRST EDITION.

The following Essay was written with, firstly, the object of competing for the Gold Medal and the Money Prize offered by the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India for the best treatise on the cultivation and manufacture of Tea; and, secondly, with the view of arranging the hundreds of notes on these subjects, which, in the course of eleven years, I had collected.

During all these years I have been a Tea planter, making first for myself and others a garden in the Himalayas, and for the last six years doing the same thing for myself in the Chittagong district.

Whenever I have visited other plantations (and I have seen a great number in many districts), I have brought away notes of all I saw. Up to the last, at every such visit, I have learnt something—if rarely nothing to follow, something at least to avoid. I have now tested all and everything connected with the cultivation and manufacture of Tea by my[xiv] own experience, and I can only hope that what I have written will be found useful to an industry destined yet, I believe, in spite of the late panic—the natural result of wild speculation—to play an important part in India.

I have endeavoured to adapt this Essay to the wants of a beginner, as there are many of that class now, and may yet be more in days to come, who must feel, as I often have, the want of a really practical work on Tea.

To those who have Tea properties in unlikely climates and unlikely sites, I would say two words. No view I have taken of the advantages of different localities can in any way affect the results of enterprises already entered upon. But if the note of warning, sounded in the following pages, checks further losses in Tea, already so vast, while it fosters the cultivation on remunerative sites, I shall not have written in vain.

EDWARD MONEY.

Sungoo River Plantation,
Chittagong,
November, 1870.

[xv]

CONTENTS

Nothing was known of Tea formerly, when everybody rushed into it; not much is known even now. Still, with those drawbacks and many others, the enterprise has survived, and it is very certain the day will never come that Tea cultivation will cease in India.

I believe there is nothing will pay better than Tea, if embarked on with the necessary knowledge in suitable[2] places, but failing either of these success must not be hoped for.

It was madness to expect aught but ruin, under the conditions which the cultivation was entered on in the Tea-fever days. People who had failed in everything else were thought quite competent to make plantations. ’Tis true Tea was so entirely a new thing at that time, but few could be found who had any knowledge of it. Still, had managers with some practice in agriculture been chosen, the end would not have been so disastrous. But any one—literally any one—was taken, and tea planters in those days were a strange medley of retired or cashiered army and navy officers, medical men, engineers, veterinary surgeons, steamer captains, chemists, shop-keepers of all kinds, stable-keepers, used-up policemen, clerks, and goodness knows who besides!

Is it strange the enterprise failed in their hands? Would it not have been much stranger if it had not?

This was only one of the many necessities for failure. I call them “necessities” as they appear to have been so industriously sought after in some cases. I must detail them shortly, for to expatiate on them would fill a book.

No garden should exceed 500 acres under Tea. If highly cultivated one of even half that size will pay enormously, far better than a larger area with low cultivation. Add, say, 400 acres for charcoal, &c., making 900 or say 1,000 acres the outside area that can be required, and the outside that should ever have been purchased for any one estate. Instead of this, individuals and Companies rushing into Tea bought tracts of five, ten, fifteen, and twenty thousand acres. The idea was that, though it might not be all cultivated, by taking up so large an area all the local labour where there was any would be secured. Often, however, these large tracts were purchased where local labour there was none,[3] and what the object there was is a mystery. I conceive, however, there was a hazy idea that if 500 acres paid well, 1,000 would pay double, and that eventually even two or three thousand acres would be put under Tea and make the fortunate possessor a millionaire. In short, there were no bounds, in fancy, to the size a garden might be made, and thus loss No. 2 took place when absurdly large areas were bought of the Government and large areas cultivated.

The only fair rules for the sale of waste lands were those of Lord Canning, which the Secretary of State at home, who could know nothing of the subject, chose to modify and upset. Instead of Rs. 2-8 per acre for all waste lands (by no means a low price, when the cost of land in the Colonies is considered) and that the applicant for the land (who had, perhaps, spent months seeking for it) should have it, the illiberal and unjust method of putting the land up to auction with an upset price of Rs. 2-8 was adopted, the unfortunate seeker, finder, and applicant, through whose labour the land had been found, having no advantage over any other bidder. The best, at least the most successful plan in those days, though as unfair and illiberal as the Government action, was to wait till some one, who was supposed to know what good Tea land was, applied for a piece, and then bid half an anna more than he did, and thus secure it. It paid much better than hunting about for oneself, and it was kind and considerate on the part of Government to devise such a plan!

In those fever days, with the auction system, lands almost always sold far above their value. The most absurd prices, Rs. 10 and upwards per acre, were sometimes paid for wild jungle lands. Tracts, which natives could have, and in some cases did lease from Government for inconceivably small sums, representing, say, at thirty years’ purchase, 4 annas per acre, were put up for auction with a[4] limit of Rs. 2-8, and sold perhaps at Rs. 8 or 10 per acre. Had the Government given land gratis to Tea cultivators the policy would have been a wise one. To do what they did was scarcely acting up to their professed wish “to develope the resources of the country.”

Since the above was written, new rules have been published for the sale of waste lands. The objectionable auction system is continued, and the upset price is much enhanced, as follows:—

Schedule of Rates of Upset Prices.

It is not likely that Government will sell much land at such exorbitant rates.[1]

Security of title, it is generally thought, is one of the advantages of buying land from the State; but I grieve to state my experience is that the reverse is the case, and will so remain until the following is done:—

First. The Government should learn what is and what is not theirs to sell. Such an absurdity, then, as Government ascertaining, years after the auction, that they had sold lands they had no right to sell, could not be.

Secondly. That before land is sold it be properly surveyed and demarcated; and what might so easily have been done, and which alone would have compensated for much of bad procedure in other respects, that the simple and obvious plan before the sale, of sending a European official to show[5] the neighbouring villagers and intending purchasers the boundaries of the land to be sold, be resorted to.

This last simple expedient would have saved some grantees years of litigation, and many a hard thought of the said grantees against the Government. It would naturally occur to any one at all conversant with the subject; but, alas! in India this is often not the condition under which laws are made.

But there is another difficulty at the back of all this.

Though the Waste Land Rules enact that the Government, and not the grantee, shall be the defendant in any claim for land within a lot sold, practically the said enactment in no way saves grantees from litigation. Claimants for land always plead that it is not within the boundaries of the land sold, and ergo the grantee is made the defendant to prove that it is. The villagers never having been shown the boundaries by any Government official (for it is not enacted in the Waste Land Rules), the question whether the land claimed is within or without the boundaries is an open one, not always easily decided, and the suit runs its course.

I even know of cases where, though survey has been charged for at the exorbitant rate of four annas an acre, the outer boundaries of the lot have never been surveyed at all, but merely copied from old Collectorate maps, which showed the boundaries between the zemindaree and waste lands.[2] Is it strange, then, if buying lands from Government is often buying litigation, worry, loss of time and money.

In many countries, for example Prussia (there I know it is so, for I have tested it again and again), there are official records which can and do show to whom any land in question belongs. This may scarcely be practicable in India, but surely the question of title being, as it is, in a far worse[6] state in India than in most countries, any change would be for the better. Anyhow, the present mode the Government adopts in selling lands is a grievous wrong to the purchasers. Words cannot describe the worry and loss some have suffered thereby, and it might all be so easily avoided.

I have above detailed two of the drawbacks Tea had to contend with in its infancy; the absurdly high price paid for land was the third.

Again, companies and proprietors of gardens wishing to have large areas under cultivation gave their managers simple orders to extend, not judiciously, but in any case. What was the result? Gardens might be seen in those days with 200 acres of so-called cultivation, but with 60 or even 70 per cent. vacancies, in which the greater part of the labour available was employed in clearing jungle for 100 acres further extension in the following spring. I have seen no garden in Assam or Cachar with less than 20 per cent. vacancies, many with far more; and yet most of them were extending. I do not believe now any garden in all India exists with less than 12 per cent. vacancies, but a plantation as full as this did not exist formerly.

As the expenditure on a garden is in direct proportion to the area cultivated, and the yield of Tea likewise in direct proportion to the number of plants, it follows the course adopted was the one exactly calculated to entail the greatest expenditure for the smallest yield. This unnecessary, this wilful extension, was the fourth and a very serious drawback.

Under this head the fourth drawback may also be included—the fact that the weeds in all plantations were ahead of the labour; that is to say, that gardens were not kept clean. This is more or less even the case to-day; it was the invariable rule then. The consequence was two-fold—first, a small yield of Tea; secondly, an increased[7] expenditure; for it is a fact that the land fifty men can keep always clean, if the weeds are never allowed to grow to maturity and seed, will take nearer one hundred if the weeds once get ahead. The results, too, differ widely: in the first case the soil is always clear; in the second clear only at intervals. The first, as observed, can be accomplished with fifty, the latter will take nearly double the men.

The fifth drawback I shall advert to again later, viz., the selection of sloping land, often the steepest that could be found, on which to plant Tea. The great mischief thus entailed will be fully described elsewhere. It was the fifth, and not the least, antagonistic point to success.

Number six was the difficulty in the transport of seed to any new locality, for nine times out of ten a large proportion failed; and again the enormous cost of Tea seed in those days, Rs. 200 a maund (Rs. 500 at least, deducting what failed, was its real price). This item of seed alone entailed an enormous outlay, and was the sixth difficulty Tea cultivation had to contend with. It was, however, a source of great profit to the old plantations, and principally accounts for the large dividends paid for years by the Assam Company.

Again, many managers at that time had no experience to guide them in the manufacture of Tea; each made it his own way, and often turned out most worthless stuff. There is great ignorance on the subject at the present time, but those who know least to-day, know more than the best informed in the Tea-fever period. Indian Tea was a new thing then; the supply was small, and it fetched comparatively much higher prices than it does now. Still much of it was so bad that the average price all round was low.

Tea manufacture, moreover, as generally practised then,[8] was a much more elaborate and expensive process than it is now.

This will be explained further on, under the head of “Tea Manufacture;” I merely now state the fact in support of the assertion that the bad Tea made in those days, and the expensive way it was done, was the seventh hindrance to successful Tea cultivation.

Often in those days was a small garden made of 30 or 40 acres, and sold to a Company as 150 or 200 acres! I am not joking. It was done over and over again. The price paid, moreover, was quite out of proportion to even the supposed area. Two or three lakhs of rupees (20,000l. or 30,000l.) have been often paid for such gardens, when not more than two years old, and 40 per cent. of the existing area, vacancies. The original cultivators “retired” and the Company carried on. With such drags upon them (apart from all the other drawbacks enumerated) could success be even hoped for? Certainly not.

I could tell of more difficulties the cultivation had to contend with at the outset, but I have said enough to show, as I remarked, “that it was not strange Tea enterprise failed, inasmuch as it would have been much stranger if it had not.”

Do any of the difficulties enumerated exist now? And may a person embarking in Tea to-day hope, with reasonable hope, for success? Yes, certainly, I think as regard the latter—the former let us look into.[3]

People who understand more or less of Tea are plentiful, and a good manager, who knows Tea cultivation and Tea manufacture well, may be found. It will scarcely pay to[9] buy land of the Government at the present high rates, but many people hold large tracts in good Tea localities, and would readily sell.

There is plenty of flat land to be got, so no evil from slopes need be incurred.

Tea seed is plentiful and cheap.

The manufacture of Tea (though still progressing) is simple, economical, and more or less known. Anyhow a beginner now will commence where others have left off.

Of course to buy a made garden cheap is better than to make one; but the result in this case is of course no criterion of what profit may be expected from Tea cultivation.

As many of the items to be calculated under the heads of cultivation, manufacture, and receipts will be better understood after details on these subjects are gone into, I shall reserve the consideration of “how much profit Tea can give” to the end of this treatise.

When the very large amount of labour required to carry on a plantation is considered, it is evident that facilities for it are a sine quâ non to success. Assam and Cachar, the two largest Tea districts, are very thinly populated, and almost entirely dependent on imported labour.[4] The expense of this is great, and it is the one, and consequently a great drawback to those provinces. The only district I know of with a good Tea climate and abundance of local labour is Chittagong.[5] Several other places have a good supply of local labour, but then their climates are not very suitable.

Each coolie imported costs Rs. 30 and upwards (it used to be much more) ere he arrives on the garden and does any work. After arrival he has to be housed; to be cared for and physicked when sick; to be paid when ill as when working; to have work found for him, or paid to sit idle when there is no work; and in addition to all this every death, every desertion, is a loss to the garden of the whole sum expended in bringing the man or woman. Contrast this with the advantages of local labour. In many cases no expense for buildings is necessary, as the labourers come daily to work from adjacent villages, and in such cases no expense is entailed by sick men, for these simply remain at home. There is no loss by death or desertions. When no[11] work is required on the garden, labour is simply not employed. All this makes local labour, even where the rate of wages is high, very much cheaper than imported.

The action of Government in the matter of imported labour has much increased the difficulties and expense necessarily attendant on it. It is a vexed and a very long question which I care not to enter into minutely, for it has been discussed already ad nauseam; still I must put on record my opinion, after looking very closely into it, that the Government has not acted wisely, inasmuch as any State interference in the relations of employer and employed (outside the protection which the existing laws give) is a radical mistake. As for the law passed on the subject to the effect that a coolie who has worked out his agreement and voluntarily enters into a new one shall be, as before, under Government protection, and his employer answerable as before to Government, for the way he is housed, treated when sick, &c., it is not easy to see why such enactments are more necessary in his case than in that of any other hired servant or labourer throughout all India.

All evidence collected, all enquiries made, tend to show that coolies are well treated on Tea estates. It is the interest of the proprietors and managers to do so, and self-interest is a far more powerful inducement than any the Government can devise. The meddling caused by the visits of the “Protector of Coolies”[6] to a garden conduces to destroy the kind feelings which should (and in spite of these hindrances often do) exist between the proprietor or manager and his men. I do not hesitate in my belief that imported coolies on Tea plantations would be better off in many ways were all Government interference abolished.

[12]

I do not decry Government action to the extent of seeing the coolies understand their terms of engagements, and are cared for on their journey to the Tea districts; but once landed on the garden, all Government interference should cease.

The idea of the State laying down how many square yards of jungle each coolie shall clear in a day, how many square feet he shall dig, &c., &c.! Can any certain rates be laid down for such work? Is all jungle the same, all soil the same; and even if such rates could be laid down, how can the rules be followed? Bah! they are not, never will be, and the whole thing is too childish for serious discussion.

It is not difficult to sit at a desk and frame laws and rules that look feasible on paper. It is quite another thing to carry them out. Over-legislation is a crying evil in India, but there is still a worse, namely, legislation and official action on subjects of which the said officials are utterly ignorant.

I have said enough to show imported labour cannot vie with local, nor would it do so were all the evils of Government interference removed. I therefore believe Tea property in India will eventually pay best where local labour exists. This will naturally be the case when other conditions are equal, but so great are the advantages of local labour, I believe it will also be the case in spite of moderate drawbacks.

The Tea districts in India, that is, where Tea is grown in India to-day, are—[7]

• 1. Assam.
• 2. The Dehra Dhoon.
• 3. Kumaon (Himalayas).
• 4. Darjeeling (Himalayas).
• 5. Cachar and Sylhet.[8]
• 6. Kangra (Himalayas).
• 7. Hazareebaugh.
• 8. Chittagong.
• 9. Terai below Darjeeling.
• 10. Neilgherries (Madras Hills).
• 11. Western Dooars.

In fixing on any district to plant Tea in, four things have to be considered—viz., soil, climate, labour, and means of transport. When—the district being selected—a site has to be chosen, all but the second of these have to be considered again, and the lay of land, nature of jungle, water, and sanitation are also of great importance in choosing a site.

I will first, then, discuss generally the Tea districts given[14] above as regards the advantages of each for Tea cultivation. I have seen and studied Tea gardens in all the districts named, except No. 2. What I know of the Dehra Dhoon is from what I have read, and what is generally known of the climate.

Before, however, comparing each district, we should know what are the necessities of the Tea plant as regards climate and soil. Tea, especially the China variety, will grow in very varying climates and soils, but it will not flourish in all of them, and if it does not flourish, and flourish well, it will certainly not pay.

The climate required for Tea is a hot damp one. As a rule, a good Tea climate is not a healthy one. The rainfall should not be less than 80 to 100 inches per annum, and the more of this that falls in the early part of the year the better. Any climate which, though possessing an abundant rainfall, suffers from drought in the early part of the year is not, cæteris paribus, so good as one where the rain is more equally diffused. All the Tea districts would yield better with more rain in February, March, and April; and therefore some, where fogs prevail in the mornings at the early part of the year, are so far benefited.

As any drought is prejudicial to Tea, it stands to reason hot winds must be very bad. These winds argue great aridity, and the Tea plant luxuriates in continual moisture.

The less cold weather experienced where Tea is, the better for the plant. It can stand, and will grow in, great cold (freezing point, and lower in winter, is found in some places where Tea is), but I do not think it will ever be grown to a profit on such sites. That Tea requires a temperate climate was long believed and acted upon by many to their loss. The climate cannot be too hot for Tea if the heat is accompanied with moisture.

Tea grown in temperate climes, such as moderate eleva[15]tions in the Himalayas, is quite different to the Tea of hot moist climates, such as Eastern Bengal. Some people like it better, and certainly the flavour is more delicate; but it is very much weaker, and the value of Indian Tea (in the present state of the home market, where it is principally used for giving “body” to the washy stuff from China) consists in its strength. Another all-important point in fixing on a climate for Tea is the fact, that apart from the strength the yield is double in hot, moist climes, what it is in comparatively dry and temperate ones. A really pleasant climate to live in cannot be a good one for Tea. I may now discuss the comparative merits of the different Tea districts.

Assam.

This is the principal home of the indigenous plant. The climate in the northern portions is perfect, superior to the southern, as more rain falls in the spring. The climate of the whole of Assam, however, is very good for Tea. The Tea plant yields most abundantly when hot sunshine and showers intervene. For climate, then, I accord the first place to Northern Assam. Southern Assam is, as observed, a little inferior.

The soil of this province is decidedly rich. In many places there is a considerable coating of decayed vegetation on the surface, and inasmuch as in all places where Tea has been or is likely to be planted it is strictly virgin soil, considerable nourishment exists. The prevailing soil also is light and friable, and thus, with the exception of the rich oak soil in parts of the Himalayas, Assam in this respect is second to none.

As regards labour we must certainly put it the last on the list. The Assamese, and they are scanty, won’t work, so the planters, with few exceptions, are dependent[16] on imported coolies; and inasmuch as the distance to bring them is enormous, the outlay on this head is large, and a sad drawback to successful Tea cultivation.

The Burhampootra—that vast river which runs from one end of Assam to the other—gives an easy mode of export for the Tea, but still, owing to the distance from the sea-board, it cannot rank in this respect as high as some others.

Cachar.

The indigenous Tea is also found in a part of this province. The climate differs but little from Assam. In one respect it is better; more rain falls in the spring.

The soil is not equal to Assamese soil; it is more sandy, and lacks the power. Again, there is much more flat land fit for Tea cultivation in Assam, and there can be no doubt as to the advantage of level surfaces.

As regards transport Cachar has the advantage, for it has equally a water-way, and is not so distant from Calcutta.

The labour aspect is much the same in the two provinces, both being almost entirely dependent on imported coolies; but Cachar is nearer the labour fields than Assam.

However, after discussing separately the advantages of each province, I propose to draw up a tabular statement, which will show at a glance the comparative merits of each on each point discussed.

Chittagong.

This is a comparatively new locality for Tea. The climate is better than Cachar in the one respect that there[17] is less cold weather, but inferior in the more important fact that much less rain falls in the spring. In this latter respect it is also inferior to Assam, particularly to Northern Assam. There is one part of Chittagong, the Hill Tracts (Tea has scarcely been much tried there yet), which, in the fact of spring rains, is superior to other parts of the province, as also in soil, for it is much richer there. On the whole, however, Chittagong must yield the palm to both Assam and Cachar on the score of climate, and also, I think, of soil. For though good rich tracts are occasionally met with, they are not so plentiful as in the two last-named districts. Always, however, excepting the Hill Tracts of Chittagong; there the soil is, I think, quite equal to either Assam or Cachar.

As regards labour (a very essential point to successful Tea cultivation), Chittagong is most fortunate. With few exceptions (and those only partial) all the plantations are carried on with local labour, which—excepting for about two months, the rice-time—is abundant.

For transport (being on the coast with a convenient harbour, a continually increasing trade, ships also running direct to and from England), it is very advantageously situated.

Chittagong possesses another advantage over all other Tea districts in its large supply of manure. The country is thickly populated, and necessarily large herds of cattle exist. The natives do not use manure for rice (almost the sole cultivation), and, consequently, planters can have it almost for the asking. The enormous advantages of manure in Tea cultivation are not yet generally appreciated: it will certainly double the ordinary yield of a Tea garden. A chapter is devoted to this subject.

[18]

Terai below Darjeeling.

I have seen this, and the Tea in it, since I wrote the first edition of this Essay.

The soil is very good for Tea. The climate is also a good one, but there is not as much rain in the early part of the year as planters could wish. Much difficulty exists about labour, owing to the very unhealthy climate. As the jungle is cleared, however, this last objection will be in a measure got over. As it stands now, it is perhaps the most unhealthy Tea locality in India.

Communication will be very easy when the Northern Bengal Railway is finished, which it will be immediately.

Except in the point of salubrity (which is, however, an important one), I think this locality a favourable one for Tea.

The Dehra Dhoon.

I have heard the first Tea in India was planted here. The lucky men, two officers, who commenced the plantation, sold it, I believe, in its infancy, to a company for five lakhs of rupees. What visions did Tea hold forth in those days!

In climate the Dehra Dhoon is far from good. The hot dry weather of the North-west is not at all suited to the Tea plant. Hot winds shrivel it up, and though it recovers when the rains come down, it cannot thrive in such a climate. One fact will, I think, prove this. In favourable climates, with good soil and moderate cultivation, 18 flushes or crops may be taken from a plantation in a season. With like advantages, and heavy manuring, 22 or even more may be had. In the “Selections from the Records of the Government of India” on Tea, published in 1857 (a book[19] to which many owe their ruin), the following appears, showing how small are the number of flushes in the North-west:—

When this was written, the experience detailed related to Dehra Dhoon, the Kumaon, and Kangra gardens, and we see that five flushes or gatherings are thought good. It however makes matters in this respect (far from a general fault in the said “Records”) worse than they are. Ten and twelve flushes, with high cultivation, can be got in the North-west. But what is this as against twenty and twenty-five?

Labour is plentiful and cheap. The great distance from the coast makes transport very expensive.

Kangra.

This is a charming valley, with a delightful climate[20] more favourable to Tea than the Dehra Dhoon, still it is not a perfect Tea climate. It is too dry and too cold. The soil is good for Tea, better than that of the Dhoon, but inferior to some rich soils in the Himalayan oak forests. Local labour is obtainable at cheap rates. Distance makes transport for export very difficult; but a good local market now exists in the Punjab, and a good deal of Tea is bought at the fairs, and taken away by the wild tribes over the border. With the limited cultivation there, I should hope planters will find a market for all their produce. Manure must be obtainable (manure had not been thought of for Tea when I visited Kangra), and if liberally applied, it will increase the yield greatly.

Kangra is strictly a Himalayan district, but the elevation is moderate, if I remember right, about 3,000 feet, and the land is so slightly sloping it may almost be called level. A great advantage this over the steep lands, on which most of the Himalayan gardens, many in Cachar, and some in Assam and Chittagong, are planted.

Kangra is not the best place for a man who wants to make money by Tea; but for one who would be content to settle there, and content to make a livelihood by it, a more desirable spot with a more charming climate could not be found. Land, however, is not easily procured.

The Teas produced in Kangra are of a peculiarly delicate flavour, and are consequently highly esteemed in the London market.

Darjeeling.

This, too, I have seen since I published the first edition of this Essay. The elevation of the station, 6,900[21] feet, is far too great; but plantations lower down do tolerably well (that is, well for hill gardens). The climate, like all hill climates, is too cold. As regards transport the Darjeeling plantations will be well situated when the railroad now constructing is finished. Like elevations in Darjeeling and Kumaon are in favour of the former, first, because the latitude is less; secondly, because Darjeeling has much more rain in the spring. I believe, therefore, that the hill plantations of Darjeeling have a better chance of paying than the gardens in Kumaon, but, as stated before, no elevated gardens, that is, none in the Himalayas, have any chance in the race against plantations in the plains, always providing the latter are in a good Tea climate.

In two respects, however, Darjeeling is behind Kumaon. The soil is not so good, and the land is much steeper. It is more than absurd, some of the steeps on which Tea is planted in the former; and such precipices can, I am sure, never pay. Gardens, barely removed above the Terai (and there are such in Darjeeling), can scarcely be called “elevated,” and for them the remarks applied to the Terai are more fitting. As a broad rule it should be recognised that the lower Tea is planted in the Himalayas the better chance it has.

All the plants in the Darjeeling gardens, with but few exceptions, are China.

The China plant makes by far the best Green Tea, and I believe the Darjeeling gardens would pay much better than they do if they altered their manufacture from black to green. (See further on, under the head of Hazareebaugh, what has been done in this way.) All Himalayan gardens should, in my opinion, make Green Tea (Kumaon has awoke to the fact), for all have China plants, and can therefore make far better Green Tea than can be[22] produced from the Hybrid which is so general in plain gardens.[9]

Kumaon.

It was in this district (a charming climate to live in, with magnificent scenery to gaze at) I first planted Tea in India, and I much wish for my own sake, and that of others, I had not done so. I knew nothing of Tea at the time, and I thought a district selected by Government for inaugurating the cultivation must necessarily be a good one. No hill climate can be a good one for Tea; but the inner part of Kumaon, very cold, owing to its elevation, high latitude, and distance from the plains, is a peculiarly bad one. Yet there it was Government made nurseries, distributed seed gratis, recommended the site for Tea (see the “Records” alluded to), and led many on to their ruin by doing so. The intention of the Government was good, but the officers in charge of the enterprise were much to blame, perhaps not for making the mistake at first (no one at the first knew what climate was suitable), but for perpetuating the mistake, when later very little enquiry would have revealed the truth. I believe it was guessed at by Government officials long ago, but it was easier to sing the old tune; and a very expensive song it has proved to many.[10]

I need scarcely, after this, add that I do not approve of Kumaon for Tea. An exhilarating and bracing climate for man is not suited to the Tea plant. The district has[23] one solitary advantage—rich soil. I have never seen richer, more productive land than exists in some of the Kumaon oak forests, but even this cannot in the case of Tea counter-balance the climate. Any crop which does not require much heat and moisture will grow to perfection in that soil. Such potatoes as it produces! Were the difficulties of transport not so great, a small fortune might be made by growing them.

Could any part of Kumaon answer for Tea it would be the lower elevations in the outer ranges of the hills, but these are precisely the sites that have not been chosen. Led, as in my own case, partly by the Government example, partly by the wish to be out of sight of the “horrid plains,” and in sight of that glorious panorama the snowy range, planters have chosen the interior of Kumaon. Some wisely (I was not one of them) selected low sites, valleys sheltered from the cold winds; but even their choice has not availed much. The frost in winter lingers longest in the valleys, and though doubtless the yield there is larger, owing to the increased heat in summer, the young plants suffer much in the winter. The outer ranges, owing to the heat radiating from the plains, are comparatively free from frost, but there again the soil is not so rich. Still they would unquestionably be preferable to the interior.

Labour is plentiful in Kumaon and very cheap—Rs. 4 per mensem. Transport is very expensive. It costs not a little to send Tea from the interior over divers ranges of hills to the plains. It has then some days’ journey by cart ere it meets the rail, to which 1,000 miles of carriage on the railroad has to be added.

Since the above was written, Kumaon has secured a good local market, and I believe sells most of its Tea unpacked to merchants who come from over the border to buy it.

[24]

It has also improved its position greatly by making Green Teas, for which, as observed before, the China plant is so well fitted. With those two advantages, though the climate is inferior, I suspect that Tea there now pays better than in Darjeeling.

Gurhwall is next to Kumaon, and so similar that I have not thought it necessary to discuss it separately. The climate is the same, the soil as a rule not so good. There is one exception though, a plantation near “Lohba,” the Teas of which (owing, I conceive, to its peculiar soil) command high prices in the London market. The gardens, both in Kumaon and Gurhwall, have been generally much better cared for than those in Eastern Bengal. As a rule they are private properties managed by the owners.

Hazareebaugh.

This district I have resided in since I wrote the first edition of this Essay. The climate is too dry, and hot winds are felt there. A great compensation, though, is labour; it is more abundant and cheaper in this district than in any other. The carriage is all by land, and it is some distance to the rail. But the Tea gardens at Hazareebaugh can never vie with those in Eastern Bengal, inasmuch as the climate is very inferior. The soil is very poor.

Neilgherries.

The climate is superior to the Himalayan, for the frost is very slight. Were, however, more heat there in summer, it would be better.

Some of the Teas have sold very well in the London[25] market, for as regards delicacy of flavour they take a high place.

The soil is good, but the temperate climate which holds on these “blue mountains” is not favourable to a large produce.

Western Dooars.

When the second edition of this work was printed, this district was unknown as Tea locality.

My attention was directed to it in 1874; I was the second who planted Tea in it, and I have now completed a garden there.

As regards climate, soil, and lay of land, it is perfect, and I believe it will eventually prove the most paying district in India for Tea.

The Northern Bengal Railway, just opened, gives it great advantages for transport.

Having now discussed each district, all of which, except the Dehra Dhoon, I have seen, I give, in further elucidation, Meteorological Tables. For those not mentioned in the tables I have failed to acquire the necessary information.

My thanks are due to Dr. Coates, at Hazareebaugh, for his kindness in supplying me with much of the data from which the following tables are framed:—

[26]

TABLE OF ELEVATION AND TEMPERATURE OF TEA LOCALITIES.

N.B.—The exact temperature of other Tea Districts not being known, I have confined myself to these; but general remarks on the elevation and temperature of other Tea localities will be found elsewhere.

[27] N.B.—The letters in the columns, between December and the year, refer to months; thus, D. J. F. is December, January, February. The figures show the average temperature during those months.

[28]

TABLE OF LATITUDE, LONGITUDE, AND RAINFALL OF TEA LOCALITIES.

N.B.—The exact rainfalls of other Tea Districts not being known, I have confined myself to these; but general remarks on the rainfall in other Tea localities will be found elsewhere.

[30]

I will now endeavour to draw up a tabular statement of the respective advantages of the various Tea districts as regards climate, labour, lay of land, soil, facilities of procuring manure and transport.

In importance I regard them in the order given. I place labour before soil, because the fact is, in all the provinces suitable and good soil for Tea can be found somewhere; and therefore, while soil is all important in selecting a site, it is secondary to labour in deciding on a district. Lay of land comes after labour. When my information on any point is not sure I place a note of interrogation. Where advantages are equal, or nearly so, I give the same number, and the greater the advantage of a district on the point treated in the column the smaller the number. Thus, under the head of Climate, Assam is marked 1.

As the following table gives no information as to which of all the districts possesses the greatest advantages, all things considered, but only gives my opinion of each under each head, and the subject closed in this way would be unsatisfactory, I may state that, in my opinion, the choice should lie between the three first and the last on the list; and my choice would be the last.

Comparative advantages of the Tea Districts in India as regards climate, labour, lay of land, soil, manure, and transport.

To pronounce as precisely on soil as to climate is not easy. The Tea plant will grow on almost any soil, and will flourish on many. Still there are broad general rules to be laid down in the selection of soils for Tea, which no one can ignore with impunity.

When first I turned my attention to Tea, I collected soils from many gardens, noting in each case how the plants flourished. I then sat down to examine them, never doubting to arrive at some broad practical conclusions. I was sadly disappointed. I found the most opposing soils nourished, apparently, equally good plants. I knew not then much about Tea, and judged of the Tea bushes mostly by the size (a very fallacious test); still, after-experience has convinced me I was more or less right in the conclusion I then came to, that several soils are good for Tea.

Nothing, then, but broad general rules can be laid down on this point, for I defy anyone to select any one soil as the best for Tea, to the exclusion of others.

A light sandy loam is perhaps as good a soil as any out of the Himalayas. It ought to be deep, and the more decayed vegetable matter there is lying on its surface the better. If deep enough for the descent of the tap-root, say 3 feet, it matters not much what the subsoil is, otherwise a yellowish red subsoil is an advantage. This subsoil is generally a mixture of clay and sand. Much of Assam, Cachar, and Chittagong is as the above, but, as a rule, it is richest in Assam, poorest in Chittagong.

[32]

Where the loam is of a greasy nature (very different to clay), with a mixture of sand in it, it is superior to the above, for it has more body. All good Tea soils must have a fair proportion of sand, and if not otherwise apparent, it may be detected by mixing a little of the soil with spittle and rubbing it on the hand. If the hand be then held up towards the sun, the particles of sand will be seen to glisten.

The soil so common in Kumaon, that is, light rich loam with any amount of decayed vegetable matter on it, and with a ferruginous reddish yellowish subsoil, is, I consider, the finest soil in the world for Tea. The rich decayed vegetable matter is the produce for centuries of oak leaves in the Himalayan forests, and, as all the world knows, oak only grows in temperate climes.

It was long believed that Tea would thrive best on poor soil. The idea was due to the description of Tea soils in China to be found in the first books that treated of Tea. But the fact that Tea, as a rule, is only grown in China on soil which is useless for anything else quite alters the case. If a soil is light and friable enough, it cannot be too rich for Tea.

Ball’s book “On the Cultivation and Manufacture of Tea in China” has much on Tea soils, but the opinions the author collected are sadly at variance, and on the whole teach nothing.

In conclusion, I will attempt to point out the qualities in soils in which the Tea plant delights, as also the qualities it abhors.

It loves soils friable, that is, easily divided into all their atoms. This argues a fair proportion of sand, but this should not be in excess, or the soil will be poor. The soil should be porous—imbibing and parting with water freely. The more decayed vegetable matter on its surface the better.

[33]

To be avoided are stiff soils of every kind, as also those which when they dry, after rain, cake together and split. Avoid also black-coloured, or even dark-coloured earths. All soils good for the Tea plant are light coloured. If, however, the dark colour arises from decayed vegetation, that is not the colour of the soil, and, as observed, vegetable matter is a great advantage. Judge of colour when soil is dry—for even light-coloured soil looks dark when wet. Soil which will make bricks will not grow Tea; and though I have sometimes seen young plants thrive on stiff soil, I do not believe in any stiff soil as a permanence.

Stones, if not in excess, are advantageous in all soils inclined to be stiff, for they help to keep them open. But then they must not be large, as if so they act as badly as a rocky substratum preventing the descent of the tap-root.

The reason, I take it, why Tea thrives best in light soils is that the spongioles or ends of the feeding roots are very tender, and do not easily penetrate any other.

There is more nourishment in stiffer soils, but for this reason the Tea plant cannot take advantage of it.

If a chosen soil be too stiff, it may be much improved for Tea by mixing sand with it. However, even where sand is procurable near, the expense of this is great. When done, the sand should be mixed with the soil taken out of the holes in which the plants are to be placed (see Transplanting), and it may be done again later by placing sand round the plants and digging it in. All this though is extra labour and very expensive, so none but a good Tea soil should ever be selected, and it is very easily found, for it exists in parts of all the districts discussed.

I have not much to say under this head. I have heard many opinions as to the kind of trees and jungle that should exist in contemplated clearances, but I attach little or no weight to them, at all events in Bengal.

In the Himalayas it is somewhat different. There oak trees should be sought for; their existence invariably makes rich soil.[12] Fir, on the contrary, indicates poor soil. At elevations, however, the desideratum of a warm aspect interferes, for the best oak forests are on the colder side. I speak of course of elevations practicable, say three or four thousand feet; above this it is a waste of money to try and cultivate Tea.

In Bengal I do not think the nature of the jungle on land contemplated signifies much. As a rule, the thicker the jungle the richer the soil; but in seeking for a site large trees should not be a sine quâ non. Much of the coarse grass land is very good, and large trees add enormously to the expense of clearings.[13] It is not cutting them down which is so expensive, it is cutting them up and getting rid of them by burning, or otherwise, after the former is done.

I have discussed soil fully already, and need only add here that if the knowledge to do so exists, it is better to judge of soil from the soil itself than from the vegetation on it, though doubtless a fact that luxuriant vegetation indicates rich soil.

These may be discussed together and shortly.

Of course adjacent water-carriage is a great advantage for a garden, and it should be obtained, if possible, in selecting a site. The expense of land-carriage, where there is no rail, is great, and Tea cultivation requires all advantages to make it pay well.

But it is water for a garden that particularly concerns us now. It is not easy to find land that can be irrigated (this is discussed elsewhere), but no labour or expense in getting such land would be thrown away. Irrigation, combined with high cultivation in other respects, will give a yield per acre undreamt of.

In no case should a plantation be made except where a running stream is handy. Water is a necessity for seedlings, and a plentiful adjacent supply of it is a great desideratum for the comfort and health of every soul on the garden. We all know how dependent the natives are on water, and it is evident facilities in this respect will conduce much (whether the labour be local or imported) both to get and keep coolies. Norton’s tube wells—a cheap and most efficient mode of procuring water—will, I doubt not, be eventually much used on Tea plantations.

It has been observed that, as a rule, a good Tea climate is not a healthy one. There is no getting over the fact, and we can only make the best of it. The house, the factories, and all the buildings should be placed as high as possible, and not very close to each other, both for the[36] sake of health and in the event of fire. The locality should be well drained, and cleanliness be attained in every possible way. Give the coolies good houses, with raised mechans to sleep on, and sprinkle occasionally carbolic acid powder in your own house and those of others.

Sanitation is, however, a large subject. It can be studied elsewhere. General ideas on it, and on the properties of the commonest medicines, are a great advantage to any intending Tea planter.

The first idea prevailing about Tea was that it should be planted on slopes. It was thought, and truly, that the plant was impatient of stagnant water, and so it is, but it is not necessary to plant it on slopes in consequence. Pictures of Chinese, suspended by chains (inasmuch as the locality could not be otherwise reached), picking Tea off bushes growing in the crevices of rocks, somewhat helped this notion; and when stated, as it was, that the Tea produced in such places was the finest, and commanded the highest price—which was not true—intending planters in India went crazy in their search for impracticable steeps! Much of the failure in Tea has arisen from this fact, for a great part of many, the whole of some, gardens have been planted on land so steep that the Tea can never last or thrive on it. This is especially the case in parts of the Darjeeling district.

Sloping land is objectionable in the following respects. It cannot be highly cultivated in any way (I hold Tea will only pay with high cultivation), for high cultivation consists in frequent digging, to keep the soil open and get rid of weeds, and liberal manuring. If such soil is dug in the rainy season, it is washed down to the foot of the hill, and if manure is applied at any time of the year, it experiences the same fate when the rain comes. As it cannot be dug, weeds necessarily thrive and diminish the yield by choking the plants.

The choice is therefore of two evils: “low cultivation and weeds,” or “high cultivation which bares the roots of[38] the plants in a twelvemonth.” Of the two, the first must be chosen, for if the latter were pursued, the plants, getting gradually more and more denuded of soil, would simply topple over in two or three years. But choosing the lesser evil, the mischief is not confined to the bad effects of low cultivation. Dig the land as little as you will, the great force of the rains washes down a good deal of soil. The plants do not sink as the soil lowers, and the consequence is that all Tea plants on slopes have the lower side bare of earth and the roots exposed. This is more and more the case the steeper the slope. These exposed roots shrivel up as the sun acts on them, the plant languishes and yields very little leaf.

Attempts are made to remedy the mischief by carrying earth up from below yearly, and placing it under the plant; but the expense of doing this is great, and the palliation is only temporary, for the same thing occurs again and again as each rainy season returns.

The mischief is greater on stiff than on sandy soils, for on the former the earth is detached in great pieces and carried down the hill. I know one garden in Chittagong, a large one, where the evil is so great, that the sooner the cultivation is abandoned the better for the owners.

A great many gardens in India, indeed the majority, are on slopes; a few in Assam, the greater number in Cachar, some in Chittagong, and almost all the Himalayan plantations. Such of these as are on steep slopes will, I believe, never pay, and instead of improving yearly (as good gardens, highly cultivated, should do even after they have arrived at full bearing) such, I fear, will deteriorate year by year.

Plantations on moderate slopes need not fail because of the slopes. The evils slight slopes entail are not great, but the sooner the fact is accepted that sloping cannot vie against flat land for the cultivation of Tea the better.

[39]

Where only the lower parts of slopes are planted, the plants do very well. The upper part being jungle the wash is not great, and the plants benefit much by the rich vegetable matter the rain brings down from above. I have often seen very fine plants on the lower part of slopes, where the upper has been left in jungle, and I should not hesitate to plant such portions if the slope was moderate.

Where teelah land, in Eastern Bengal, or sloping land in the Himalayas, Chittagong, or elsewhere, has to be adopted, aspect is all-important. A good aspect in one climate is bad in another. In Assam, Cachar, Chittagong, and all warm places, choose the coolest; at high elevations (temperate climes), the warmest.

In the Himalayas, moreover, the warmer aspects are, as a rule, the most fertile; vice versâ in warm localities. Many a garden, which would have done very well on the moderate slopes chosen had only the proper aspects been planted, has been ruined by planting all sides of teelahs or hills indiscriminately. The southern and western slopes of plantations in warm sites are generally very bare of plants. Not strange they should be so, when the power of the reflected rays of the afternoon sun is considered. Again, in cold climates plants cannot thrive on northern aspects, for their great want in such climes is heat and sunshine. Let the above fault, then, be avoided in both cases, for though doubtless a garden is more handy, and looks better in one piece planted all over without any intervening jungle, even patches of jungle look better, and are decidedly cheaper, than bare cultivated hills.

Of flat land, after what I have written, I need not add much. It is of two kinds, table and valley land; the former is very rare in Tea districts, at least of any extent, which makes it worth while to plant it. There are two gardens in Chittagong on such flat table land, and they are both[40] doing very well. Table land cannot be too flat, for the natural drainage is so great no stagnant water can lie.[14]

Valley land is not good if it is perfectly flat. It will then be subject to inundation and stagnant water. There is nothing that kills the plant so surely and quickly as the latter. Even quite flat valleys can be made sweet by artificial drainage, but to do this a lower level, not too far distant, must exist, and the danger is not quite removed then. Valleys in which no water-course exists, and which slope towards the mouth alone, are to be avoided, for the plants near the mouth always get choked with sand. The best valleys are those with a gentle slope both ways, one towards the lowest line of the valley, be it a running water-course, or a dry nullah which carries off rain, the other towards the mouth of the valley. Such valleys drain themselves, or at least very little artificial drainage is necessary. A valley of this kind, with a running stream through it, is most valuable for Tea, and if the other advantages of soil and climate are present it is simply a perfect site. Such however are not frequent. If in such valleys, as is generally the case, the slope from the head to the mouth is enough, the running stream can be “bunded” (shut up) at a high level, and brought along one side at a sufficient elevation to irrigate the whole.

I have never seen but one garden in a valley that fulfils all these conditions exactly. It is in Chittagong; the soil is good, labour plentiful, and manure abundant. It ought to do great things, for the possibility of irrigating plants in the dry season (which, as observed, is very trying in Chittagong) will give several extra flushes in the year.

Of course in the wet season on such land the water must be allowed to resume its natural course.

[41]

Narrow valleys are not worth planting. No narrow tracts of land, with jungle on both sides, are worth the expense of cultivation, for the continual encroachment of the jungle gives much extra work. The plants, moreover, in very narrow valleys get half-buried with soil washed down from the adjacent slopes. Narrow valleys are therefore, in any case, better avoided.

To conclude shortly, flat lands can be highly cultivated, steep slopes cannot. Tea pays best (perhaps not at all otherwise) with high cultivation—ergo, flat lands are preferable.

By this I mean, so dividing it when first made into parts, that later the said parts shall be easily recognised, and separately or differently treated, as they may require it.

The usual custom is to begin at one end of a plantation, and dig it right through to the other. In the same way with the pruning and plucking, and I believe the system is a very bad one. Different portions of gardens require different treatment, inasmuch as they differ in soil, and otherwise. One part of a plantation is much more prolific of weeds than another—how absurd that it should be cleaned no oftener! This is only one exemplification of difference of treatment, but in many ways it is necessary, most of all in plucking leaf.

All parts of a plantation, owing in some places to the different ages of the plants, in others to the variety in the soil and its productive powers, in others to slopes or to aspect, do not yield leaf equally, that is, flush does not follow flush with equal rapidity. In some places (supposing each part to be picked when the flush is ready) seven days’ interval will exist between the flushes, in others nine, ten, or twelve; but no attention, as a rule, is paid to this. The pickers have finished the garden at the west end, the east end is again ready, and when done, the middle part will be taken in hand, be it ready or be it not! It may be that the middle part flushes quicker than any other; in this case the flush will be more than mature when it is taken, in fact it will have begun to harden; or it may be the[43] middle part does not flush as quickly as the others; in this case it will be picked before it is ready, that is, when the flush is too young, and the yield will consequently be smaller.

I believe the yield of a plantation may be largely increased by attending to this. Every Tea estate should be divided into gardens of, say, about five to ten acres each.[15] If no natural division exists, small roads to act as such should be made. More than this cannot be done when the plantation is first laid out, but when later the plants yield, any difference between the productive powers of different parts of the same garden should be noted, and these divided off into sections. To do this latter with roads would take up too much space, and small masonry pillars, whitewashed, are the best. Four of these, one at each corner of a section, are enough, and they need not be more than 3 feet high and 1 foot square. Thus each garden may, where necessary, be divided into two sections, which, in a 300-acre estate, partitioned off into thirty gardens, would give about forty to sixty sections. No matter where a section may be, directly the flush on it is ready it should be picked. Where the soil on any one garden is much the same, and observation shows the plants all over it flush equally, it may be left all in one. I only lay down the principle, and I am very certain it works well, the proof of which is that, where I have practised it, some sections during the season give three, four, and five flushes more than others. Had the usual plan of picking from one end to the other been adopted, they would have been all forced to give the same number; in other words, the said extra flushes would have been lost,[44] and further loss occasioned by some flushes being taken before they were ready, others after a portion of the tender leaf had hardened.

The best plan is simply to number the gardens from 1 upwards, and the sections in each garden the same way. Thus supposing No. 5 garden is divided into three sections, they will be known respectively as 5-1, 5-2, and 5-3. This is the best way for the natives, and I find they soon learn to designate each section. I have a man whose special duty (though he has other work also) it is to see each day which sections are ready to pick the following, and those, and those alone, are picked. Practice soon teaches the number of pickers required for any given number of sections, and that number only are put to the work. If a portion is not completed that day, it is the first taken in hand the next, and if any day on no sections is the flush ready, no leaf is picked the following.

Apart from leaf-picking, the garden and section plan detailed is useful in many ways. Each garden, if not each section which most requires it, is dug, pruned, or manured at the best time, and any spot on the plantation is easily designated. The plan facilitates the measurement of work, and enables correct lists of the flushes gathered to be kept. It is thus seen which gardens yield best, and the worst can, by extra manuring, be brought to equal those.

In short, the advantages are many, too numerous to detail.

Of course all this can be better done on a flat garden than on one planted on slopes, and though it may not be possible to work it out as much in detail on the latter, still a good deal in that way can be done, and I strongly recommend it.

In laying out a plantation keep it all as much together as possible, the more it is in one block the easier it is[45] supervised, the cheaper it is worked. Still do not, with a view to this, take in any bad land, for bad land will never pay.

Let your lines of Tea plants, as far as practicable, run with geometrical regularity. You will later find, both in measuring work and picking leaf, great advantages therefrom. In gardens where the lines are not regular portions are continually being passed over in leaf-picking, and thereby not only is the present flush from such parts lost, but the following is also retarded.

If your different gardens are so situated that the roads through them, that is from one garden to the other, can be along the side of any garden without increasing the length of the road, by all means adopt that route. There is no such good boundary for a garden as a road that is being continually traversed. It will save many rupees by preventing the encroachment of jungle into a garden, and more space is thus also given for plants. It is, however, of no use to do it if a road through the middle of a garden is shorter, as coolies will always take the shortest route.

The lines of plants on sloping ground should neither run up and down, nor directly across the slope. If they run up and down, gutters or water-courses will form between the lines, and much additional earth will be washed away thereby. If they run right across the hill the same thing will occur between the trees in each line, and the lower side of each plant will have its roots laid very bare. It is on all slopes a choice of evils, but if the lines are laid diagonally across the hill, so that the slope along the lines shall be a moderate one, the evil is reduced as far as it can be by any arrangement of the plants. No, I forgot; there is one other thing. The closer the lines to each other, and the closer the plants in the lines to each other, in short, the more thickly the ground on slopes is planted[46] the less will be the wash, for stems and roots retain the soil in its place, and the more there are the greater the advantage.

Where slopes are steep (though, remember, steep slopes are to be avoided) terracing may be resorted to with advantage, as the washing down of the soil is much checked by it.

On flat land, of course, it does not really signify in which directions the lines run, but such a garden looks best if, when the roads are straight, the lines run at right angles to them.

In laying out a garden, choose a central spot with water handy for your factory, bungalow, and all your buildings; let your Tea-houses be as close to your dwelling-house as possible, so that during the manufacturing time you can be in and out at all hours of the day and night. Much of your success will depend upon this. Let all your buildings be as near to each other as they can, but still far enough apart, that any one building may burn without endangering others. You need not construct any Tea-buildings until the third year.

These are many, but they all arise from two species: the China plant, the common Tea-bush in China; and the indigenous plant, first discovered some forty years ago in Assam.

These are quite different species of the same plant. Whether the difference was produced by climate, by soil, or in what way, no one knows, and here we have only to do with the facts that they do differ in every respect. A purely indigenous plant or tree (for in its wild state it may more properly be called the latter) grows with one stem or trunk, and runs up to 15 and 18 feet high. It is always found in thick jungle, and would thus appear to like shade. I believe it does when young; but I am quite sure, if the jungle were cleared round an indigenous Tea-tree found in the forest, it would thrive better from that day. The China bush (for it is never more) after the second year has numerous stems, and 6 or 7 feet would seem to be its limit in height. The lowest branches of a China plant are close to the ground, but in a pure cultivated indigenous, from 9 inches to 1 foot above the soil the single stem is clean.

The indigenous grows quicker after the second or third year than the China, if it has not been over-pruned or over-plucked when young. In other words, it flushes quicker, for flushing is growing.

The indigenous does not run so much to wood as the China. Indigenous seedlings require to be watered oftener than China, for the latter do not suffer as quickly from[48] drought. The indigenous tree has a leaf of 9 inches long and more. The leaf of the China bush never exceeds 4 inches. The indigenous leaf is a bright pale green, the China leaf a dull dark green colour. The indigenous “flushes,” that is, produces new tender leaf, much more copiously than the China, and this in two ways: first, the leaves are larger, and thus if only even in number exceed in bulk what the China has given; and secondly, it flushes oftener. The infusion of Tea made from the indigenous species is far more “rasping” and “pungent” than what the China plant can give, and the Tea commands a much higher price. The young leaves, from which alone Tea is made, are of a much finer and softer texture in the indigenous than in the China; the former may be compared to satin, the latter to leather. The young leaves of the indigenous, moreover, do not harden so quickly as those of the China; thus, if there is any unavoidable delay in picking a flush, the loss is less with the former. In the fact that unpruned or unpicked plants (for picking is a miniature pruning) give fewer and less succulent young leaves which harden quicker than pruned ones, the two varieties would seem to be alike. The China variety is much more prolific of seed than the indigenous; the former also gives it when younger, and as seed checks leaf, the China is inferior in this as in other respects. The China is by far the hardier plant; it is much easier to rear, and it will grow in widely differing climates, which the indigenous will not.

A patch of indigenous with a mature flush on it is a pretty sight. The plants all appear as if crowned with gold (they are truly so if other advantages exist), and are a great contrast to the China variety if it can also be seen near.

I have now, I think, pointed out the leading characteristics of the two original varieties of the Tea plant, and[49] it stands to reason no one would grow the China who could get indigenous. But the truth is, a pure specimen of either is rare. The plants between indigenous and China are called “hybrids.” They were in the first instance produced by the inoculation, when close together, of the pollen of one kind into the flower of the other, and the result was a true hybrid, partaking equally of the indigenous and China characteristics; but the process was repeated again and again between the said hybrid and an indigenous or China, and again later between hybrids of different degrees, so that now there are very many varieties of the Tea plant—100 or even more—and no garden is wholly indigenous or wholly China. So close do the varieties run, no one can draw the line and say where the China becomes a hybrid, the hybrid an indigenous. Though as a rule the young leaves are light green or dark green, as the plant approaches the indigenous or China in its character, there are a certain class of bushes all hybrid, whose young leaves have strong shades of crimson and purple. Some even are quite red, others quite purple. These colours do not last as the leaf hardens, and the matured leaves of these plants do not differ from others. Plants with these coloured leaves are prolific.

The nearer each plant approaches the indigenous, the higher its class and excellence, ergo one plantation is composed of a much better class of plants than another. Had China seed never been introduced into India, a very different state of things would have existed now. The cultivation would not have been so large, but far more valuable. The propagation and rearing of the indigenous, as observed, is difficult; the China is much hardier while young. So difficult is it to rear successively the pure indigenous, perhaps the best plan, were it all to come over again, would be to propagate a high-class hybrid and distribute it, never[50] allowing any China seed or plants to leave the nursery, which should have been a Government one. But we must take things as they are. The Government nurseries in the Himalayas and the Dehra Dhoon (there have never been any elsewhere, and worse sites could not have been chosen) were planted entirely with China seeds, the seedlings distributed all over the country, and thus the mischief was done. The Indian Tea is vastly superior to the Chinese, and commands a much higher price at home, but it is still very inferior to what it would have been, had not Chinese seed been so recklessly imported and distributed over the country.

The home of the indigenous Tea tree is in the deep luxurious jungles of Assam and Cachar.[16] There it grows into a good-sized tree. I have seen it 20 feet high. These are of no use, except for seed, until they are cut down. When this is done, they throw out many new shoots, covered with young tender leaves, fit for Tea. They are, of course, far too big to transplant, but on some sites where they were numerous, that spot was chosen for the plantation, and some of these are the best gardens in Assam and Cachar.

The indigenous plant and high-class hybrid require a hot moist climate, and will not therefore flourish in any parts of India outside Eastern Bengal. I have tried them in the Himalayas, there the cold kills them. In Dehra Dhoon and Kangra the climate is far too dry; besides, the hot winds in the former, and the cold in the latter, are prejudicial. The Terai under Darjeeling suits them. In Assam, Cachar, and Chittagong, the indigenous and the highest class hybrids will thrive, for the climate of all three is suitable, but perhaps Northern Assam possesses the best climate of all for such plants.

[51]

The Himalayan gardens consist entirely of Chinese plants mixed occasionally with a low class of hybrid. They were all formed from the Government Nurseries where nothing but Chinese was reared. Occasional importations of Assam and Cachar seed will account for the sprinkling of low class hybrids which may be found. The same may be said of Dehra Dhoon and Kangra. In some gardens in the Terai below Darjeeling a high class of plant exists. In Assam, Cachar, and Chittagong the plantations vary much, but all have some indigenous and high class hybrids, while many gardens are composed of nothing else.

It is evident, then, that the value of a garden depends much on the class of its plants, and that a wise man will only propagate the best. Only the seed from good varieties should be selected, and gradually all inferior bushes should be rooted out and a good kind substituted. When this shall have been systematically done for a few years on a good garden, which has other advantages, the yield per acre will far exceed anything yet realised or even thought of.

Government action in the matter of Tea has been prejudicial in many ways, but in none more so than when they were doing their best to foster the cultivation by distributing Chinese seed and seedlings gratis. No one can blame here (would the Government were equally free from blame in all Tea matters!), but the mischief is none the less. It will never be possible to undo the harm then done.

The seed of indigenous, hybrid, and Chinese is like in appearance, and cannot be distinguished. Thus, when seed formerly was got from a distance, the purchaser was at the mercy of the vendor.

High cultivation improves the class of a Tea plant. Thus, a purely China bush, if highly cultivated and well manured, will in two or three years assume a hybrid character. High cultivation will therefore improve the class of all the plants[52] in a garden; but the cheapest and best plan with low class Chinese plants is to root them out and replace them with others, as will be explained hereafter. Low class seedlings should also be rooted out of nurseries.

I cannot conclude this chapter better than by giving an extract from the “Government Records” alluded to in a previous chapter, and I add a few remarks at foot, as otherwise the reader might be puzzled with some opinions expressed which are so much at variance with the generally received opinions on Tea to-day.

The above extract is a sample of the said “Records.” They abound in errors and highly coloured statements, which induced many to embark in Tea on unfavourable sites, and “the red book” (it is bound in a red cover) is not exactly blessed by the majority of the Himalayan planters!

Though there is a great difference in Tea plants (see last chapter) the seed of all is the same, and it is therefore impossible to say from what class of plants it has been gathered.

When Tea seed was very valuable (it has sold in the Tea-fever days as high as Rs. 200 and Rs. 300 per maund) it was the object of planters to grow as much as possible.

High class plants do not give much seed, a plantation therefore with much on it should be avoided in purchasing seed.

The Tea flower (the germ of next year’s seed) appears in the autumn, and the seed is ripe at the end of the following October or early November.

It takes thus one year to form.

Seed is ripe when the capsule becomes brown, and when breaking the latter the inner brown covering of the seed adheres to the seed and not to the capsule.

One capsule contains 1, 2, 3, and sometimes even 4 seeds.

Though the mass ripens at the end of October, some ripen earlier; the capsule splits and the seed falls on the ground. If, therefore, all the seed from a garden is required, it is well to send round boys all October to pick up such seeds.

When the seed is picked at the end of October or early November the mass is still in capsules. It should be laid in the sun for half an hour daily for two or three[55] days until most of the capsules have split. It is then shelled, and the clean seed laid on the floor of any building where it will remain dry. Sunning it after shelling is objectionable.

The sooner it is sown after it is shelled the better.

If for any reason it is necessary to keep it, say a fortnight or three weeks before sowing, it is best kept towards germinating in layers covered with dry mould. But if to be kept longer leave it on the dry floor as above, taking care it is thinly spread (not more than one seed thick if you have space) and collected together, and re-spread every day to turn it.

For transport to a distance it should be placed in coarse gunny bags only one-third filled. If these are shaken and turned daily during transit a journey of a week will not very materially injure the seed.

For any long journey it is best placed in layers in boxes with thoroughly dry and fine charcoal between the layers, and sheets of paper here and there to prevent the charcoal running to the bottom.

It is scarcely necessary to consider how Tea seed can be utilized when not saleable, for seed prevents leaf, and therefore it should not be grown if there is no market for it. It will, however, make oil, but the price it would fetch for this purpose would not compensate for the diminished yield of leaf it had caused. It is also valuable as manure mixed with cattle-dung, but it would not pay to grow it for this purpose either.

My advice therefore is to allow no more seed on the garden than you require for your own use (even the fullest gardens require some yearly) or than you can sell at a remunerative price.

If the object is to produce a considerable quantity of seed, set apart a piece of the plantation for it, and do not[56] prune it at all. A large number will then be produced on that piece.

If the object is to grow as little seed as possible after the pruning in the cold weather, which destroys the greater part, send round boys to pick off such of the germs as remain.

If this is done ever so carefully, some will escape, enough say to give one maund seed from 10 acres of garden, and this as a rule is enough to fill up vacancies in a good garden.

The following figures regarding seed will be found useful, but remember the higher the class of plant the less durable the seed:—

Seven maunds seed, with capsules, give 4 mds. clean seed.

Say therefore, in round numbers, that one maund Tea seed = 30,000 seeds.

With good Tea seed, sown shortly after it is picked, about 20,000 will germinate.

If you get 8,000 to germinate with seed that has come a long distance, you are lucky.

After a two months’ journey 3,000 is probably the outside which will be realised.

My experience, with seed imported into another District from Assam or Cachar, is that more than 4,500 Seedlings cannot be expected from each maund.

In the one case the seed is placed in nurseries at the close of the year, and the young plants transplanted into the garden at beginning of the following rains.

In the other the seed is (at the same time, viz., close of the year, if you can get it so soon) sown at once in the plantation where the plants are intended to grow.

Each of these plans has its advocates, who don’t believe in the other plan at all! The question is which is the better?

Their respective advantages may be shortly summed up as follows:—

Nurseries.

Advantages.—The seed may be made to germinate early by watering. After it germinates the plants can be watered from time to time as they require it. Artificial shade (a great help to the germination of Tea seed) can be given. The soil can be frequently opened, and the plants in every way better tended in nurseries.

Disadvantages.—The plants lose at least three months’ growth when transplanted, and may die. The transplanting necessitates labour at the time of the year it is much wanted for other work. The expense is greater than the other plan, for there are the nurseries to make and the labour of transplanting.

In Situ.

Advantages.—The plants gain some three months in growth by not being moved. It saves labour at the busy[58] time, viz., early in the rains. It saves all the labour of transplanting, that is, it saves labour absolutely, and gives labour when, as stated, it is much required.

Disadvantages.—If the early rains (that is, rain in December, January, and February) fail, but few seeds germinate. In the case of a new garden, the soil must be kept clean six or seven months before it would be necessary by the nursery plan. No artificial shade can be given.

It will thus be seen that the advocates of both plans have much to urge in their respective favours. Which is better?

The advocates of each plan are guided by the climate they have planted Tea in, and the truth is simply that the better plan for one place is not adapted to another. Planting in situ where it will succeed is by far the cheaper and better, and it will do so wherever there are certainly cold weather and spring rains. Thus (see rain table) it will often succeed in Assam, Cachar, Darjeeling, the Western Dooars, and perhaps the Terai below Darjeeling. It will fail in Chittagong, Dehra Dhoon, Kumaon, Kangra, and Hazareebaugh. In Chittagong, for instance, a garden could never be made by planting in situ, or, as it is generally called, at stake.[20]

In this and other matters adapt your operations to the existing climate.

I will now describe the above two methods of sowing seed.

It is named “at stake” because stakes are put along in lines to show where the Tea trees are to be, and the seed is sown at those spots.

The modus operandi is very simple. A month before the sowing time (which should be as soon as you can get the seed), at each stake dig a hole at least 9 inches diameter and 12 inches deep, put the soil taken out on the sides, taking care, however, if it be on a slope, to put none above the hole. Do not put the soil near enough to the pit to make it likely it will be washed back. Such soil as should be washed in ought to be the new rich surface soil. For this reason the upper side of the hole should be left free on slopes. The pits are made a month beforehand to admit of this, and to allow the action of the air on the open sides to improve the mould.

If lucky enough to have one or two falls of rain during the month, the holes will be more or less filled up with soil eminently calculated to instigate rapid growth. Just before sowing fill up the pit with surrounding surface soil. Whether to mix a little manure with it or not is a question. If it is virgin soil, and rich in decayed vegetation, I say no; if not virgin soil, and rather poor, yes; but it must be strictly in moderation—not more, say, than a man can hold in both hands to each hole. In filling up the hole, press the soil down lightly two or three times, or it will all sink later, and your seeds be far too deep.

When the above is all done, there is a perfect spot for[60] the reception of the seed. The tap-root can readily descend in search of moisture, and the lateral rootlets can spread likewise. They (the latter) will not reach the outer walls of the pit for six months, and will then be strong enough to force their way through.

Now sow the seed. Put in, say, two or three, as the seed is good or bad, six inches apart; push them into the soft soil one inch, and put up the stake in the centre to mark the spot.

Keep the place clean till following rains, but allow only hand-weeding near the young seedlings, and occasionally open the soil with some light hand-instrument, as a “koorpee,” to the depth of half-an-inch.

If all the seeds germinate, and the seedlings escape crickets, and all live, at commencement of the rains leave the best and transplant the others to any vacant spot. You will succeed with some, not with others; but do not be too anxious to take up the spare ones with earth round the roots, and thus endanger the one plant left. That the seedling left be not injured is the great point, the others must take their chance.

Some people believe in two, or even three seedlings together, and would thus advise them to be all, or perhaps two, left. I do not approve of the plan, except, perhaps, with Chinese plants. Plant as close as you will in the lines, but give each plant its own home.

There is another mode of planting at stake, which is, I think, better than the above.

Lay the seed in alternate layers of seed and mould in beds. The seeds may be laid close to each other, but not above each other, with mould, say, two inches thick, above, and then seed again. When they begin to burst, ready to shoot out their roots, examine the seeds, by taking off the soil from each layer, every three or four days. Take out[61] those that have burst, and plant with the eye or root side of the seed downwards. Put all that have not burst back again. Repeat the operation again and again every second or third day. Be careful and take them up before the root projects—that is, directly the coating has cracked.

By this means only one seed need be put at each stake, for it is certain to germinate, and seed may thus be made to go much further. Great care is, however, necessary in this operation.

Choose a level site, with, if possible, the command of water at a higher level—anyhow with water handy. Either irrigating or hand-watering for seed beds is a necessity if vigorous and well-developed plants are to be looked for.

The soil should be of the light, friable kind recommended for the Tea-plant (see “Soil”) and of the same nature as the soil of the garden, the ultimate home of the plants. This latter is all-important, for seedlings will never thrive (probably not live) transplanted into a new kind of mould, particularly a poorer kind.

If possible, the soil of the seed beds should be poorer than the soil of the garden—on no account richer. Taking care it is of the same nature as the garden soil, choose the poorest you can find. The principle is well known in England, and it applies equally to India. From poor to rich soil plants thrive, but never the other way.

For the above reason, if you manure seed beds, do it very sparingly.

Artificial shade for seed beds is a necessity; at least very many more seeds will germinate when it is given.

Natural shade over seed beds is very bad; for, firstly, “the drippings” are highly injurious; and, secondly, shade is only required till the plants are two or three inches high; after that any shade is bad, for plants brought up to the time of transplanting in shade are never very hardy.

Seed beds, where water is handy, should not be dug deep. If so dug, and the soil is consequently loose a long way down,[63] the tap-root will descend quickly, and will be too long when transplanted. As water can be given when it is necessary, there is no need for the tap-root to go down low in search of moisture.[21] A long tap-root is generally broken in “lifting” the seedling from the bed.

Seed beds raised, as is the usual custom, above the paths that run between them, are objectionable. They part with moisture too freely. They should, on the contrary, be below the level of the paths, and there is another advantage in this, for the said paths can then be used partly as supports for the artificial shade, and thus do away with the expense of long wooden stakes.

As the seed beds are only required until the beginning of the following rains, there is no possibility of their suffering from excessive moisture. When they are required to remain later, of course this plan of making the beds lower than the paths will not do.

Seed is best sown in drills, six inches apart, and each seed two, or if space can be got, even three inches from its neighbour. This facilitates each seedling being taken up later, with more or less of a ball of earth round the roots—an all-important point (see Transplanting, page 76).

The length of the beds does not signify, but the breadth must not be more than five feet, so that a man on the path on either side can reach to the middle while hand-weeding or opening the soil.

After what has been said no lengthy directions for making the beds are necessary.

Cut down, burn, or carry off all jungle, and then take out all roots, whether grass or other. Now make the surface[64] level. After this mark off the beds and paths, the latter one foot broad only, with string and pegs. Then raise the path six inches above the spots marked off for the beds. This latter must not be done by earth from the beds, but by earth from outside the intended nursery. Next dig and pulverise the soil of the beds to a depth of six or seven inches, no more, and level the surface.

All is now ready for the seed. A string, five feet long, with a small peg at either end, is given to two men who stand on the path at either side of the bed. Each man has a six-inch measure. The string is laid across the bed, beginning at one end and pegged down on either side. A drill is then made along the string about one inch deep, and this done the string is, by means of the six-inch measure on either side, removed, and pegged down again in the place for the next drill. Seeds are then sown or placed along the first drill made, two or three inches apart, and the earth filled in. This is repeated again and again till the whole bed is sown.

If the character of the seed is doubtful it must be laid in thicker, but with good seed two-and-a-half to three inches is the best distance.

The sowing finished the artificial shade has to be given. Along the paths, at five feet apart, put in forked stakes, two feet long—viz., six inches into the path, and eighteen inches above it. Connect these with one another by poles laid in the forks; now lay other (but thinner) poles attached to the first poles at either end across and above the bed; and again across these latter, that is along the length of the beds, split bamboos, and then bind the whole framework here and there. The said framework made will then be two feet above the beds—viz., eighteen inches of stake support, and the six-inch raised paths. The eighteen inches of opening all round, under the frame, that is, between the frame and the path,[65] allows the necessary air to circulate; while the expense, danger from high winds, and the objectionable entrance of the sun at the sides, all of which high artificial shade is subject to, are avoided by this low frame-work.

Mats are the best to cover the frame-work. In case of accidental or incendiary fire they are not so objectionable as grass, for they burn less and slower, but mats are expensive. Any coarse grass (freed from seed) will answer, and it should be laid on as thin as will suffice to give shade.

The beds may be watered, if there is no rain, a fortnight after the seed is sown, and from time to time during the dry season, whenever the soil at a depth of three or four inches shows no moisture.

The soil should also be kept free of weeds, and after the plants are three or four inches high, the spaces between the drills should be slightly stirred every now and then.

After the seed has germinated, and the seedlings have, say, four leaves on them, the artificial shade should be taken away. But it must be done gradually, taking off portions of the grass first, so that the young seedlings may by degrees be inured to the hot sun.

Though cultivation, as described, by watering and opening the soil at times is well, these should not be done much, or the seedlings will be too large when the time comes to transplant them. Large seedlings do not, as a rule, thrive as well as moderate-sized ones, after being transplanted.

Among the many very absurd mistakes made in the cultivation of the Tea plant, none exceeds the ridiculous way Tea seed used to be sown in the Government plantations in the North-western Himalayas. The seed was sown in drills, as I have advised, but in six linear inches of the drills, where it is right to put two, or at most three, seeds, perhaps thirty were placed! I do not exaggerate; the drill, six inches deep, was filled with them. Many and[66] many lacs of seed, in those days worth many thousand rupees, were thus sacrificed. Private planters in the Himalayas, taught by the Government method, once did the same. I believe the absurd practice is exploded now.

Seed cannot be sown too soon after being picked. It is ripe early in November, so the beds should be all ready by November, and if the seed has not far to come it can thus be sown early that month.

To each maund there are in round numbers 30,000 seeds, (see page 56). The number of plants it will take to fill an acre depends, of course, on the distances they are set apart (see page 72), but having decided this point, also the area to be planted, and consequently the number of maunds of seeds to be sown (see page 56), the following table will be found useful in calculating the size of nursery required:—

If nurseries for more than ten maunds are required, then allow 100 yards to be the breadth, and for each extra ten maunds add respectively for 3 or 2 inches (see 1st column) 50 or 33 yards to the length. Thus fifty maunds will require nurseries 100 yards by 250 yards, or 100 yards by 165 yards, according as it is decided to plant the seed 3 inches or 2 inches apart in the lines.

An idea existed formerly—got, I believe, from stray Chinamen, who I don’t think knew much about Tea in any way—that manure, though it increased the yield, spoilt the flavour of Tea. The idea is opposed to all agricultural knowledge, for high cultivation, which in no case can be carried out to perfection without manure, much improves the strength and flavour of all edibles, the product of mother-earth.

My first experience of manure to the Tea plant was obtained in the Chittagong district from a small garden close to the station, which has been for some years highly manured. I was struck with the frequency and abundance of the flushes and the strength and flavour of the Tea. My high opinion of the Tea was later borne out by the Calcutta brokers. I allude to the “Pioneer” garden, close to the Chittagong station. During the best Tea months flush succeeded flush at intervals of less than a week, while eight to ten maunds (640 to 800 lbs.) was the yearly yield per acre! The soil was very sandy and poor.

After-experience showed me that manuring nearly doubles the yield of plants, and that so far from injuring the flavour of Tea it improves it, while it adds greatly to the strength.

I shall therefore beg the question that manure is an advantage. If any planter doubts, let him try it, and his doubts will soon be solved.

Any manure is better than none, but I believe one of the best manures for the Tea plant (always excepting night-soil and the excrements of birds, which cannot be procured) is[68] cattle manure. It is not heating, like horse-dung, and may be applied in large quantities without any risk. The fresher it is applied, in my opinion, the better, for it has then far more power. If mixed with any vegetable refuse, the bulk being increased, it will go further, but I do not think it is intrinsically any the better for it.

There are several chemical manures advertised for Tea plants. “Money and Ponder’s Chemical Manure,” lately patented by Mr. Ponder and myself, is said to have been very successful on several gardens. It is manufactured by Mr. J. Thompson, Kooshtea, Bengal, who will supply all details.

All garden refuse should be regarded as manure and buried between the plants. I allude to the prunings of the bushes and the weeds at all times from the land. To carry these off the ground, as I have sometimes seen done, is simply taking off so much strength from the soil. The greener, too, all this is buried the better.

When it is considered how much is taken from the Tea plant, it is evident the soil will be exhausted, sooner or later, if no means are adopted to repair the waste. Where manure cannot be got the waste must be made up, as far as possible, by returning all other growth to the soil. But manure should be got if possible, for it will double the yield of a garden; and highly concentrated chemical manures will, I am sure, be eventually much used on Tea gardens.

The best way to apply it, if enough manure is procurable, is round each plant; not close to the stem (the rootlets by which the plant feeds are not there) but about 1 foot from it. Dig a round trench with a kodalee, about 9 inches wide and 6 inches deep, at the above distance from the stem, lay in the manure, and replace the soil at top. If the plants are young the trench should be narrower, shallower, and 6 inches, instead of 1 foot, from the stems.

[69]

If enough manure is not procurable for this (the best) plan, the most must be done with what can be got, as follows:—If the plants are full grown, and there is say 4 feet between the lines, dig a trench down the centre and lay in the manure. The plants will then be manured on two sides. If the plants are young lay the manure near them on two sides, if possible, but failing that even on one side. The principle is to lay the manure at the distance the feeding rootlets are, and the older the plant the greater distance these are from its stem.

As to the quantity of cattle manure. Say for plants four years old and upwards (if younger, less will be an equivalent) one maund to 20 trees is a moderate dose, one maund to 15 trees a good dose, and one maund to 10 trees highly liberal manuring, and as much as the plants can take up.

Say in round numbers each acre contains 2,500 plants (4 by 4—a usual distance—gives 2,722 plants, as shown at page 72), and say the manure is procurable at three annas a maund.[22]

The following table shows the expense of each degree of manuring, viz., 10, 15, and 20 trees per maund:—

Table showing the possible cost and result of manuring with cattle manure.

[70]

It is not too much to calculate that this will add respectively 1½, 2, and 2½ maunds of Tea per acre to the yield, and I have carried this out in the table and shown the results.

I quite believe the results shown will be obtained by manuring, and I base my opinion on practice not theory.

N.B.—I have deducted Rs. 8 for the first, Rs. 7 for the second, and Rs. 6 for the third, as the probable cost of putting in the manure, as it may have to be carried from the factory to the garden. If purchased after being placed between the lines (and if manure is bought of adjacent villagers they will so place it), the cost would be less.

The above table, of course, only applies to localities where cattle manure can be purchased at 3 annas per maund, including carriage to the factory.

The value of the extra yield of Tea is estimated at only Rs. 50 per maund in the above table, because the leaf which will give one maund of Tea is worth no more, as follows:—

But I prefer estimating it at Rs. 50 only, to be on the safe side.

When the idea existed, which it did once, that ploughs could be used to cultivate a garden between the lines, these latter, with this object, were placed unnecessarily wide apart.

All distances may be seen in different gardens, viz., 6 × 6, 6 × 3, 6 × 4, 5 × 4, 5 × 5, 4 × 3, &c., &c.

The plough idea has nowhere been found to answer, and is exploded.[23] Still, even for hand labour to cultivate, and for facilities in picking leaf, it is necessary there should be room enough one way to pass along. Cultivation here means digging, and space enough for this must be left between the lines. Giving so much, what is then the principle that should guide us? Clearly, with a view to the largest yield obtainable, to place as many plants on the land as it will bear.

Four or 4½ feet are, I think, the best distances between the lines.

They give space enough for air to cultivate, and to pass along, even when the trees are full grown.

Where manure is obtainable and the soil can be kept up to a rich state by yearly applications, a garden can scarcely be planted too close.

I see no objection to trees touching each other in the lines.

On considerable slopes, to prevent the wash of soil, the plants should be placed as close as possible, say 3½ feet between and 2 feet in the lines.

[72]

A closely planted garden will grow less weeds than a widely planted one, and will consequently be cheaper to work.

As the expenditure on a garden is in direct proportion to the area, and the yield in direct proportion to the number of plants (always supposing there is power enough in the soil to support them), it follows that a closely planted garden must be very much more profitable than the reverse.

Hybrid plants grow to a larger size than Chinese, and should therefore have more room.

The following is a useful table:—

Table showing the Plants to an Acre, and the Area one lakh of seedlings will cover, at the distances named.

I have not very much to say on this head, as most of the operations entailed are treated separately. Still a few directions on primary matters are required.

Having selected a site and made arrangements for the Tea seed required for the first year’s planting, you should commence operations early in October, either by constructing the nursery, or clearing land on the proposed site of the garden, as you may decide which mode of planting, viz., “nurseries,” or “sowing at stake,” to adopt.[24]

If the latter, you should begin to cut the jungle somewhat earlier, but it is no use beginning to do this before the middle of September in any case, for before that the jungle would spring up again so soon that it would be labour lost.

Before you do anything decide how much you will cultivate the first year, and make your arrangements for seed accordingly. Here let me advise you in no case to attempt more than 100 acres. If you do 100 really well the first year you will have done very well. Remember you have also buildings (though few) to construct, and trying to do too much you may simply fail in all.

Previous to October you should have made yourself thoroughly acquainted with all your land, so that you can then fix with knowledge on the best sites for your buildings, nursery, and Tea plantation.

You will find much on these matters in other chapters which should be read carefully.

These respective sites having been fixed upon, and sup[74]posing you are going to plant in both ways, from nurseries and in situ, construct the nurseries as advised under that head, page 62, and also cut the jungle on the intended garden site.

There is not much to say about cutting jungle. Cut all the brushwood first near the ground, and the big trees later, so that when they fall they may lie on the underwood. In the portion you intend to plant at stake you will not have time to cut down the big trees, and had better simply “ring” them. If this is properly done, that is, if the ring is broad enough and deep enough (less than one foot broad and five inches deep for large trees is not safe), they will certainly die in a twelvemonth, and will not give objectionable shade more than half that time. In the part to be planted “at stake” you must burn all the cut jungle by the end of October, and it will be well, if you have labour enough, to send men up the big trees to cut off the branches beforehand, so that they will more or less burn with the rest. Doing this, and piling up the underwood to be burnt round the base of the big trees, will cause earlier death, and diminish the objectionable shade.

Having burnt the jungle, that is, as much as will burn, and carried off the rest from the parts to be planted at stake, dig out all the small roots, and that done, dig the whole some 4 or 5 inches deep. Then stake it off with small bamboo stakes 18 inches long, showing where the Tea trees are to be (see page 72 as to the best distances), and then make your holes and plant your seed at each stake as directed at page 59.

See the way it is recommended to stake land as regards its lay at pages 45 and 46.

You will probably not have the ground ready before the end of November (do not attempt more than you can do to that date), and then take care and keep the seed, as directed at page 55, until it is sown.

For the part to be planted from nurseries the following June you have plenty of time. Nowhere have I, or anyone,[75] seen large vigorous Tea plants under trees. It is therefore evident trees are hurtful, and no more should be left in a garden than are required for the labourers to sit under occasionally, and to collect leaf under before it is taken to the Tea-house. The trees that are left should be those on the sides of roads. One to every two or three acres is ample. After therefore cutting down all the low jungle, cut down all but the said few trees (it is cheaper in the end than ringing them), and then cut off and cut up all the branches into sizes that will burn readily. Cut up the large trunks also into lengths, for all that will not burn must be carried off later. Leave all so lying until February, then choose a day with a high wind and fire it from the windward side. It may burn some days. Then collect all unburnt into heaps, and fire again and again until nothing more will burn. Now take out all roots, big and small, and when well dry, stack all these, and what was left before, and fire again and again. The land should now be tolerably clear, and can be dug at once. The roads should be marked off before this, for they are better not dug.

Now stake the land at the distances determined on, and a month before the rains, or even more, if you are so far advanced, make holes for the young seedlings at each stake, precisely like those recommended for “planting at stake,” page 59. Only, if possible, these should be a little larger each way than there advised, say 10 inches diameter and 15 inches deep.

Read carefully the direction as to those pits, and follow them out here. Much of the success of your planting depends on these holes.

At the first commencement of the rains transplant, as directed under that head in the next chapter.

Any large heavy trunks, which cannot be easily carried off the land, may be placed longways between the lines, but the less of dead timber you leave lying about the gardens the better.

If the pits for the plants have been all prepared, as directed at pages 59 and 75, this operation is simple enough.

A fortnight or so before it commences tip all the seedlings in the nursery. Take off only the closed leaf at the head of each young plant (see a leaf diagram, page 104), so that the bud at the base of the next leaf be not injured. Doing this will make the seedlings hardier and enable them earlier to recover the transplanting.

On the day you intend to take up the seedlings from any bed, if you have water enough at command, flood the bed. This, as you take up each seedling, will cause the soil, being moist, to adhere better to the roots.

The difference between young plants transplanted with a ball of earth round the roots, and those moved with their roots bare, is no less than three months’ growth, if even it does not make the difference between life and death.

Proceed thus to ensure the former. At one short end of the bed, the lowest if it is on a slope, dig close to the first row of seedlings a trench so deep that its base shall be lower than the lowest end of the tap-roots. Then with a five or six-pronged steel fork (this is better than a spade, for it does not cut the rootlets) put in between the first and second row, and pressed down with the foot to its head, force carefully so much of the row down into the trench. Then with the hand take up each seedling separately, helping the soil with a very light pressure (so light that it shall not change the lateral direction of any of the rootlets) to adhere, and place it in a[77] low basket sloping. Do this again and again, till two baskets are full, when they will be carried, banghy fashion, to the garden.

When the first row is finished clear away the loose soil, so that a similar trench to the first shall be formed, and then proceed as above with the second row, and so on.

No further directions for lifting the seedlings out of the nurseries are required.

All is ready for their reception in the garden if the directions at pages 59 and 75 have been followed out. The work now to be detailed must be done by careful men well superintended.

In the soft soil of the lately filled up pit, described at page 59, a hole is made either with the hand or a narrow kodalee (the former, if the soil has not settled much, will suffice), large enough and deep enough to take in the seedling with all the earth attached to it. The seedling is then put in and the soil filled in and round it, which completes the operation.

The manner, though, in which this is done is of great consequence. Four things are all important:—(1) That the tap-root shall not be turned up at the end because the hole is too shallow. (2) That any rootlets projecting outside the attached earth shall be laid in the hole, and shall preserve, when the soil is filled in, their lateral direction. (3) That the collar of the plant (the spot where the stem entered the earth in the nursery) shall be, when the pit is filled up, about 1½ inch higher than the surface of the surrounding earth. (4) That in filling in the hole the soil is pressed down enough to make it unlikely to sink later, but not enough to “cake” the mould.

The following is the consequence of failure in these four points:—

1. Probably death, in any case very much retarded[78] growth. I have planted some seedlings so purposely, the majority died; those that lived recovered very slowly, and digging them up later the tap-root was found to have gone down after all by assuming the shape of the letter S, the growth downwards being from the head of the letter.

2. Rootlets, turned away from their lateral direction, interfere with other rootlets, and though they eventually grow right if the plant lives, they retard it.

3. Fill in as you may (unless you “cake” the soil, which induces worse evils) the plant sinks a little; thus, if not placed a little high, it will eventually be too deep. If on the other hand placed too high, the rootlets and collar will be exposed, which is an evil.

4. Unless this is attended to the plant will sink too much and the collar be buried; likewise an evil, which it takes the young seedling some time to recover.

Only first teaching and then practice will enable either European or Native to plant well. This is how it should be done.

Take the seedling in the left hand, holding it by the stem just above the collar; then take the very end of the tap-root between the second and third fingers of the right hand, and thus put it down into the hole (you thus insure the tap-root being straight). Now judge exactly the height of the collar that it be as directed. Rest the left arm then on the ground to keep the plant steady, release the tap-root, and fill up the hole about one-third, pressing the soil lightly. The plant will then be fixed, and you can employ both hands to fill up the remainder, and keep the rootlets in a lateral position. Press the soil lightly as you do so, and when all is filled up press it down a little harder round the stem of the plant.

All the transplanting should be finished as early in the rains as possible. A seedling, planted in the first fifteen[79] days of June, is worth two planted in July, and after the latter month it is generally a case of seedlings and labour lost.

Days with heavy rain are not good to plant in. Those with showers or light drizzling rain are best. When there is very heavy rain the soil “cakes” much. Fine days, if the ground is wet, and if more rain may soon be looked for, are good, better though if cloudy than sunny.

Where much planting has to be done, of necessity planting must be carried on daily, for, as observed, it must all be finished by end of July at latest.

In case of a sunny break in the weather, stop planting after the second day, for early rain to young transplants is a necessity.

In making a garden too much care cannot be given to the way seedlings are placed in their homes.

Just before sending the third edition to press, I saw in the Indian Tea Gazette some details of “new transplanting and transporting tools,” patented by Mr. Jeben. I hope these will prove a success, for such are much wanted, and if they will do all it is said they can do, a great boon will have been conferred by Mr. Jeben on the Tea industry.

Mr. J. W. Mountjoy, of Pandawbrang, Arracan, writes as follows regarding these tools:—

I am glad to give the above extract, for I look on the invention, if successful, as a most important one.

As manuring, which is part of this, is treated separately, we have here only to consider the best means of stirring the soil to give air to the roots of the plants, and to keep down weeds, which, if allowed, injure the yield vastly.

Unless when plants are full blown and in full bearing (and not even then unless they are planted close) it is not only not necessary, but a waste of labour and money, to open the soil all over the garden with a view of stimulating or cultivating the plants. Much money has been wasted in this way: for instance, in a garden planted 6 by 6 or 6 by 5, and the plants but two years old, I have seen the whole dug many times in the year. The roots of the said plants did not protrude at that age more than 1 foot or so, what good could they possibly derive from the extra space dug?

The soil over the rootlets of Tea plants cannot be stirred too often. The oftener it is done the oftener the trees flush, and when young the more vigorously will they grow. What is the best way to do it?

I believe simply by digging round each plant. I go to show why this is, I believe, the best.

Putting aside the waste incurred in digging a whole garden when not necessary, the way the soil is then dug near the plants is, I think, objectionable. The ground is dug in a straight line up to the plant, and in doing so, if the digging is deep, roots are very apt to be cut. Again, when the work is task-work, the men shirk as much as possible digging close up to the stems under the branches, and thus the soil[82] over much of the roots, is not stirred at all. This is not easy to detect, for you must look under the branches of each tree to see how the work has been done.

In “digging round plants” the men should follow the kodalee round the tree, and the position of the blade in the same line as the roots makes any injury very unlikely. Even if tasked, as when the work is examined, it is only round the plants, it is more readily perceived if the ground has not been stirred close up to the stems.

I therefore prefer digging round plants, with the view of cultivating them, to digging the whole garden. I believe the object is better attained. That it is much cheaper is evident.

The annulus, or space to be dug round, beginning 9 inches from the stem, varies with the age of the plant. Up to two years one kodalee in width will do, and after that say 2 feet.

The draw-hoe of 8 inches wide is a better tool for the above than the kodalee, especially as it is work well suited to boys, and the “draw-hoe” is a lighter tool.

Till plants from seed at stake are a year old, and till seedlings from nurseries are the same age, calculating in the latter case from the transplanting, no kodalee or even draw-hoe should come near them. The soil round for 6 inches should be slightly opened once a month or so, but it should be done with the “koorpee.”

We have now discussed the cultivation of the plants. The above often done, say once a month, if possible, during the season, with judicious pruning and liberal manuring, constitutes high cultivation. Did weeds not grow there would be no need to do more, but weeds do grow, and must not be allowed. The richer the soil the more weeds, the more manure you apply the more weeds also.

Weeds choke the plant and diminish the yield. Weeds[83] take from the soil, and from manure, when given, the strength you want for your constantly recurring flushes. If, therefore, you have a large crop of weeds you have a small yield of Tea.

How to stop this? There is one golden rule, “never let them get ahead of you.” This, it is true, argues ample labour; but unless you have ample labour for the area you cultivate, better let your money lie in the Bank and not grow Tea. Reduce your area until you can keep ahead of your weeds, for keep ahead you must if you wish for success.

The secret of keeping ahead of weeds is to destroy them when young, to do this again and again, as often as they come up, never allowing them to bear seed. The kodalee, an excellent digging tool, is not good for this: you want a lighter instrument, which can go over more ground and will not open the soil in the dry season to any depth. The Dutch hoe, the widest procurable in the blade, with a long lithe handle of 6 feet, is perfect for this.

With weeds at the height fit for a Dutch hoe, viz., 3 or 4 inches, and not numerous (which they will not be if you have “kept ahead”), a man will easily do 45 square nulls, id est, 720 square yards. He would not do more than 30 nulls with a kodalee.

The Dutch hoe must be well known. It is used for weeding drives and walks in England.

To conclude shortly, for “hoeing and weeding” I recommend as follows:—

Dig the whole garden thrice in the year, viz., spring, rains, and autumn. Bury all weeds as you dig in trenches between the lines.

In the intervals use the Dutch hoe as often as weeds appear.

Cultivate the plants by digging round them once a month if possible.

[84]

Do all this and you will find your garden is kept clean and well cultivated, at far less cost than you incurred for cultivation when it was choked with weeds for months together, while your yield will be at the same time much increased.

If you keep your garden thus clean, and do not allow the weeds to get ahead of you, the following table shows about the cost of each cultivation operation each time you do it:—

If weeds get ahead the cost in each case will be nearly double the above.

The following table, which is as near the mark as any such estimate can be, will be found useful. It will also be made use of when calculating the cost of making a garden in Chapter XXIX., pages 164, 165, and 166.

[85]

The above rates in the case of a 300-acre garden making will include everything but buildings.

The rates are progressive, because the expenditure on the following increases, or should increase, yearly.

• 1. Manager’s pay (say every second year).
• 2. Assistant (first entertained, say third year).
• 3. Cost and wear of tools.
• 4. Cost of pruning.
• 5. Cost of cultivation.
• 6. Cost of manure.
• 7. General expenses.

No cost for Tea manufacture is included in the above, as this is estimated for separately. See table at pages 160, 161, and 162.

Keeping up high cultivation in every way and manuring liberally, a made garden in full bearing can be kept up to its highest producing powers (including the pay of the manager, establishment, and everything else) for Rs. 100 per acre per annum.

An acre of Tea may, I am aware, be kept up in a manner for Rs. 50 or so yearly, but the profit on such a plantation must be nil.

On the contrary, with the above expenditure per acre, on a good and favourably located garden, the profit will be very large. See table at page 172.

It is with Tea as with all other cultivation. It has been proved in England, and in all other countries where really high cultivation is followed out, that the higher the system followed the greater the profit.

It is stated elsewhere at length (page 102) why I conceive pruning to be necessary for the Tea plant. Whether I am right or not, the fact is certain that without pruning very little leaf is produced.

Pruning must be done in the cold weather when the plant is hybernating, that is to say, when the sap is down. The sooner after the sap goes down it is done the better, for the sooner the tree will then flush in the spring.

There have been many theories about pruning Tea bushes, but none, I think, worth much practically, for the simple reason that it is impossible to prune 250,000 plants (the number in a 100-acre garden, at 2,500 to the acre)[25] with the care and system a gardener prunes a favourite fruit tree. The operation must be a coarse one, done by ignorant men, in large numbers at one time, who can in a measure be more or less taught, and the nearer they do right the better: still, really careful and scientific pruning can never be carried out on a Tea plantation.

The time to do it, too, is very limited. It cannot be begun before the trees have done flushing, say, at the earliest, middle of November, or continued, if early flushes and a large yield next season is looked for, beyond end of January, at the latest. Thus at the most two months and a half is all the time given.

I shall confine myself therefore to giving such directions as will be practically useful.

[87]

The best instrument is the common “pruning knife.” It cuts far cleaner than the “shears,” besides which the natives very seldom use the latter well. What is called in England a “hedge-bill” is useful to trim the outsides of the trees. If required it must be got from England, as I do not think it is procurable in Calcutta. Whatever instruments are used should be kept very sharp, and for this purpose, besides sharpening them every morning on the grinding stone, each pruner should be provided with a small pocket “hone.”

The theory, and it is correct, is in pruning, to cut near above a bud or branch, but not near enough to injure them. The cut should be quite clean and sloping upwards, so that nothing can lodge on it. This theory can be, and must be, strictly carried out in cutting the thick stems and branches, but it is quite impossible to do it with the slender branches or twigs of the tree.

Prune so as to cause lateral growth. A Tea plant should never be allowed to exceed, say, 4 feet in height, but the wider it is the better.

Prune off all lower branches tending downwards,[26] for the plant should, if possible, be clean underneath to a height of, say, 6 inches. This clean stem high class plants have naturally, not so the Chinese, or the Chinese cast of hybrid.

Plants should be more or less pruned out in the centre. In the following spring young wood is then formed in the heart of the tree, and it is only young wood and shoots that give leaf.

Plants, if above two years old (see foot note next page), exceeding 2½ feet in height at the end of the season (and all plants of any age will) may be pruned down to 20 inches,[88] but the thick wood must be pruned down to varying heights several inches lower.

Small plants must naturally be more lightly pruned.

The best plan is, I think, to have two gangs:

The first to go ahead and cut out the thick wood (here judgment is necessary, so let them be the best men) to varying heights, from about 11 to 18 inches. The second gang to follow, each with a rod 20 inches long, to cut down all the light wood left to that level.

All plants, how low or how young soever they may be, must be pruned somewhat.[27] The lower their stature and the less their age the less pruning they require.

Of the two extremes, at least with the Tea plant, it is probably better to over than to under-prune. The treatment of the plants, with reference to the leaf to be taken in the spring, must be a good deal regulated by the way, or rather the extent, to which they have been pruned. On this point see page 103.

The cost of pruning depends on whether it is high or low, and whether the plants are large, middling, or small. The greatest cost is about Rs. 6, the least about Rs. 3 per acre.

Let all prunings be buried between the lines of plants, if possible, before the leaves have even withered. They make capital manure, but much of the virtue escapes if they are allowed to lie on the ground any time before they are buried.

These insects (for blight, too, is said to be an insect) are very destructive to the Tea plants. The cricket, however, only injures it when quite young, so we will consider that little pest first.

When Tea seed germinates, and the young seedling is 2 or 3 inches high, the cricket delights to cut the stem and carry, or try to carry, the two or three green leaves attached to the upper part into its hole. Even after seedlings are planted out, if the stems are slender, it cuts them. To the young seedlings, in nurseries or planted “at stake,” they often do great harm, killing in some places one-third or so.

It is much easier to prevent their ravages in nurseries than in this latter case, simply because the spot in which they must be sought and destroyed is circumscribed in the one, almost unlimited in the other.

Only one thing can be done. Employ boys (they soon get clever enough at the work) to hunt for their holes and dig them out. The holes are minute, but run down a long way. The only plan to follow them is to put in a thin pliable stick and remove the soil along it. On getting to the bottom of the stick, if it is not the bottom of the hole, you repeat the operation till you do get to the bottom, and there you will generally find the cricket.

Early in the morning they can be often found and caught outside their holes. The boys employed should be paid for them by the number they catch. They can be placed alive[90] and brought to the factory in a hollow bamboo, and then killed in some merciful way.

When once a Tea plant has got a stem as thick as a thick pencil no cricket can hurt it.

They are much worse in some places than others, and in my experience I have found them worse on low lands.

The white ant is a much more formidable enemy than the cricket. They do (as all planters know) attack and destroy living bushes.[28] Whether they first attack some small dead portion or not is a question, but practically it does not signify the least, for if they do they manage to find such in about one-third of the trees in a garden. Beginning with the minute dead part they kill ahead of them as they go, and will, eventually, in many cases, if left alone, kill the largest trees.

They have a formidable enemy in the small black ant which exists in myriads, and kills the white ant whenever the latter is not protected by the earthen tunnels he constructs. In many places so great is the pest that, did this small black ant not exist, I believe no Tea Garden could stand.

From the close of the rains to the cold weather is the worst time for white ants, and the time the planter should guard particularly against their ravages. At that time if he examines his trees closely he will very likely find white ants on a quarter of the whole.

Digging round the plant where they are disturbs their runs and does much good. At the same time they should be brushed off any part of the tree they have attacked, and the tree should be well shaken.

All this, however, only does temporary good, for they often are found as thick as ever on the plant a week later.

Tobacco water is beneficial, but in wet weather it is soon washed off.

[91]

Kerosene oil is very efficient. A little is put round the stem, but it is expensive. The next best thing I know is the earth oil (petroleum) from Burmah, and this is cheap enough. It is thick, but used from a bottle it gets heated by the sun and is then quite limpid.

When white ants are found on a tree, a little with a small brush is put on the part they have attacked. They are also well shaken off, and a ring of oil is placed round the stem. My experience is that they will not attack that tree again for a long time. I was at first fearful that both it and the kerosene (the one, I believe, is only a manufacture of the other) would injure the trees, but both are safe. I strongly recommend others to try it, if they doubt, on a small spot only in the first instance.

Whatever is used, or whatever is done, white ants must not be left to work their will in the autumn. All the trees should then be examined once at least, and once again, if possible, the following spring.

Blight (a serious matter, I hear, in Cachar) I know but little of. I do not remember hearing anything about it when I was there, now some fourteen years ago. It is rare in the Chittagong district, but I have seen one or two trees attacked with it. Under its influence the young leaves get covered with brown spots and shrivel. It is most destructive to the yield of a garden.

From one or two experiments made I believe pruning off all the diseased branches, and scraping back the soil for a space of 2 feet round the stem, so as almost to lay the roots bare, will be found beneficial, but I do not speak with certainty.

All the Himalayan gardens are free from these three pests detailed, except that occasionally a few crickets have been seen.

So difficult is this to do, that I have heard several planters declare they would attempt it no further, but, on the contrary, accept the vacancies in their gardens as an unavoidable evil.

That it is difficult I, too, can certify. Seedlings put into vacant spots year after year die, either in the rains they are planted or in the following spring. If, however, a few yards off a fresh piece of land is taken in and planted, the plants live. What is the reason? It can be nothing connected with the soil, for on adjacent spots they live and die.

It puzzled me a long time, but I believe I can now explain it. First, seedlings planted in vacant spots in a garden are never safe. When in the rains there are many weeds in the gardens, and it is being dug, the young seedlings are not observed, are either dug up, or injured so by the soil being dug close to them, that they shortly after die. This is, I believe, the principal cause of the failure, and it may be in a great measure, if not entirely, obviated by putting, first, a high stake on either side of the seedling, and taking care it remains there all through the rains. Secondly, as an additional precaution, and a very necessary one, before any such land is dug, send round boys with “koorpies” to clean away the jungle round the young plants, and at the same time open the soil slightly over their roots. Doing this “cultivates” them, and the plants being apparent, with the newly-stirred vacant spaces round them, are seen by the diggers, and are not likely to be damaged.

[93]

The second cause of failure I attribute to the old plants on either side of the young seedling, taking to themselves all the moisture there may be in the soil during any drought. The young seedling, whose tap-root at the time is not a long one (for it is in the spring of the year following the year of planting that this occurs), is dependent for life entirely on the small amount of moisture that exists in the soil, at that insignificant depth (say 8 inches). But on two sides of the said seedling’s tap-root, and in fact surrounding it, if the neighbouring Tea bushes are full grown, are the feeding rootlets of the big plants, sucking up all the moisture attainable (the necessities of all plants being then great), and leaving none for the poor young seedling, which consequently dies in the unequal contest.

This last evil (in climates where there is a deficiency of spring rains, and, in fact, more or less in all Tea localities, for in none is there as much rain as the plants require in the spring) there is no means of avoiding as long as seedlings, after transplanting, lose time, the effect of the transplanting, and thus fail to attain a good depth before the said dry season.

In fact, unless something is devised, I believe with many, trying to fill up vacancies is a loss of time and money.

The pits to plant in, advised at page 59, should of course be made in these vacant spots, for they help much towards the early descent of the tap-root. Still they can scarcely avail sufficiently to avoid the evil, if the plant is lying inert, as is generally the case for two or three months after planting; this delay being, moreover, in the rains, the best growing time.

If we can devise any means to avoid this delayed growth in the young seedling after it is transplanted, then the tap-root, before the drought of next spring, will have descended low enough to gather moisture for itself; that is, from[94] lower depth than the greater number of the rootlets of the neighbouring big plants traverse. Could this be done, and if the means above detailed are resorted to, to prevent the young plants being injured when the gardens are dug, I see no reason why vacancies should not be successfully filled up. Then might be seen, what nowhere can be seen now, a Tea garden full of plants, that is, with no vacancies.

When it is considered that many gardens in all the districts have 30 or even 40 per cent. vacancies, none less than say 12 per cent., we may strike a fair average and roughly compute the vacancies in Tea gardens throughout the country at 20 per cent. In other words, the yield of Tea from India, with the same expenditure now incurred, would be one-fifth more were plantations full!

I have shown how the first evil can be obviated. I think the following will obviate the second.

Get earthen pots made 7½ inches diameter at the head and 7½ inches deep, like the commonest flower pots, only these should be nearly as wide at the bottom as at the top. A circular hole, 2 inches diameter, must be left in the bottom. Fill these with mould of the same nature as the soil of the garden where the vacancies exist. Put two or three seeds in each, all near the centre, and not more than half an inch below the surface. Place these pots, so filled, near water, and beneath artificial shade, as described in Chapter XIII.

When the seeds have germinated, and the seedlings have two or three leaves, so that you can judge which is the best class of seedlings in each pot,[29] root out all but one, the best one. Now remove the shade gradually, water from time to time, and let the seedlings grow in the pots till the rains. Having, before the rains, made the holes at the vacancies as before described, after the first[95] fall carry the pots to the garden and place each one near a hole.

Then plant as follows. Stand the pot on the brink of the hole, having previously with a hammer broken the bottom. Then crack the sides also gently, and deposit pot and all in the hole at the proper depth. If not enough broken, the sides of the pot may now be further detached, nay, even partially removed. Now fill up with earth to the top. Pieces of the pot left in the hole will do no harm; but it, the pot, must be sufficiently broken at the bottom to allow of the free descent of the tap-root, as also enough broken at the sides to allow of the free spreading of the rootlets.

If all this has been carefully done, so that the mould in the pot shall not have been shaken free of the rootlets, the seedlings will not even know it has been transplanted. Its growth will not be delayed for a day, instead of two or three months; and by the time the dry season comes, the tap-root will have descended far enough to imbibe moisture.

Another plan to effect the same object. Instead of pots, use coarse bamboo open wicker-work baskets. The split bamboo forming the said wicker-work about half an inch wide, the interstices about one quarter of an inch square. Let the diameter of the basket be the same at top and bottom, viz., 9 inches; the depth of the basket 10 inches.

When the seedlings in the nursery are large enough to enable you to select a good class of plant, transplant one into each basket previously filled with soil.[30] This being done when the plants are very young, and there being then no difficulty in taking them up with earth attached to their short tap-roots and rootlets, they will scarcely be thrown back at all. Being near water they can also be well tended. Put basket and all into the vacant hole at the beginning of the rains, and fill up as directed for the pots. The interstices will allow the feeding[96] rootlets to pass through, besides the basket rots quickly under ground, so quickly it cannot impede the plant.

Seed is not sown at once in the baskets as in the pots, because the baskets would not last so long. Even putting the seedling in it during (say) February, the basket, with the occasional watering necessary, will, more or less, have rotted before it is put into the hole.

I have concluded a contract for ten thousand pots and five thousand baskets at half an anna each for both kinds. Two pice, to ensure the filling up of a vacancy, is not a large outlay.

Since writing the above I have had experience of both the above plans. The pot system is far the better, and answers very well.[31] I am now trying to improve this still further by making the pots a little larger, and placing a thin inner lining of tin inside each about half an inch from the sides. This space is first filled with sand, then the pot is filled with mould, and the tin pulled out. The same tin will therefore do for any number of pots. The seed is then put in.

I think by this plan if, when about to plant, the mould in the pot is well wetted, that it, with the seedling, can be turned out whole in one piece, and then put in the hole without the pot.

The same pots would then answer year after year, and the expense would be quite nominal.

If well done, the seedling in this, as in the former case, would not even know it had been transplanted.[32]

The Tea plant is said to flush when it throws out new shoots and leaves. The young leaves thus produced are the only ones fit to make Tea, and the yield of a plantation depends therefore entirely on the frequency and abundance of the flushes.

The way a flush is formed is fully explained under the head of “leaf picking” (pages 103, 104, and 107).

The number of flushes in different plantations varies enormously, owing, first, to climate; secondly, to soil; thirdly, to the pruning adopted; fourthly, to the degree of cultivation given; and fifthly, though not least, to the presence or absence of manure.

How to secure all these advantages to their fullest extent is shown under those heads, and we have here only to consider what is a low, a medium, and a high rate of flushing per season.

In doing this we must speak of elevated (as Himalayan) gardens separately. The cool climate of heights makes it impossible for Tea to flush there as on the plains.

Speaking generally of elevated gardens (the higher they are the shorter the period, and vice versâ), seven months may be considered as the average producing period, viz., from beginning of April to end of October, and during that time twelve to fifteen flushes may be obtained, which, I believe, with high cultivation and liberal manuring, can be increased to eighteen.

In all localities, with favourable Tea climates, the plants[98] flush both for a longer period and oftener. Speaking generally also, in this case, of the five best localities, viz., Assam, Cachar, Chittagong, the Terai below Darjeeling, and the Western Dooars (for even in these districts many advantages exist in one garden which do not in another), the following is an approximation to the flushing periods:—

Upper Assam.—February 25th to November 15th.

Lower Assam.—February 20th to November 20th.

Cachar.—February 20th to November 20th.

Chittagong.—March 10th to December 20th.

Terai below Darjeeling and Western Dooars.—March 1st to November 20th.

The opening period is a little late in Upper Assam on account of the cold, and closes a little earlier for the same reason.

Lower Assam and Cachar are much alike.

The opening in Chittagong is later than in the two just mentioned from want of early rains, but the season continues longer on account of the low latitude and consequent deferred cold weather.

Roughly, then, rather more than nine months may be assumed as the flushing period for these districts. The next point is how often do gardens in these localities flush in that time.

Not very many planters can say, certainly, how often their gardens have flushed in a season, because they are picked so irregularly, and no account of the different flushes kept. Enquiring on this point, when I was in Cachar some thirteen years ago, 9 to 24 were the minimum and maximum numbers given me at different gardens, showing how little was really known about it.

Such knowledge as I have on the subject is mostly derived from carefully kept records of my own garden in the Chittagong district. The plantation is all worked in[99] sections, in the way described previously, and the dates given in the table below are the days each flush was finished (that is, the picking was finished) during the seasons 1869 and 1870; 1869 being carried up to the end of the season, 1870 up to the date I wrote the first edition of this Essay.

In the table it will be observed there is a great difference between the two years. The section for which the dates are given was planted from seed beds in the month of June, 1866. In 1869 it was therefore only three years old. This will partly account for the first flush occurring a month earlier in 1870, as it was then a year older; but fortunate early rains in 1870 had also much to do with it.

In 1869 there was no flush between March 22nd and May 6th, a period of 44 days; and in 1870, none between[100] February 22nd and March 30th, a period of 35 days, a very long time in both cases, which is entirely accounted for by the dry weather prevailing at Chittagong in the spring (see under head of Climate), for in Cachar, Assam, and the Western Dooars two or three flushes would have occurred in that time.

There were 19 flushes in all in 1869, and 22 in 1870, up to the time I wrote, so there were probably in all 27 in the latter year.

In the table I give the intervals between each flush. It shows an average of 14 days in 1869 to 10 days in 1870; the difference is due to the increased age of the plants, and the liberal manuring given in the cold weather 1869-70.

Such a result as is shown for 1870, and the probable result of 27 flushes to the end of that season, could not be obtained without high cultivation and liberal manuring. The land in question had been manured every year since it was planted, but an extra dose was given in the cold weather of 1869-70. The ground was therefore very rich.

I think, therefore, 25 flushes in the season may be looked for on gardens in good Tea climates, when high cultivation and liberal manuring are resorted to. Where manure cannot be obtained, I think, even if in other respects the land is highly cultivated, more than 22 flushes will not be obtained. Where neither manure nor high cultivation is given, above 18 flushes will not be got.

It seems to be a general idea with planters (see diagram, page 104) that when a flush is picked the succeeding flush, at an interval of say seven to ten days, consists of shoots from the axis of the leaf down to which the previous flush was picked. Thus in the diagram, supposing the shoot to be picked down to the black line above 2, the idea is the next flush will be a shoot springing from the same place, viz., the axis of leaf d. But it is not so. In the above case[101] it will take a whole month, after the said shoot has been picked, before the new shoot from the base of the leaf d is ready to take, probably six weeks in Himalayan gardens.

’Tis true the flushes in favourable Tea climates follow at about seven to ten days from each other, but these are other shoots. The replacement of the actual shoot taken is a whole month in developing. I have carefully watched this, and am sure I am right.

With similar treatment, gardens in Cachar, Assam, and the Western Dooars would probably give two or three more flushes in the season than Chittagong, because there the spring rains are much more abundant; and I am very certain that, if the day ever comes that manure in large quantities is procurable in those districts and is applied, the yield on those gardens will be very large.[33]

The difference between very small and very large profits is represented by 18 and 25 flushes, so I strongly advise all planters to cultivate highly, and to get all the manure they possibly can. If even procured at a high figure, it (the manure) will pay hand over hand.

The first consideration is how to get the largest quantity of leaf without injuring the trees.

To a certain extent, it is true that the more a Tea bush is pruned and picked the more it will yield. It appears as if Nature were always trying to repair the violence done to the tree by giving new mouths or leaves to breathe with in place of those taken away. I may exemplify my meaning in another way. A Tea bush which has as many leaves on it as it requires will throw out tardily new shoots, and their number will be small. In other words, a plant which is not pruned, and from which the young leaves are not taken, grows gradually large and bushy, and then gives up flushing altogether. It has all the leaves it requires, and it has no necessity to throw out more.

If, however, Nature is too much tried, that is, if too much violence is done to her, she sulks and will exert herself no more. Up to this point, therefore, it is well to urge her. How can we know when we have reached it?

Only general rules can be laid down. Experience is the great desideratum on this and many other subjects connected with Tea.[34]

If the plant can always be kept in such a state that the foliage, without being very much so, is still less than Nature requires, I conceive the object will be attained.

The greatest violence is done to the plant when it is[103] pruned, and reason would seem to argue that when this violence is repairing, that is, when the first shoots in the spring show themselves, and until new mouths (or leaves) in sufficient quantities exist, until then but little leaf should be picked.

Fortunately, moreover, while in the interests of the plant this is the best plan, it also is the mode by which the largest yield of leaf will be secured in the season. I go to show this.

The ordinary size of a good full-grown Tea plant, at the end of the season, is, say, 3½ or 4 feet high, and 5 feet diameter. It is pruned down, say, to a height of 2 feet, with a diameter of 3 feet. It is then little more than wooden stems and branches, and to anyone ignorant of the modus operandi in Tea gardens, it would appear as if a plantation so pruned has been ruined. The tree remains so during all its hybernating period, that is, during the time it is resting and the sap is down (this period is longer or shorter, as the climate is a warm or cold one, and it is always during the coldest season), but on the return of spring new shoots start out from the woody stems and branches in the following way:—At the axis or base of each leaf is a bud, the germ of future branches, these develop little by little, until a new shoot is formed of, say, five or six leaves, with a closed bud at top. Then if it be not picked the said bud at top hardens. At the axis or base of each of the said five or six leaves are other buds, and the next step is for one, two, or three of these to develop in the same way and form new shoots. The original shoot grows thicker and higher until it becomes a wooden branch or stem. The same process, in their turn, is repeated with the new shoots. A diagram (see next page) will make my meaning clear. We here have a shoot fully developed, of six leaves, counting the close leaf a at top as one, viz., the leaves a, b, c, d, e, f. The shoot has started and developed from what was originally a bud at K, at the axis[104] or base of the leaf H. In the same way as formerly at K a bud existed, which has now formed the complete shoot or flush K a, so at the base of the leaves c, d, e, f, exist buds 1, 2, 3, 4, from which later new shoots would spring. These again would all have buds at the base of the leaves, destined to form further shoots, which again would be the parents of others, and so on to the end of the season, or until the tree is pruned.

It will readily be seen the increase is tremendous. It is only limited by the power of the soil to fling out new shoots, and the necessities of the plant, for, as I have explained, when as much foliage exists as the plant requires, but few new shoots are produced.

Now supposing the shoot in the diagram to be (with perhaps another not shown at L) the first on the branch I I in the spring (the said branch having been cut off or pruned at the upper I). It is then evident the said shoot is destined to be the parent and producer of all the very numerous branches and innumerable shoots into which the plant will extend in[105] that direction. It is, in other words, the goose which will lay all the future eggs. If, eager to begin Tea making early, the planter nips it off, the extension on that part of the tree is thrown back many weeks. It may be taken off at 1, 2, or 3 (the back lines drawn show the proper way to pick leaf); the least damage will be done if it is taken off at 1, the most at 3.

The said shoot K a is the first effort of Nature to repair the violence done to the tree by pruning. It is the germ of many other branches and shoots, and it ought never to be taken. I have, I hope, made so much plain.

There is, however, another consideration. Any shoot, left to fully develop and harden, does not throw out new shoots from the existing buds 1, 2, 3, 4 so quickly as one checked in its upward growth by nipping off its head. For instance, supposing the shoot under consideration not to be the first of the season, but on the contrary to be a shoot when the plant has developed sufficiently to make picking safe, if taken off at 2, then the new growth from 2, 3, 4 will be much quicker than it would be had the whole shoot been left intact.

Our object then with first shoots should be to secure this advantage without destroying any buds, and this we can do by taking off simply the closed leaf at the top a. This must be done so as not to injure the bud at the base of the second leaf b (I have not numbered it, for there is no room in the diagram to do so), and we shall thus leave all the buds on the shoot intact.

Again here the interests of the plant, and profit to the planter, go hand in hand. The closed bud a in this case will be found very valuable. I go to show this.

The value of Tea is increased when it shows “Pekoe tips.” Only the leaves a b make these. They are covered with a fine silky whitish down, and, if manufactured in a[106] particular way, make literally white or very pale yellow Tea,[35] which, mixed with ordinary black Tea, show as “Pekoe tips.” In ordinary leaf-picking these two leaves are taken with all the others, but unfortunately, when manufactured with them, they lose this white or pale yellow colour, and come out as black as all the other Tea.

As the season goes on, this is less and less the case, till towards the end nearly all the a b leaves show orange-coloured in the manufactured Tea. Still they are not white (the best colour) as they can be made when treated separately. No means have yet been devised to separate them before manufacture from the other leaf, and though sometimes picked separate, the plan has serious objections (see next page). In the case, however, of the first two or three flushes the welfare of the plants demands that no more should be taken, and though the quantity obtained will be small, it will, if carefully manufactured so as to make “white Pekoe tips,” add one or two annas a lb. to the value, when mixed with it, of one hundred times its own weight of black Tea!

More will be found under this head in the Tea manufacturing part. I now beg the question that the said downy leaves taken alone are very valuable.

In detailing the mode of picking I advocate, it would be tedious to go minutely into the reasons for each and everything. I have said enough to explain a good deal, but will add anything of importance. Of the latter are the following.

Tea can be made of the young succulent leaves only. The younger and more succulent the leaf the better Tea it makes. Thus a will make more valuable Tea than b, b than c, and so on; e is the lowest leaf to make Tea from, for though a very coarse kind can be made from f, it does not pay to take it. The stalk also makes good Tea, as far as it is really succulent, that is, down to the black line just above 2.

[107]

The leaves are named as follows from the Teas it is supposed they would make:—

• a.—Flowery Pekoe.
• b.—Orange Pekoe.
• c.—Pekoe.
• d.—Souchong, 1st.
• e.—        „         2nd.
• f.—Congou.

If there be another leaf below f, and it be taken, it is named, and would make Bohea.

Each of these leaves was at first a flowery Pekoe leaf (a), it then became b, then c, and so on.

That is to say, as the shoot developed, and a new flowery Pekoe leaf was born, each of the leaves below assumed the next lowest grade.

Could the leaves fit to make each kind of Tea it is proposed to make be picked and kept separate, and each be manufactured in the way most suitable to its age, and the Tea to be produced, the very best of every kind could easily be manufactured. But this cannot be; the price of Tea will not allow it, and the labour to do it would moreover fail. It has been attempted again and again to do it, partly to the extent of taking the Pekoe leaves a, b, c separate from the others (for the manufacture best suited to these upper leaves is not suited to the lower), but it has been as often abandoned, and I doubt if it is now practised anywhere. I am sure it will never pay to do it.

Picking leaf is a coarse operation. It is performed by 80 or 100 women and children together, and it is impossible to follow each, and see it is done the best way. They must be taught, checked, and punished if they do wrong, and then it will be done more or less right; but perfection is not attainable.

[108]

I advise the following plan in picking. Please refer to the diagram:—

If the garden has been severely pruned (as it ought to be) take only the bud a for two flushes; then for two more nip the stalk above 1, taking the upper part of leaf c, as shown (done with one motion of the fingers). But from the fifth flush take off the shoot at the line above 2, and by a separate motion of the fingers take off the part of leaf e where the black line is drawn. By this plan, when the rains begin, the trees will show a large picking surface, for plenty of buds will have been preserved for new growth. After the month of August you may pick lower if you like, as you cannot hurt the trees. For instance, you may nip the stalk and upper part of leaf e together, and separately the upper part of f.

The principle of picking is to leave the bud at the axis of the leaf down to which you pick intact.

Some planters pick all through the season at the line above 1, and take the d and perhaps the e leaf separately. I do not like the plan, for though it will make strong Teas, the yield will be small. Moreover, the plants will form so much foliage; they will not flush well; and again, they will grow so high that boys who pick will not readily reach the top.

Shortly, the principle I advocate is to prune severely, so that the plant in self-defence must throw out many new shoots; to be sparing and tender with these until the violence done to the tree is in a measure, but not quite, repaired; then, till September, to pick so much that the wants of the plant in foliage are never quite attained; and after September to take all you can get.

I believe this principle (for the detailed directions given may be varied, as for instance when trees have not been heavily pruned) will give the largest yield of leaf, and will certainly not injure the plants.

To manufacture your leaf into good Tea is certainly one of the first conditions for success. It will avail little to have a good productive garden if you make inferior Tea. The difference of price between well and ill-manufactured Tea is great, say 4 as. or 6d. a lb., and this alone will, during a season, represent a large profit or none.

Fortunately for Tea enterprise, the more manufacture is studied the more does it appear that to make good Tea is a very simple process. The many operations or processes formerly considered necessary are now much reduced on all gardens. As there was then, that is formerly, so there is now, no one routine recognized by all, or even by the majority; still simplicity in manufacture is more and more making its way everywhere; and as the real fact is that to make the best Tea, but very few, and very simple, processes are necessary, it is only a question of time ere the fact shall be universally recognised and followed out.

For instance, panning the “roll”[36] was formerly universally practised. Some panned once, some twice, some even three times! But, to-day, pans are not used in most gardens at all!! Other processes, or rather in most cases the repetition of them, have been also either discarded or abridged. But a short statement of manufacture in old[110] days, and the simplest mode of manufacture, will best illustrate my meaning:—

So much for simplicity, and I affirm that no more than the five operations detailed are necessary. I shall try to show this further on.

In studying Tea manufacture I first tried, in order to get reliable data to go on, to ascertain the effect of each and every operation, and not only that, but the effect on the made Tea of each operation exaggerated and diminished. It would be tedious, and of no use, to set out in detail all the experiments I conducted, the results only I will try to give.

I began at the beginning. Why wither at all? I made Tea (following out in each case all the other processes detailed in the old plan) of 1st, totally unwithered leaves; 2nd, of leaves but little withered; 3rd, of leaves medium-withered; and 4th, of leaves over-withered.

I arrived at the following results:—Unwithered or under-withered leaves break in the rolling and give out[111] large quantities of a light green coloured juice during the same process. The Tea is much broken and of a reddish grey colour. The liquor is very pale in colour, cloudy, weak, soft, and tasteless.

Over-withered leaf on the other hand takes a good twist in the rolling, gives out but little juice, which is of a thick kind, and of reddish yellow colour. The tea is well twisted, “chubby” in appearance, and blacker than ordinary. The liquor of an ordinary depth of colour, clear, with a mawkish taste.

The medium-withered leaves make good Tea, but I found the withering should be rather in excess of what is generally done to ensure strength. I will show later to what extent I think leaf should be withered.

The next point was rolling. I knew some planters rolled the leaf hard, others lightly. That is, some rolled with force till much juice was expressed, others with a light hand, allowing little or no juice to be pressed out. Which was the better?

After many experiments I arrived at the following:—Hard rolling gives darker coloured and stronger liquor than light rolling. Hard rolling destroys Pekoe tips,[37] inasmuch as the juice expressed stains them black.

Light rolled Tea has therefore many more Pekoe tips than hard rolled.

Hard rolled Tea is somewhat blacker than light rolled.

In all, therefore, but the point of Pekoe tips hard rolling is better.

The next question was, what is the advantage of repeated rolling? I rolled twice, panning once between, vide old plan, and found the Tea as well made and as strong as that rolled three or four times. I then decided to roll no[112] more than twice. The second time was, I then thought, necessary, as I found the leaf of the roll opened in the pan, and a second rolling was requisite to twist it again.

But what did panning do? I heard pans had been discontinued in some gardens. In what way was panning an advantage? I made Tea, fermenting it between the two rollings, but not panning it, and it was equally good. I tried again and again, but never could detect that panning caused any difference to either the Tea, the liquor, or the out-turn.[38] In short, though I never found panning did any harm, I equally found it never did any good. Its use is, in fact, simply barren of all results.

I therefore dispensed with it. Having done so, why roll the second time at all? I experimented, and found the second rolling as barren of results as the panning.

I had now got rid of operations 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8 in the old plan. The next was No. 9—“sunning.” I made Tea with and without it, and found as follows:—

Sunning between the fermenting and firing processes has no effect whatever on the liquor or the out-turn, but it makes the Tea rather blacker, and as it drives off much of the moisture in the roll, the firing process after it is shorter and does not consume so much charcoal. What little effect therefore it has is good (for if not continued too long, it does not make the Tea too black) and it is economical. I therefore decided on retaining it.[39]

Next came the operations 10, 11, and 12, viz., “first firing, cooling and crisping, and second firing.” Where these are done (and they are done in some gardens now) the usual thing is to half-fire the roll the same afternoon and[113] evening it is made, then allow it to “cool and crisp” all night, and finish the firing next day. I tried this plan, and also the plan I have now adopted, of doing the whole firing at one time the same evening. I tried the experiment again and again, and always found the Tea, the liquor, and the out-turn were the same in both cases. In short, that the three operations did no more and no less than the one. As the three entail extra labour and extra expense in charcoal I abandoned them.

I thus reduced the twelve operations detailed to five, and naturally by so doing much decreased the cost of manufacturing Tea. I in no way lay claim to having devised this simplicity myself. Part had been done by others before I even turned my attention to it, and I have done no more than help with many to make the manufacture of Tea a simple process.

I was now convinced that (though I had still much to learn regarding the said five processes) success was comprised therein, and that to multiply them could not avail.

The next consideration is—What are the qualities desired in Tea to enable it to command a good price at the public auctions either in Calcutta or London? The brokers in these cases judge of the Tea first, value it, and give their report and valuation to intending purchasers and sellers. From what appearances and qualities do they judge?

They judge from three things, first, the Tea; secondly, the liquor; thirdly, the out-turn.

The Tea.—The colour should be black, but not a dead black, rather a greyish black with a gloss on it. No red leaf should be mixed with it, it should be all one colour. The Tea should be regular: that is, each leaf should be about the same length, and should have a uniform close twist, in all but “broken Teas.” (These latter are called “broken” because the leaf is more or less open and broken.) The Tea[114] should also be regular of its kind, that is, if Pekoe all Pekoe, if Congou all Congou; for any stray leaves in a Tea of another kind, if even of a better kind or class, will reduce its value. In the higher class of Teas, viz., Pekoes and broken Pekoes, the more Pekoe tips that are present the higher, in consequence, will its price be.

The Liquor.—In taste this should be strong, rasping, and pungent, with, in the case of Pekoes, a “Pekoe flavour.” There are other words used in the trade to particularise certain tastes, but the words themselves would teach nothing. Tea tasting cannot be learnt from books. If the liquor is well flavoured, as a rule, the darker it is in the cup the better. But to judge of Teas by the colour of the liquor alone is impossible, for some high-class Teas have naturally a very pale liquor.

The Out-turn.—A good out-turn is generally indicative of a good Tea. It should be all, or nearly all, one colour. No black (burnt) leaves should appear in it. A greenish tinge in some of the leaves is not objectionable, and is generally indicative of pungent liquor, but the prevailing colour should be that of a bright new penny.

Every planter should be more or less of a Tea-taster, and should taste his Teas daily. After a time (particularly if he gets other Teas to taste against his own) he will learn to recognise, at all events, a good as against a bad Tea, a strong as against a weak Tea, &c. No Tea should be put away with the rest until it has been tasted. It may be burnt or have other defects, not apparent till infused, and one day’s bad Tea will bring down considerably the value of a whole bin of good Tea.

The fancy, amongst brokers and dealers, for “Pekoe tips,” in all Pekoe Teas, constitutes the one great difficulty in Tea manufacture. If the leaves which give “Pekoe tips” (see page 106) are separated from the other leaves, and[115] manufactured separately and differently, that is rolled very little and very lightly, not allowed to ferment at all, but sunned at once after rolling, and, if there is sun enough, finished in the sun, otherwise by a very light and gradual heat—best placed above the drawers in the Dhole-house; if this is done, I say, these will come out perfect “Pekoe tips” of a white colour, which is the best.

If not separated from the other leaf, but manufactured with it, the sap from the other leaves, expressed in the rolling, stains these said leaves, which are covered with a fine white silk down, and makes them black like all the rest of the Tea; the whole of which is then valued lower because there are no “Pekoe tips.”

Now, in the latter case the “Pekoe tips” are there all the same, only they don’t show. The Tea is really just as good, in fact a shade better, with black than with white or orange tips,[40] but it does not sell so well, and as we cannot argue the brokers or dealers into a rational view of the case, we must humour their fancy (they are virtually our masters) and give them the Pekoe tips—if we can.

How are we to do it? The plan of picking these small leaves separately, in order to manufacture them separately, does not answer; it is too expensive; it diminishes the yield of a garden, and labour for it fails. All this is shown at pages 107 and 130. Is there any other way?

It may be done during some periods of the season when there is not leaf enough on the garden to employ all the leaf-pickers, by setting a number of them to separate the said two leaves from the others after the whole leaf is brought to the factory. This is expensive, but it pays when there is labour to do it, for then the Teas can be made very showy and rich with white Pekoe tips.

[116]

An ingenious planter, a Mr. McMeekin, in Cachar, invented a rolling table with the object of separating the said leaves. It is constructed of battens, and while rolling the leaf on it, many of the small leaves fall through. The said table is now well known in Cachar, and is in use in several gardens. I have tried it and find that it in a great measure answers its object, but the objection to it is that the leaf must be rolled lightly, and lightly-rolled leaf, as observed, does not make strong Tea.

The Pekoe tips may be, in a great measure, preserved by rolling all the leaf lightly on a common table. But then again the Tea is weak, and the plan will not give so many Pekoe tips as McMeekin’s table.

In short, in the present state of our knowledge, except by the hand process (a tedious and expensive one for separating the leaf), strong Teas and Pekoe tips are incompatible.

The difficulty is just where it was, and will so remain until dealers give up asking for Pekoe tips (not a likely thing), or till a machine is invented to separate quickly and cheaply the two said small leaves from the others after they have been all picked together. That such a machine is possible I am certain, and the inventor would confer a boon on the Tea interest far beyond the inventor of any other machine, for all the other processes can be done by hand without much expense, this cannot.

I may here notice such machines and contrivances as exist for cheapening the manufacture of Tea, or rather such as I know of.

Rolling-machines have for their object the doing away with hand labour entirely for rolling the leaf. Kinmond’s rolling-machine is first on the list, for it is the best yet invented.[41]

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Kinmond’s consists of two circular wooden discs, the upper one moving on the lower, which is stationary, with an eccentric motion. The adjacent faces of the said discs are made rough by steps in the wood, cut in lines diverging from the centre to the circumference, and over these rough faces is nailed coarse canvas.

The leaf is placed between the discs and rolled by the motion described. The lower disc is arranged by means of weights running over pulleys, so that it shall press against the upper with any force desired.

The motive power, as designed by the inventor, is either manual, animal, or steam.

Mr. Kinmond showed me this machine, just after he had invented it, at the Assam Company’s Plantations in Assam, and I have since seen it working by manual and steam power. With the former it is quite useless, for by no arrangement can sufficient or regular force enough be applied. With the latter it does very well, and on a large garden which will render the outlay for the machine and engine justifiable (the former is, for such a simple machine, very expensive), it may probably eventually prove an economy.

Not having seen it under animal power, I can give no positive opinion as to how it would answer, but I see no reason why it should not do well. I believe wind or water power might, on suitable sites, be easily applied to it, and they would certainly be the cheapest of any.

Another rolling-machine was invented by a Mr. Gibbon, and a good deal used in Cachar. I have never seen it.

Kinmond’s is, I believe, the best rolling-machine yet[118] invented (though it is fair to state I know no other except by report), but I do not believe in any Tea rolling-machine superseding entirely the necessity of hand-rolling.[42] A rolling-machine may be, and is, very useful to roll the leaves partly, that is, to break the cells, and bring the leaf into that soft mashy state that very little hand labour will finish it. No rolling-machine yet invented can, I think, do more than this, and it is, I think, doubtful if any will ever be invented that will do more. Machines do not give the nice final twist which is obtained by the hand. I was told lately that most of the gardens in Cachar that had machines had dropped them and gone back to hand-rolling. I cannot help thinking this is a mistake. They should use both, the hand-rolling for the final part alone. Very few rolling-men would then suffice, with the aid of the machine, to manufacture a large quantity of leaf.

I only know of one other Tea rolling-machine, which is Nelson’s. It does not profess to do more than prepare the green leaf for rolling, which, as stated above, is, I think, all that any machine will ever do. I have never seen it working, but it appears simple, being nothing more than a mangle. The leaf is placed in bags, and then compressed under rollers attached to a box, weighted with stones. The prospectus states, it will prepare 80 lbs. green leaf in fifteen minutes, and that one man can then finish as much of such prepared leaf in three minutes as would occupy him twelve minutes if the same had not been prepared. I see nothing unlikely in this. The machine, though inferior to Kinmond’s in its arrangement, ought to be cheap enough to bring it within the reach of all.[43]

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I have already spoken of one of McMeekin’s inventions. His chest-of-drawers for firing Tea is, I think, superior to his batten table. It is now so well known, and in such general use, that I shall describe it very shortly. It is nothing more than a low chest-of-drawers, or trays fitted in a frame one above the other, the bottom of each tray being fine iron wire, so that the heat of the charcoal, in the masonry receptacle over which it is placed, ascends through all the drawers and thus dries or fires a large quantity of “roll” at the same time. By the old plan, a single wicker sieve was inserted inside a bamboo frame called a “dhole,” which was placed over a charcoal fire made in a hole in the ground. On the sieve the roll was placed, and all the heat, after passing through this one sieve, was wasted. Mr. McMeekin’s idea was to economise this heat by passing it through several drawers.

Most planters use these drawers, and there is no doubt in the space saved, and the economy of heat: it is a great step in advance over the old barbarous method, where not only was the heat wasted after passing through one sieve, but a great deal was lost through the basket work of the “dhole” itself.

Still I do not advocate four, still less five drawers one above the other. I think the steam ascending from the lower drawers must, more or less, injure the roll in the upper ones. I confine myself to two, and even then in the top tray leave a small circular space vacant by which the steam from the lower drawer can escape. I utilize the heat that escapes, partially, by placing “dhallas” in tiers above, with roll in them. These are supported by iron rods let into the wall, and are useful not only for partly drying the roll, but also for withering leaf when there is no sun.

Some planters have proposed to do away with charcoal altogether under McMeekin’s drawers, supplying its place[120] by hot air. The first point in considering this invention is the question whether the fumes of charcoal, as some assert, are necessary to make good Tea. If they are not necessary (that is, if they produce no chemical effect on the Tea, and therefore heat from wood devoid of smoke would do as well) there can be no doubt such heat would be cheaper, and more under command, by this or some other plan. Are then the fumes of charcoal necessary?

I do not know that anyone can answer the query. I certainly cannot, for I have never made Tea with any other agent than charcoal, and I have never met with more than one planter who had. He said the Tea was not good. Still it would, I think, require very careful and prolonged experiments to establish the fact either way. Speaking theoretically, as it appears, the only effect of charcoal is to drive all the moisture out of the roll and thus make it Tea, I cannot but believe other heat would do as well. It is, however, a question that only experience can solve.[44]

I have now (four years since the above was written, and at the time I am preparing the second edition of this essay) been for some time employed on experiments with a view to settle the above question. Whether I shall be able to devise a simple apparatus to effect the manufacture of Tea without charcoal is doubtful, but I can, I think, now safely affirm that the fumes of charcoal are not necessary to make Tea. On this point I am myself quite satisfied. The advantages of making Tea with any fuel (wood, coal, or anything else) would be numerous:—

1.—Economy.

2.—Absence of charcoal fumes.

3.—Less chance of fire in Tea Houses.

4.—Probably reduced temperature in Factories.

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5.—Great saving of labour.

6.—Saving of fuel—for it takes much wood to make a given weight of charcoal.

In addition to all the above, the wholesale destruction of forests that now takes place in all Tea Districts, in order to supply the charcoal for Tea, would be much lessened.[45]

I have seen a machine advertised for packing Tea, that is to say, for so pressing it down that a large quantity shall go into a chest. I have never seen the machine, and so cannot say how it works, but I do not think such a machine at all necessary. By the mode of packing, described at page 150, as much Tea as a chest will hold with safety can be put into it. If more were forced in, the chest would probably come to pieces in transit.

I see a sifting machine is now being advertised—“Jackson’s sifting machine.” I have seen drawings of it, but not the machine itself. In the one respect, that it is much larger than anything used hitherto, it is more likely to succeed.

There is a machine for sifting and fanning Tea at one and the same time. I know not who invented it. It is a simple winnowing machine with sieves placed in front of the fan. By means of a rod and crank attached to the axle of the revolving fan the sieves are made to shake from side to side when the fanners are turned. The Tea is put into the upper sieve, a coarse one, and passing successively through finer ones, is thus sorted into different Teas. The open leaf at the same time is blown out by the fan.

I purchased one, but I do not find it does the work well. Sifting Tea is a nice process, and I did not find it sorted the Teas with any nicety. I have taken out the sieves, and use it now only for fanning, which it does very well, though no better than an apparatus which could be constructed at one-third the cost.

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I do not believe in any present or future machine for sifting Tea, inasmuch as it is an operation which, to be well done, has to be continually varied. More will be said on this head further on.

I have now detailed shortly all the Tea machines or contrivances I know, or have heard of, and I think there is plenty of room yet for inventors.[46] The machine, as before observed, most to be desired is one to separate the small Pekoe leaves from the others, ere the rolling of the leaf is commenced. If such a machine existed, it would much increase the value of all Indian Teas, and if the Agricultural and Horticultural Society are inclined to offer a prize for any machine, it should be this.

At the point where the separation should take place, the stalk is much tenderer than elsewhere, and this led me to think a blow or concussion on the mass of green leaf might effect the object. I attached a bow by the centre to an immovable board, placed at right angles to the plane of a table (like the back of a dressing table), and then, causing leaf to drop from above, subjected it to sharp strokes from the string of the bow. It effected the object partially, for many Pekoe ends were detached, but it bruised and cut the other leaf too much also. I believe a revolving barrel, with blunt but thin narrow iron plates inside, which would strike the leaf placed within, as the barrel was turned, would perhaps answer. I give the above idea for what it is worth, for any inventive genius to improve on.

As it is impossible, as far as I can see, to construct any machine which should cut the stalk only in the right place, ergo, I believe some arrangement which would take advantage of the fact, that the stalk is tenderer there than elsewhere, is the only one that could answer.

[123]

Now to return to the manufacture of Tea. I will consider each of the five operations detailed, which I believe are all that are necessary to make good Tea, separately.

Withering.—There are several tests to show when leaf is withered. Fresh leaf squeezed in the hand, held near the ear, crackles, but no sound should be heard from withered leaf. Again, fresh leaf, pressed together in the palm of the hand, when released, springs back to nearly its original bulk, but withered leaf, in like circumstances, retains the shape into which it has been pressed. The stalk of withered leaf will bend double without breaking, but fresh leaf stalks, if bent very little, break. Practice, though, soon gives a test superior to all these, viz., the feel of the leaf. Properly withered leaves are like old rags to lay hold of, and no further test, after a time, than the feel of the leaf is necessary.

The agents for withering leaf are sun, light, heat, and air. Of these the most powerful is sun, for it combines all the others with it. Light is a powerful agent, for if some leaf be placed in a partially dark room, and some in a well-lighted verandah, the latter will wither in half the time the former will take. If light and moderate ventilation be present, heat is a rapid accessory to rapid withering.

There is often great difficulty in withering leaf in the rain. It can be withered in Tea pans, but “the out-turn” is then more or less injured, for after infusion the out-turn comes out green instead of the proper “new penny” colour. Withering in dholes is also objectionable for the same reason, though if the heat is moderate the green effect is less. It is further a long and tedious operation.

Space and light are the great wants for withering leaf in wet weather. Bamboo mechans, tier above tier, should be constructed in every available space. Large frames, covered with wire mesh, may also be made (by means of weights running over pulleys) to run up to the roof of any Tea[124] building. The leaf withers well in such frames, for heat ascends, and much heat is given out by dholes.

It signifies not though where leaf is spread as long as there is space and light. Houses made of iron and glass would be far the best for withering leaf, for, if well ventilated, all the necessary agents for withering, detailed in the last page, would be present. I do not doubt the day will come when these will be used, for properly withered leaf is a necessity for good Tea.[47]

In dry weather, when leaf comes in from the garden, spread it thinly anywhere and turn it once early in the night. It will generally be withered and ready to roll next morning. If not quite ready, then put it outside in the sun. Half an hour’s sunning will probably finish it.

In wet weather, if there is any sun when it comes in, or any time that day, take advantage of the sun to wither the leaf partly, so much that, with the after withering all night under cover, it will be ready next morning. If not ready next morning, put it out in the sun, if there is any, till it is ready.

In very wet and cloudy weather, when there is no sun and continual rain, so that the leaf cannot be put outside (for remember that outside, when there is no sun, the light alone will wither it), artificial withering of some kind must be resorted to. I have mentioned the only means I know of for doing this.

As properly withered leaf is an important point in making good Tea, it is well worth while to keep one or two men, according to the quantity of leaf, for that work alone. They soon learn the best way to do it, and if made answerable the leaf is properly ready for the rollers, the[125] object is generally attained. In this and every thing else in Tea manufacture, give different men different departments, and make them answerable. Much trouble to the manager, who should supervise all, and much loss to the proprietor from bad Tea, will then be avoided.

Rolling.—This is a simple operation enough when the men have got the knack of it. Some planters advocate a circular motion of the hands when rolling, under the impression it gives the leaf a better twist. Some like rolling it forward, but bringing it back without letting it turn during the backward motion. I believe in neither way, for it appears to me to be rolled no better, or no worse, by these plans than by the ordinary and quicker mode of simply rolling it any way. The forward and backward motion is the simplest and quickest, and the way all rollers adopt, who are given a certain quantity of leaf (say 30 lbs. a fair amount) to roll for their day’s work. In this ordinary rolling the ball in the hand, ’tis true, does not turn much in the backward motion, for ’tis more or less pulled back, but whether it turns or not does not, I believe, signify the least.

Rolling in hot pans was formerly extensively practised. It is not much done now. I have tried the plan, but found no advantage in it.

Rolling on coarse mats, placed on the floor, might be seen also. When I visited the Assam Company’s gardens near Nazerah, in Assam, I saw it done there. It is a great mistake. The coarse bamboo mat breaks the leaf sadly, and much of the sap or juice from the leaf, which adds much to the strength of the Tea, runs through the coarse mat, and is lost.

One and the principal reason why Indian Tea is stronger than Chinese is that in India the sap or juice is generally retained, while in China it is, strange to say, purposely wasted!

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A strong immovable smooth table, with the planks of which it is formed well joined together, so that no apertures exist for the juice of the leaf to run through, is the best thing to roll on. If covered with a fine seetul pattie mat, nailed down over the edges of the table, a still greater security is given against the loss of any sap, and I believe the slightly rough surface of the mat enables the leaf to roll better. An edging of wood one inch above the surface of the table should be screwed on to the edges over the mat, if there is one, to prevent leaf falling off.

The leaf is rolled by a line of men on each side of such a table (4½ feet is a good width for it) passing up from man to man, from the bottom of the table to the top. The passage of each handful of roll from man to man is regulated by the man at the end, who, when the roll in his hand is ready (that is, rolled enough), forms it into a tight compressed ball (a truncated shape is the most convenient) and puts it away on an adjacent stand. When he does this, the roll each man has passes up one step.

The roll is ready to make up into a ball, when it is in a soft mashy state, and when in the act of rolling it gives out juice freely. None of this juice must be lost, it must be mopped up into the roll, again and again in its passage up the table, and finally into the ball, when made up.

There will be some coarse leaves in the roll which cannot be twisted. These, if left, would give much red leaf in the Tea. They should be picked out by, say, the third or fourth man from the head of the table, for it is only when the leaf has been partly rolled that they show. The man who picks out the coarse leaf should not roll at all. He should spread the roll, and pick out as much as he can, between the time of receiving and passing it on. In no case allow roll to accumulate by him, for if so kept it hardens and dries, and gives extra work to the last rollers to bring it[127] into the mashy state again. Besides which I rather think, any such lengthened stoppage in the rolling helps to destroy Pekoe ends, and is certainly injurious to the perfect after-fermentation, inasmuch as it (the fermentation) partly takes place then.

This finishes the rolling process. Each man as stated can do 30 lbs., but there is further work for him to be now described.

Fermenting.—The balls accumulated are allowed to stand until fermented. I look on this being done to the right extent and no more, as perhaps the most important point in the whole manufacture.

Some planters collect the roll after rolling in a basket, and there let it ferment, instead of making it up into balls for that purpose as described. I much prefer the ball system for the following reasons:—When a quantity is put into a basket together and allowed to ferment a certain time, what was put in first is naturally more fermented than what was put in last, the former probably over, the latter under-done. The balls, on the contrary, can be each taken in succession in the order they were laid on the table, and thus each receive the same amount of fermentation. I think further the twist in the leaf is better preserved by the ball plan, and also that a large quantity in a basket is apt to ferment too much in the centre.

It is impossible to describe, so that practical use shall be made of it, when the balls are sufficiently fermented. The outside of the ball is no good criterion. It varies much in colour, affected by the extent the leaf was withered.[48] You must judge by the inside.

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Perhaps as good a rule as any is that half the twisted leaves inside shall be a rusty red, half of them green. Practice alone, however, will enable you to pronounce when the balls are properly fermented. There is no time to be fixed for it. The process is quicker in warm than cool weather.

The fermentation should be stopped in each ball just at the right time. Great exactitude in this is all-important, and therefore, as I say, the balls should be taken in rotation as they were laid down.

The fermentation is stopped by breaking up the ball. The roll is spread out very thin, and at the same time any remaining coarse leaves are picked out.

This concludes the fermenting process.

Sunning.—The roll is then without any delay put out in the sun, spread very thin on dhallas or mats. When it has become blackish in colour it is collected and re-spread, so that the whole of it shall be affected by the sun. With bright sunshine, an hour or even less suns it sufficiently. It is then at once placed in the dholes, which must be all ready to receive it.

If the weather is wet, it must, directly the balls are broken up, and the coarse leaf is picked out, be sent to the dholes. This is the only plan in wet weather, but the best Tea is made in fine weather.

Firing or Dholing.—In the case of wet weather, unless you have very many dholes, fresh roll will come in long before the first is finished. The only plan in this case is to half do it. Half-fired the roll does not injure with any delay, but even half an hour’s delay, between breaking up the balls and commencing to drive off the moisture, is hurtful.

In any but wet weather necessitating it the roll can be fired at one time, that is, not removed from the drawer until it has become Tea.

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The roll in each drawer must be shaken up and re-spread two or three times, in the process of firing. The drawer must be taken off the fire to do this, or some of the roll would fall through into the fire, and the smoke thus engendered would be hurtful. If the lowest drawer is made to slide in and out a framework covered with zinc should be made to run into a groove below it, and this zinc protector should be always run in before the lower drawer is moved. This is part of Mr. McMeekin’s invention, and is very necessary to prevent roll from the lowest drawer falling into the fire when it (the lower drawer) is moved.

The roll remains in the drawers, subject to the heat of the charcoal below, until it is quite dry and crisp. Any piece then taken between the fingers should break with the slightest attempt to bend it.

The manufacture is now completed. The roll has become Tea.

All the above operations should be carefully conducted, but I believe the secret of good Tea consists simply in, first, stopping the fermentation at the right moment; and, secondly, in commencing to drive off the moisture immediately after.

I do not say that the manufacture here detailed may not be improved upon later, but I do say that in the results of economy, strong liquor, and well twisted leaf, its results are very satisfactory, and not surpassed by any other mode at present in vogue. I do not pretend that it will give Teas rich in Pekoe tips. To attain this, light rolling as shown must be resorted to, but just as far as Pekoe tips are procured so far must strength be sacrificed. Until the small Pekoe leaves can be detached and manufactured separately, this must always be the case.

From the Tea made as described by sifting and sorting, all the ordinary black Teas of commerce, as detailed at page 137, can be produced, excepting “Flowery Pekoe.”

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To make Flowery Pekoe the closed bud and the one open leaf of the shoot are alone taken, and these are manufactured alone. It does not, as a rule, pay to make this Tea at all, though it fetches a long price. It does not pay for the following reasons:—

1. After the head of the flush is taken the pickers that follow do not readily recognise the remainder of the shoot, and consequently omit to pick many of them. A heavy loss in the yield is thus entailed.

2. The after Teas, made without these small leaves, are very inferior, as they are much weaker, and totally devoid of Pekoe tips.

3. The labour, and ergo the expense of picking the flush, is double.

The manufacture of Flowery Pekoe is simple enough. When the two leaves from each shoot of which it is made are collected they are exposed to the sun, spread out very thin, until they have well shrivelled. They are then placed over small and slow charcoal fires, and so roasted very slowly. If the above is well done, the Pekoe tips (and there is little else) come out a whitish orange colour. The whiter they are the better. If the leaf is rolled very lightly by the hand before sunning, the liquor will be darker and stronger, but the colour of the tips will not be so good.

Flowery Pekoe is quite a fancy Tea, and for the reasons given above it can never pay to make it.

Green Tea.

The pans for this should be 2ft. 9in. diameter and 11in. in depth. They should be thick pans, which will not, therefore, cool quickly. Many are required for this manufacture, four or five for every maund of Tea to be made daily. They should be set up in a sloping position, and the arrangement of the fireplaces such that the wood to burn[131] under them can be put in through apertures leading into the verandah. One chimney will do for every two pans, and it should be built high so as to give a good draught, for hot fires are necessary.

Flat-bladed sticks are used to stir both the leaf and the Tea in the pans, for the hand cannot bear the heat.

The men when working the Tea in the pans should have high stools to sit on, for it is a nine hours’ job.

The bags in which “the roll” is placed at night should be made of No. 3 canvas, 2 feet long and 1 foot broad.

I will now detail the manufacture.

To make Green Tea the leaf must be brought in twice in the day. What comes in at one o’clock is partly made the same day. The evening leaf is left till the following morning, laying it thick (say 6 inches), so that it will not wither. But if the one o’clock or the evening leaf comes in wet, they must both be dried, the former before being put into the pans, the latter before being laid out for the night.

The manufacture thus begins twice daily, viz., morning and one o’clock, but “the roll” of both these is treated together up to the time “the roll” is ready to place in the bags.

The leaf having no moisture in it is placed first in hot pans, at a temperature of say 160°, and stirred with sticks for about seven minutes, until it becomes moist and sticky. It is then too hot to hold in the hand.

It is then rolled for two or three minutes on a table until it gets a little twisted.

Then lay it out on dhallas in the sun (say 2 inches thick) for about three hours, and roll it thrice during that time, always in the sun. It is ready to roll each time when “the roll” has become blackish on the surface. It is not rolled more than three minutes each time, and then spread out as[132] before. If you put on a proper number of men to do this they do each dhalla in succession, and when they have done the last, “the roll” in the first dhalla will be blackish on the surface again, and ready to roll again.

When three rollings are done, the roll should have a good twist on it.

It is then placed in the pans, at the same heat as before, and worked with sticks as before for two or three minutes, until it becomes too hot to hold.

It is then stuffed, as tight as it can be stuffed, into the bags described above, putting as much into each bag as you can possibly get it to hold. The mouth is then tied up and the bag beaten with a flat heavy stick to consolidate the mass inside, and so it is left for the night.

Next morning it is taken out of the bags, and worked with the flat sticks as before in the pans for nine hours without intermission. The temperature 160° at first down to 120° at the last.

During and owing to this last process the green colour is produced.[49] It is worked quicker and quicker as the hours pass.

The following are the kinds of Tea into which it is best sorted:—

The sorting of Green Tea is a nicer operation, and takes twice as long as sorting Black Tea.

If there are pans enough, and the work is well arranged, there should be no night-work with Green Tea, for all[133] should be over by 5 P.M.; whereas with Black Tea night-work is generally a necessity.

The price obtained for Green Tea is more dependent on its appearance than in the case of Black.

It is not easy to make Black and Green Tea in the same factory.

Green Tea, if well made, pays much better than Black Tea; and, as before observed, I think all gardens with Chinese plants should adopt the manufacture.[50] When once the building is fitted for it, and the routine established, the Green Tea manufacture is always preferred by those who have tried both.

The Hybrid plant makes the best Black, the Chinese the best Green Tea.

Sifting is a very important item in the manufacture of Tea. Careful and judicious sifting, as contrasted with the reverse, may make a difference of two or three annas a lb. in the sale of Teas.

I was shown some Tea quite lately which, as regards “liquor,” was valued by the brokers at Re. 1-3 per lb., but the “Tea” at only 14 annas! This was entirely owing to faulty sifting and sorting.

I don’t believe in any machine for Tea sifting, simply because it is not a regular process.[51] For example, you cannot say that, to make Pekoe, you must first use one sieve, then another, and so on. The sizes of sieves to be used, and the order in which they are to be used, will vary continually, as both are decided by varying causes, viz., the comparative fineness or coarseness of the Tea made daily, the greater or less presence of red leaf in it, and (because Tea varies much during the season, and gets coarse towards the end) by the time of the year. These points all necessitate changes in the sizes, and the order of the sieves.

’Tis true sieves might be changed in a machine as required, but the only machine that could even pretend to save labour would be one in which all the sieves were arranged one below the other, and thus the Tea would fall through each alternately, the motion being common to all. But this won’t do for Tea sifting. Judgment must be used[135] to decide the length of time each sieve is to be shaken; further, with how much motion it shall be shaken, &c., &c. But this is simply impossible with any machine, though all necessary to sift Tea well.

The cost of Tea sifting by hand (see page 161) is not eight annas per maund, including picking out red leaf, which must be hand-work. Good and bad sifting will affect the value three annas per lb. or Rs. 15 per maund!

With all parts of Tea manufacture it is well to employ the same men continually in each department, but above all, perhaps, should this be done in Tea sifting. A good sifter is a valuable man. He knows each kind of Tea by name; he knows what sieves to use, and the order in which to use them for each Tea; what the effect a larger or smaller mesh will have on each kind, &c., &c. In fact, he knows much more of the practical part of sifting than his master can, though the latter is, probably, a better judge how far the Teas are perfect when made.

Tea sieves are of two kinds, both round. One made of brass wire, with wooden sides, 3½ inches high, the other cane, with bamboo sides, 1¼ inches high only. The latter are called “Chinese sieves,” and though the brass ones are used in many places, there is no possible comparison between them, for the labour required in the use of the brass ones is much greater, and the results, as regards well sorted Tea, much better with the Chinese.

Both kinds are numbered according to the number of orifices in one linear inch. Thus a No. 6 sieve has six orifices to the inch in both; but in the brass kind, a No. 6 has six orifices including the wire; in the Chinese kind, the cane between each aperture is not included in the measure. Thus the orifice in a No. 6 Chinese sieve is exactly 1/6th of an inch square, but somewhat less in a brass sieve.

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As I well know brass sieves cannot remain in favour after the others have been only once tried, I shall confine my directions to the Chinese kind.[52]

I practise, and I advise, Tea to be sifted daily. The Tea made one day, sifted the day after, and in fact stored away in the bins ready sifted. I find it is more carefully done this way, for by the other plan a larger quantity being done at once by several men, they cannot, from want of practice, be expert. But by the daily plan one, two, or three men, as necessary, can always be kept on the work, and consequently they learn and do it well.

To sift the following, Chinese sieves are required; and if daily sifting is resorted to, they will be found ample for any ordinary-sized garden:—

• 4 of No. 4
• 6 of No. 6
• 6 of No. 7
• 9 of No. 9
• 9 of No. 10
• 6 of No. 12
• 4 of No. 16.

Previous to sifting all red leaf should be picked out of the Tea. This, as stated under the head of “Manufacture,” should be done twice before the “roll” is fired; but towards the end of the season especially, some will still remain in the made Tea, and this must be carefully separated.

From what I have said it is evident that no rules can be laid down as to what sieves to employ to get out certain Teas. Only practice can teach this.

Further, practice can only enable you to judge in a Tea broker’s point of view of different classes of Tea. This essay would, however, be incomplete did it not contain a description of these. Such a description has been ably given by Mr. J. H. Haworth in his “Information and[137] Advice for the Tea Planter from the English Market” (Journal, A. & H. Society of India, Vol. XIV.), and, as his knowledge on the subject is far in advance of mine, and consequently more to the point than any description I could give, I will close this chapter with the following extract from his valuable pamphlet, and trust he will excuse my doing so:—

Of the Different Classes of Tea.

By far the best Tea boxes are the teak ones made at Rangoon. The wood is impervious to insects of all kinds, even white ants. Sawn by machinery the pieces sent to compose each box are very regular. The plank is half inch, and each chest made up measures inside 23 by 18 by 18½ inches, and necessarily outside 24 by 19 by 19½ inches. The inner cubical contents are 7,659 cubic inches, and this suffices for above one maund of fine, and under a maund of coarse Tea.

Each box is composed of fourteen pieces—viz., for the two long sides three each, for the two short sides two each, two for the bottom, and two for the lid. By the arrangement of three pieces in the long sides, and two only in the short sides, the centre piece of each long side is attached to both the short end pieces, and thus great strength in the box is ensured, there being no place where it can possibly separate at the joints.

These boxes are not made to “dovetail.” Each piece (and they are sawn with mathematical regularity as to length, breadth, and thickness) must be nailed to its neighbour. The best nails for this are the kind called “French Pins,” 1¾ inches long.

The wood is sold at Rangoon in bundles, and could be landed in Calcutta for about Re. 1-8 or 1-12 per box. The boxes need not be made up till shortly before they are wanted, and in this form, of compact bundles of short pieces, are very convenient for transport and stowage.

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Of course in many districts these boxes are not procurable, and local ones must be made. If so, use hard wood, and make your boxes about the size given above, for small boxes add much to the cost of freight.

Let the planks be ⅝ inch thick, for ½ inch, that is, 4/8 inch boards are not strong enough, except they are of teak or any other very good wood.

Take care the joints of the several pieces composing the sides and ends do not coincide at the corners, for if they do the box is very apt to come asunder.

The best way to arrange the pieces is as described above in the Rangoon boxes.

“A form” must be made on which the inner leaden case shall be constructed, that is, a well-made smooth box, to fit exactly into the box you pack in. It must be some 3 inches higher than the interior of the original box, and have bars running across inside, for handles to lift it up, and let the lead case slip off it, after it (the lead case) is finished.

Solder your lead case, over your form, in the way to waste least lead. In the Rangoon boxes described, two large, two small sheets,[56] and one piece, 22 by 9 inches (let in between the two large sheets) suffices, and there is little or no waste.

The lead case ready, hold up the form by the inner rods, and let the case slide off. Put it at once into the packing-box, taking care no nails protrude inside, or anything else which will hurt it, and thus prepare all the boxes for the break of Tea you are about to pack.

One great advantage the Rangoon boxes, and in fact all machine-sawn boxes, have is their equal, or nearly equal, weight. Purchasers of Teas, at the public auctions, require “the tare” of boxes to be as near the same weight as possible. If the tares differ, say more than half-a-pound,[149] the Tea will be depreciated in value.[57] It is well there should be about the same weight of Tea in all the boxes that contain any one kind, but this is not essential, which equality in tares is.

Your boxes all ready and lined with lead, choose a fine day for packing. Do this whether you finally dry the Tea in the sun or over the dholes; for even in the latter case it is well to avoid a damp day.

But before you pack you must bulk. That is, you must mix all the Tea, of any one kind, so intimately together that samples taken out of any number of chests shall agree exactly. This can be done by turning out all the Tea on a large cloth placed on the floor, and turning it over and over. No two days’ Teas are exactly alike, and you have perhaps a month’s Teas to pack; it is therefore necessary to mix them well.

Though I know many planters think the fumes of charcoal necessary and beneficial for the last drying, I do not. I have tried both sun and charcoal, and no difference was perceptible. The former costs nothing, is more commodious, and I always apply it when possible. The sun cannot burn the Teas; the charcoal, if the heat is too great, may.

Whether you use sun or charcoal, put the Tea hot into the boxes. The only object of the final drying is to drive off the moisture, which the Tea will certainly, in a more or less degree, have imbibed since its manufacture. Even the large zinc-lined bins which should be fitted up in all Tea stores, and in which the Tea is placed after manufacture, will not entirely prevent damp, so in all cases a final drying is necessary.

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Keep it in the sun, or over the charcoal, until it is hot throughout, hot enough to ensure all the moisture having been driven off. Then put into the box enough to about one-quarter fill it. Now let two men rock the box, over a half-inch round iron bar, placed on the ground, until the Tea has well settled. Then place a piece of carpet over the Tea, the exact size of the box, and let a man stand inside and press it down a minute or two with his feet. Now fill up nearly another quarter, and press it again over the carpet as before. Repeat this, putting less and less into the box each time, as you near the top, until it is quite full, but do not rock it at all the last two or three times, only press it with the feet as described. No patent screw press, or anything else, will pack the Tea better or more closely than this plan, and when the men are practised at it, you will find there will not be a difference of more than two or three lbs. in the Teas of any one kind put into the boxes.[58]

The box full, just even with the top, and well pressed down to the last, lay over the Tea a piece of the silver paper, which is found inserted between each sheet in the lead boxes. This prevents any solder or resin getting on the Tea when soldering the top. Now fit on the lead sheet top, solder, and nail on the wooden lid.

Weight of Tea in each box.—The boxes ready lined, with a lead cover loose, must be all weighed before the Tea is packed, and again after they are filled and soldered down, but before the wooden lid is put on. The difference of these weights, minus the weight of the little solder used in fastening down the top lead (for which allow say one pound to give a margin also), will be the net weight of Tea in each box.

[151]

Thin iron hooping, put round both ends of the boxes, much increases their strength, and is not expensive.[59]

Stamp each box on its lid and on one end.[60] Use for this zinc plates, with the necessary marks cut out in them. A brush run over these with the colouring matter does the work well and quickly.

Let the stamp comprise the kind of Tea, the plantation or owner’s mark, the number of the box, and the year; for instance—

The invoice you send with the break must give for each box the number, the gross weight, the tare, the net Tea, and the kind of Tea, with a declaration at foot that the Teas of each kind have been respectively well bulked and mixed together before packing.

Remember the larger the quantity of Tea, of any one kind, to be sold at one auction, the higher the price it will probably fetch. Sell, if possible, twenty or thirty chests of one kind of Tea at the same time, for small quantities as a rule sell below large, both in Calcutta and London.

Equality of tares is the most important point to attend to in packing Teas. It may be difficult, but with machine-sawn boxes, nearly the same weight, any difference must be made up with extra hooping, lead, solder, or nails. Anyhow it must be done, so that no tares shall differ more than half-a-pound (see foot-note page 149).

System and order, a good memory, a good temper, firmness, attention to details, agricultural knowledge, industry, all these, combined with a thorough knowledge of Tea cultivation and Tea manufacture, are the requisites for the successful management of a Tea plantation.

To find men with all these qualities is, I allow, not very easy, still they do exist, and such a one must be had if success in Tea is looked for.

Before the work is given out each day, the manager should decide exactly what is most required, and apply it to that. He should write down, when distributing the men, the works, and the number employed on each. This paper he should carry in his pocket, and he can then verify the men at work at each or any place when he visits it during the day.

The writer, the moonshee, and the jemadar (if there is one), should write similar papers when the coolies are mustered in the morning, and the manager should detail to each of these men which work they are particularly responsible for. This should also be shown in the “Morning Paper.”

Each of the above men then measures out the work to the coolies; visits it once or oftener in the day, and measures all that remains undone at night. A daily report of the work is kept, written by the writer in the evening.

The two forms given below are those I have adopted. The latter is suited to local labour paid daily, but it can[153] easily be altered to suit either local labour paid monthly or imported coolies.

This is the Morning Paper.

The column of “Probable numbers” is given so that before it is known exactly how many men will be present for work they can be divided in the most likely way.

Each headman (called “Mate,” “Mangee,” &c., in different districts) is best designated by a letter or number. In neither form would there be room to put in names at length.

The form below written in the evening is made into a book for each month. The advantages of it for after reference are great, and it can of course be altered to suit the kind of labour employed on any garden.

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The following is the plan I recommend for the leaf-picking and the Tea accounts.

The leaf of each picker is best measured in the field, and, as loads are collected, brought to the factory by one or two men throughout the day. It entails a loss of time, and further a depreciation in the leaf, if it is kept long in a close[155] mass in one basket, which is the case when each picker brings his or her leaf to the factory twice a day. The pickers are paid so much per basket, holding in any case 2½ lbs. I find the most convenient plan is to give the mangee in charge of the pickers tickets of any kind for this, which tickets are changed for money in the evening. As each load of leaf comes in through the day it is weighed, and this gives a check on the tickets given by the mangee or mate. This is the meaning of the two columns in the form below, “tickets by leaf” and “tickets paid.”

In the form the first column of “leaf results” shows the condition of the leaf when picked, whether wet (W) or dry (D). Unless this were noted the proper amount of Teas the leaf ought to make could not be known, and there would be no check against theft, which is carried on to a great extent in many gardens.

As explained previously, only the sections ready in each garden are picked. The sections are not entered in the form, only the number of the garden. The flushes now noted are the 20th, in some the 21st, or 22nd in others.

The Tea is calculated from the leaf. It should be 25 per cent. if the leaf is picked dry, and 22 per cent. if picked wet. As each load comes in a memorandum is made as to whether it is dry or wet, and the figures in the column “Tea should be” are thus found.

The Tea is weighed the morning after it is made and entered in the column “Tea made.” The percentage it bears to the leaf is then calculated and entered in the account column.

After sifting the whole is weighed again, and the result entered in the column “Tea after sifting.” Doing this is very important, for it checks theft. Directly after it is weighed this second time it is put in the bins in the store.

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Daily Leaf and Tea Account.

If this system is carried out, no Tea (exceeding a pound or so) can be stolen without its being at once missed, and the importance of this cannot be exaggerated. Tea proprietors do not guess how much is lost in this way. Maunds upon maunds might be stolen in many gardens, and unless the theft were accidentally discovered there is nothing in the Tea accounts to show it to the manager.

I have suppositiously filled up the three first days of the form. The 820 lbs. leaf picked on Sunday is made into Tea on Monday. The 198 is written down Sunday evening. On Tuesday morning, when the Tea is weighed and found to be 200 lbs., that is entered in the Monday line, as also the percentage. On Tuesday evening, after it is sifted and made into different Teas, it is weighed again and found to be 199 lbs., and so entered.

[157]

In dry weather after sifting, owing to dust flying off, it is always a little less. In wet weather, on the contrary, it increases in weight. In the Tuesday line where “W” shows it was a wet day and the Tea 230 lbs. before sifting it, is 233 afterwards. This is owing to moisture imbibed, and it is the only objection to sifting daily, whatever the weather. The advantages of the plan, though, are so great, as explained, that I put up with this, and practically I do not find it detrimental. Of course, as previously explained, all moisture is driven off before the Tea is packed. However, to make all quite safe, after a very wet damp day, the Teas might be re-dried for a few minutes over charcoal before being put into their respective bins. I do not do this myself though, and do not think it necessary.

I hope now I have made the above form plain. It is in a book, and each page will hold one week. The total of the Tea made in the week is added up and shown at foot, and that amount is then transferred to the credit side of the Tea store account. Thus (see both forms) 16 maunds 32 lbs. is credited.

The form given on the next page is also kept in a book, and the total of right-hand side subtracted from the left gives at any time the quantity of Tea in store.

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Tea Store Account.

Regarding accounts between the manager and his employers, I think they should be of the simplest kind. If a man can be trusted he should be trusted; if he cannot, no system of accounts will restrain him, and he should be kicked out. A simple account current, furnished monthly, showing under few heads the receipts and expenditure, is all that can be required. It is not by any papers received from a manager that an opinion can be expressed as to how he does his work, and how the plantation progresses. A competent person visiting the garden can easily ascertain, and[159] in default of this, and combined with this, the only true test is the balance sheet at the end of each season.

Shortly, it is not by the form, the nicety, the detail of accounts between manager and employer, that success is ensured or even forwarded. It is, as far as accounts are concerned, by the forms and system the manager adopts as between him and his subordinates, and these he should be able to show are good to the employer, or anyone deputed by him to visit the garden.

The profit shown yearly, whether it is large or small, all things considered, is, however, the only true ultimate test.

These are as follow:—They will vary more or less according to the district, rate of wages, &c., but in the form the tables are given, if not suitable to any case, they can easily be made so.

I have added sorting, packing, freight to Calcutta, and broker’s charges in Calcutta, to the cost, so that all is included from the moment the green leaf is picked off the trees till the hammer falls at the public auction.

Table cost of Manufacture, Sorting, Packing, Transport to Calcutta, and Broker’s Charges for each maund of Tea.

N.B.—If more than two maunds Tea are made per day, some of the items under head of “Manufacture” would be a little less. See page 70, where it will be seen that each maund of Tea is worth to the manufacturer (after deducting all costs) Rs. 50.

In the following estimate 100 acres are supposed to be planted the first year, 100 acres the second, and 100 acres the third.

To elucidate a table I shall draw up in the next chapter showing the probable receipts and expenditure on such a garden for a series of years, I shall suppose this plantation to be begun in 1875, and number the years accordingly.

The expenditure would truly, in the supposed case, begin in the latter part of 1874, but it is more convenient to regard it as commencing 1st January, 1875.

I estimate all new cultivation as planted “at stake,” that is, the seed sown in situ. Nurseries are only to fill up vacancies.

I shall not pretend in this to go into minute details, such as are given at page 84, for it is simply impossible to do so. The cost of making a plantation must vary greatly, being determined by climate, available labour and its rates, lay of land, nature of jungle to clear, &c., &c. In this estimate only round numbers can be dealt with. The prices I assume are average ones, neither suited to very heavy jungle, and very expensive labour, or the reverse:—

The garden is now made at a cost, including interest on all outlay of Rs. 83,257, and I am very confident that a good 300-acre garden can, as set out, be made for that sum. The rates assumed are so liberal that a fair margin is allowed for bad seed or any other misfortune.

Nothing is allowed for interest after the third year, for soon after that, viz., fifth year, the garden begins to give profits on the yearly operations.

All the above figures are carried out in the table in the next chapter, page 172, and how large the profits on Tea may be will there be seen.

In none of the estimates of cost, up to this, is the expense of manufacturing the Tea included. It would have been very inconvenient to do so. The cost is so much per maund of Tea, and I prefer estimating the Tea at its market rate minus the cost of manufacture shown at pages 70 and 162.

We have already estimated the cost of making and cultivating a plantation of 300 acres. We must now ascertain how much Tea that area will give yearly.

It is a very wide question what produce an acre of Tea will give.

The following is an extract from the “Report of the Commissioners appointed to enquire into the state and prospects of Tea cultivation in Assam and Cachar,” addressed to the Government of Bengal, and dated March, 1868:—

Mr. A. C. Campbell, Extra Assistant Commissioner at Burpettah, in his “Notes on Tea Cultivation in Assam,” published in the Journal of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India, part 3, vol. xii., page 309, says:—“Good Tea land can be made to yield as high as seven maunds per poora.” I forget exactly how much a poora is, but I believe it is nearly an acre.

In the Report to Government by the Commissioners, quoted above, at page 9, Mr. T. Burland, after estimating the cost of cultivation per acre per mensem at Rs. 9-10-2, adds:—“With the above expenditure per acre it is probable that much more than five maunds of Tea will be obtained from an acre of fair plant.”[78]

All these estimates, however, are based on the cultivation[170] of Tea as carried on hitherto with few exceptions, that is to say, on gardens covered with weeds for many months in the year, and to which no manure has ever been given. With such cultivation, particularly on gardens planted on slopes, I think myself that the yield will not exceed four maunds at the outside.

High cultivation and liberal manuring will, I believe, at least double the above, if the plants are of a high class. However, here I give a table on the subject which I have carefully framed.

[171]

I do not think plants reach to perfect maturity under eight or ten years.

That eight maunds per acre as estimated in the table just given can be realised, under the conditions stated, I have no doubt whatever, but I am equally certain that the size of some gardens in India must be much reduced if even five or six maunds are looked for.[82] Not only must they be reduced in size, but they must be highly cultivated, must be manured, and no vacancies allowed. However, I have dwelt on all these points before, and need not repeat here, for unless the reader is convinced before this that a large area and low cultivation won’t pay, it were waste to write more.

I now give a table showing the result for twelve years of a plantation such as I have advised.

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TABLE SHOWING THE ESTIMATED RESULTS FOR 12 YEARS OF A 300-ACRE PLANTATION, IN A GOOD TEA CLIMATE, HIGHLY CULTIVATED AND LIBERALLY MANURED.

[173]

The necessities for success in Tea are:—

• 1. A good climate.
• 2. A good site.
• 3. Perfect knowledge in Tea cultivation and Tea manufacture on the proprietor’s part or that of his manager.
• 4. Seed from a high class of plants.
• 5. Local or cheap imported labour.
• 6. Facilities for manuring.
• 7. Cheap transport.

Do not dispense, though, with even one of the seven points named, for the truth is simply, that Tea will pay very well with all the above advantages, but will utterly fail without them.

Such is my advice to intending beginners. To those who have gardens, I say, reduce your areas till of the size you can really cultivate them highly, and procure manure at any cost.

I shall not have written in vain, and Tea enterprise in India will flourish, if the motto of planters in future be—

“A full area, highly cultivated.”

A few words on the past, the present, and the future of Indian Tea will now conclude this Essay, and will, I hope, be acceptable to the reader.

The subject is one of growing importance, but being a new one, there are points connected with it on which the public are very ignorant, and should be enlightened.

To begin with, the following facts are not disputed by those who know anything of the subject:—

1. Indian Teas have far more body, that is strength, than Chinese Teas.

2. Indian Teas consequently command a higher price at the London sales than Chinese Teas.

3. In spite of its higher price, it is far more economical than the Chinese produce, as, generally speaking, one-third of the quantity suffices.

4. There are lands enough in India to grow all the Tea required for England’s use, and, indeed, for all her colonies.

If these are facts, and I confidentially affirm they are so, how is it that the following holds in England?

1. Indian Tea is not known to the public.

2. Except in one or two shops in London and Glasgow, unknown to the mass of the people, not an ounce of pure Indian Tea can be bought in all England.

3. That India is even a Tea-producing country is scarcely known in England.[84]

[175]

I think I can explain some of these anomalies.

Tea is an acquired taste: by which I mean, not only that the adult who had never tasted Tea would not like it when first offered to him, but also that, with those who consume it regularly, any Tea that differs in flavour from what is habitually drunk is not relished.

It matters not whether it is intrinsically better or worse, enough that the flavour is different, for that reason it is not liked.

Indian Tea differs widely from Chinese Tea, and for that reason is rarely appreciated by those accustomed to the latter.

For a long time it appeared as if this difficulty would be a bar to the general introduction of Indian Teas in England, and so indeed it would have proved, had the short-sighted policy adopted at the commencement by one or two Indian Companies that their Teas should be sold retail and pure, that is, unmixed with Chinese, been followed out. It did not avail to tell John Bull it was better Tea, that it was far stronger, that it was in no way adulterated; for he simply shook his head, the flavour was different to what use had made him familiar with, and he would none of it.

But little by little, in spite of the above, it made its way. Grocers soon found that the worst, id est, the weakest class of Chinese Teas received body and were made saleable by an addition of Indian Tea. It was not long after this that the trade discovered that pretty well all Chinese Teas were improved, if proportions of Indian Teas were mixed with them. In short, the fact was recognised by Tea vendors that Chinese Teas were weak, and much improved if mixed with Indian.

The public were thus educated to relish the superior[176] flavour of Indian Tea, and did so, when the quantity mixed with the Chinese was not so great as to make the new flavour too prononcé. Little by little the custom of so mixing became very general, so much so that it may almost be said to-day that if Indian Teas cannot be purchased pure, no more can Chinese. A mixture of Chinese and Indian Tea, the latter small as compared with the former, is what is now generally used in Great Britain.

This is the case to-day. What will it be in the future?

As the English palate is educated to like the flavour of Indian Tea, more and more of it will be demanded in the mixture made up for the public, and though the day is distant, nay, may never arrive, on account of its greater cost, when it will be generally drunk pure, I do not myself doubt that the demand for it will go on steadily increasing for years to come, as it has for years past.[85]

It is an important query if, with a largely increased demand, the supply will be equal to it. Very far from all India has a good Tea climate, which is a peculiar one, and only exists in perfection in Assam, Cachar, Chittagong, and lands in Bengal close to the foot of the Himalayas.

But in these districts alone there are lands sufficient to supply nearly the whole world with Tea, so that it is not the lands which are wanting, though the Government prices for the lands are prohibitory and will check cultivation. But in Assam, Cachar, and the Terai below the Himalayas labour is very scarce, while in Chittagong the area fit for Tea is not large, so that I do not anticipate any very sudden increase of[177] the cultivation, though year by year it is on the increase and will so continue.

On the other hand, I do not—for the reasons stated, viz., that Tea is an acquired taste and thus a new kind is not at first palatable—anticipate any very sudden increase in the demand. If, however, I am wrong, and from a largely increased demand the prices of Indian Teas rise, I do not doubt that the cultivation will be greatly extended, and that after an interval of four years (it takes that time for the Tea plant to produce) the supply will be equal to the then wants of the English market.

The future of Indian Tea is, I think, a bright one, and I know nothing in which capital can be more profitably invested if the business is conducted with knowledge and experience, but to embark in it without these two requisites is ruin.

A few figures may be given here. The imports into Great Britain of Indian Teas have been yearly increasing, till in 1873 they amounted to 18,367,000 lbs., and, judging from the estimate out here of the produce this year, viz., 1874, the imports into Great Britain in 1874 will not be far short of 20,000,000 lbs.[86]

But as the annual consumption of Tea in the United Kingdom is not less than 130,000,000 lbs., India is still very far from supplying enough to give a mixture of three-fourths Chinese and one-fourth India Tea.[87]

[178]

The finest Chinese Tea sells in London in bond at 2s. 4d. to 2s. 6d., while the finest Indian in bond fetches 3s. to 3s. 6d.[88]

What, then, will be the future of Indian Tea? It is an important query. The industry is one which, if successful, might attain to wide limits, and help not a little to relieve the Indian State Exchequer, while it would afford occupation to many a class of Englishmen who at present look about in vain for employment.

Tea speculation has passed through the first two preliminary phases to which most new ventures are liable. First, we had the wild rush, the mad fever, when every man thought that to own a few Tea bushes was to realise wealth. In those days existing plantations were bought at eight and ten times their value; nominal areas of 500 acres were paid for which, on subsequent measurement, proved to be under 100; new gardens were commenced on impossible sites, and by men as managers who not only did not know a Tea plant from a cabbage, but who were equally ignorant of the commonest rules of agriculture. Boards highly paid, with secretaries still more liberally remunerated, were formed both in Calcutta and London to carry on the enterprise; and, in short, money was lavished in every conceivable way, while mismanagement ran rampant in each department. It is not strange that the whole thing collapsed: the wonder is it did not do so earlier.

The second stage was then entered upon. Numbers had been bitten, and the idea, once formed, grew apace, that Tea could not pay at all. Everyone wanted to sell, and down went all Tea shares to a figure which only increased the general panic. Many companies, and not a few individuals, unable to carry on, had to wind up and sell their[179] estates for whatever they would fetch. Gardens that had cost lakhs were sold for as many hundreds, and the very word “Tea” stank in the nostrils of the commercial public. A few of the best companies held on, as also such individuals embarked in the speculation as could weather the storm; but some of the companies were bowed down with heavy debts, and it has been with many, from that cause, a losing race ever since.

This great smash occurred in 1867. I purpose, therefore, to examine into the future prospects of the industry, now that time has been given to test its vitality. Naturally the mistakes made at the first have not been repeated since, so the speculation has had more or less of a fair chance to show what it can do.

In the first place, the share list of Tea companies in the public prints does not at all represent the true position of Tea property to-day. It only gives the dividends declared and the value of the shares in those few limited liability companies which were able to weather the storm, but who, in common with all the others, were bowed down with debt, and are suffering up to the present time, both from that and the numberless mistakes made at the commencement of the enterprise. There are a few notable exceptions, even among the Tea companies. Some of these have done very well, pay large dividends, and are quoted at a high premium, which shows that Tea can and will pay even with the disadvantages attached to limited liability companies. I mean that in these latter work is always expensively done, and that much of the profits are swallowed up by secretaries, directors, &c., besides which, generally from interested motives, the Teas are sent home for sale which private planters know from experience is not the best plan.

But to return to the share list. The very many gardens held by firms or private individuals are absent, and inasmuch[180] as many of these were begun more lately, and consequently, the blunders made in other gardens were avoided, it is evident that their position, if it could be ascertained, would give the true picture needed.

There is one class of plantations which it would be by no means fair to include. I mean those gardens bought for a mere song during the panic. On many of these necessarily enormous profits have been made, but it proves nothing, inasmuch as the profits, to be legitimate profits for criticism, should on the debit side include the whole cost incurred in making the plantation. To form a fair appreciation of the profits Tea planting can give, we must select gardens constructed after knowledge on the subject was attained, where good management, combined with economy in all details, has been carried out, and where the necessary natural conditions for success exist—and such are rare.

But first let me explain what I mean by the “necessary natural conditions for success.” Manageable areas; flat or nearly flat land for the garden; a good class of indigenous and hybrid plants; local labour, or anyhow a good proportion of this; facilities for manuring; a good soil; a good Tea climate; and cheap means of transport constitute these, and where they exist I hold Tea must, and does, pay well. I don’t believe in plantations of 600 or 800 acres; some of these pay, but they would pay much better if reduced in size. A garden of 300 acres, yielding even at the rate of four maunds an acre, will pay much better than another of 500 acres, yielding but two and a-half or three maunds.

The reason is obvious, the larger produce is against a smaller expenditure. Were I to commence a Tea plantation to-day, it should not exceed 300 or 400 acres in size. This passion for large areas is the rock on which, more than any other, Tea Companies have wrecked themselves; experience[181] has already shown this, and will show it more, as time goes on.

Flat land for Tea gardens is a great desideratum. Steep lands are difficult to cultivate; the soil is continually washing away from the roots of the plants; it is impossible to manure them successfully, and the consequence of all this is that the Tea bushes do not thrive.

The Chinese plant gives a small and inferior produce, the indigenous and hybrid kind a larger and very superior one; thus I think the latter one of the “necessary conditions for success.” On the other points, with the exception of manuring, nothing need be said, inasmuch as their necessity is evident; but on the point of manure I must say a few words. The Tea plant is being continually denuded of its leaves; nothing is returned to the soil; and consequently in process of time that soil is exhausted. It was held once that manure destroyed the flavour of Tea. This idea, at variance with all agricultural experience, is now completely exploded, like many others received from the Chinamen who first came from the Flowery Land to teach the art of Tea cultivation and Tea manufacture to the Indian public. Many of them had never perhaps seen a Tea bush, anyhow in many respects theirs was faulty teaching, and all experienced planters are convinced, and it is truth, that more knowledge on Tea exists in India than China at the present time.

But to return to the subject of manure. It is, and is now generally allowed to be, a necessity to the lengthened and successful maintenance of a plantation. Means for its production are now largely adopted in Assam and Cachar, and the results will be a yield per acre the most sanguine have never dreamt of. Chittagong, on this head, has great advantages; manure in any quantity can there be procured for a trifle, and the results have shown its great value.

[182]

We have scarcely yet entered on the third stage to which any new speculation, after the two first (the wild venture, and the unreasoning panic have passed), tends; but as knowledge of the financial results of Tea plantations in the hands of private firms and private individuals increases, that third stage will dawn, if it has not done so already. It consists in a sober appreciation of the subject opposed to both the extremely exulting and depressing views passed through, and when it arrives, the great and successful future of Indian Tea will be only a question of time.

So much has the industry marched since the Third Edition was published in 1878 that I think it well to add the following pages to my book.

I will first consider the countries outside India and China which produce Tea, or wish to do so.

Ceylon.

This is likely to prove a formidable competitor. As far as I can gather, Tea plants (of both the Assam and China kinds) were introduced into Ceylon in 1841, but it is only during the last few years Tea planting has been taken up in earnest. A Mr. Shand, who seems to have studied Tea in Ceylon, estimates 500 lbs. per acre as the produce when in full bearing. This is 6¼ maunds, and though less than the best Indian gardens give, it is considerably above the average all over India. Ceylon Tea finds a ready market in London. The parcels vary much, as they do from India, but in the past year (1882) many very desirable lots were sent home. I believe, take it all in all, Ceylon Tea is no better, and no worse, than Indian Tea.

With Tea prices as they are to-day, I would not myself commence Tea cultivation in India, Ceylon, or anywhere. I feel sure, therefore, if Ceylon planters rush into Tea, as they did in India in times past, they will regret it. But I[184] hear that made Tea gardens can be bought there cheap, and under these circumstances Tea will probably pay the purchasers well.

Johore.

H.H. the Maharajah there has started a small Tea garden, but as there are in it only two acres of Tea, the whole thing is quite an experiment yet. The climate is said to be favourable, and land easily acquired. Cheap labour is the difficulty. May it long continue so! There is too much Tea already; the low prices ruling result simply from supply exceeding demand. Thus I hope Johore will not produce Tea. The following is from the Tea Gazette:—

[185]

Japan.

Sends its Teas principally to America. The Tea is of a greenish nature, and experiments to manufacture black Tea have not, it seems, been successful. The following should give a hope to Indian Tea planters:—

I know not where this next extract came from, but it appears they understand adulteration in Japan:—

[187]

The following is from the report of the Japanese Consul at San Francisco. I should have thought the Americans were too sensible “to prefer coloured Teas:”

The exports of Japan Tea to America have declined from seventeen to fourteen million in one year! Not strange if all the above is true.

The following from the Tea Gazette bears out what I say above as to Japan black Tea:—

[188]

All this is hopeful for our Indian Teas, as we can manufacture the greenish Tea they like—that is, we can do it if they won’t take our black, but they have begun to do so.

The above mode of manufacture in Japan is new to us in India.

Java.[89]

Much of this Tea goes to Holland and Northern Germany. I know Tea cultivation in Java is carried out very carefully and very successfully, but this one fact is all I know as to Java or its Teas.

America.

That the proper climate for Tea can be found there (a huge Continent to choose from!) goes without saying. But equally sure is it that Tea will not pay except labour is cheap.

By the extract below, it appears Georgia has been selected for experimental Tea cultivation, and I doubt not it is a good selection:—

[189]

No reason why the Teas should not be good, but the labour difficulty will, I think, prevent Tea paying there, as elsewhere in America, for Mr. Jackson himself, who continues the above, asks further on, “Can we afford to pay our labourers four times as much as they pay in India and still make Tea a success?” He, strange to say, tries to prove “yes.” I say no, a thousand times no, in spite of all Mr. Jackson says. I like, however, to give both sides of a question, and so will let Mr. Jackson speak for himself:—

In another place Mr. Jackson says he has always cultivated with ploughs, and done it successfully. Naturally this would make his cultivation much cheaper, and it is high time, as I say elsewhere, that we in India should try and do the same thing.

We, all the world knows, how ingenious, how inventive the Americans are, and thus it is possible they may by the use of machinery for all branches of manufacture, by improved steam-ploughs and other agricultural instruments which shall dispense with hand labour for cultivation, so cheapen the cost of Tea that its production will pay in[191] spite of the high rate of wages ruling. Only in this way, however, can the industry succeed in America, and if it be done (I hope it may, for we in India shall then benefit by the ideas carried out), the United States will add one more laurel to the many they have achieved already in other branches of commerce.

Natal.

Tea here too! Where, alas! is it not? The following is in a report from Natal:—

I have not done yet. Here is another place where it seems they mean to try Tea. I do hope that climate, soil, labour, something will be found unsuitable.

Here again, I am told, the labour question is the doubtful point. Tea cannot be made to pay without cheap labour, and the sooner all these new Tea countries learn the lesson[193] the better for the pockets of the projectors. I may add, the better for the Indian planter’s pocket too, for any increase in the supply is hurtful.

In closing this chapter, I would give one word of advice to intending Tea planters in India, or indeed anywhere. There is too much Tea already, why plant more? If you must “go into Tea” you may do so and probably make money, but it will not be by planting it. If you look about you can buy a plantation ready made for far less than you could make such, and in doing so there is no reason why it should not pay, and pay well. If you make a garden you will have five or six years to wait for any return; you attempt what requires knowledge and experience to succeed in, and begging your success, who can say what the market will be then?

I have far from exhausted the subject of these new Tea fields, but my space is limited, and several other points demand attention.

As early as 1780 a few Chinese plants were to be seen in Calcutta cultivated by a Colonel Kyd.

The possibility of cultivating Tea in India was first mooted in 1835-36, and the Indian Government started an experimental garden at Lukimpore (Assam) at that time.

Indigenous Tea was first discovered in Assam by a Mr. Bruce in 1830.

In 1845 and following years the Government imported large quantities of China seed and established nurseries on the Himalayas.

Tea planting was commenced in India by the Assam Company about 1840, and the cultivation was undertaken in other districts in the following years:—Kumaon and Gurwhal, 1850; Cachar, 1855; Dehra-Dhoon, 1855; Sylhet, 1857; Kangra, 1858; Darjeeling, 1860; Terai, 1860; Chittagong, 1860; Neilgherries, 1862; Chota Nagpore, 1872; Dooars, 1875.

Thus it may be said Tea planting in India dates from 1840 by one Company, but 1850 by individuals.

The following figures show the imports of Indian Teas into Great Britain since 1870 in millions of pounds:—

[195]

I may here remark that while the imports of Indian Teas have, since 1877, increased by 23 million pounds, the imports of China Teas have increased by 4 million pounds only in the same time.

The deliveries and stocks were as follows for 1881 and 1882 in millions of pounds:—

During the last 3 months of 1882 the deliveries averaged 5 million pounds per month. In January, 1883, they were 5½ millions, and in February (I write in March) 5 millions.

Deliveries at this rate mean 60 millions a year.

Thus, if deliveries continue at the present rate, demand must soon equal, if not exceed, supply, and the consequence naturally must be enhanced prices, which, however, will surely to some extent check the deliveries.

There is, however, a hopeful feature regarding Indian Teas. The taste for them is increasing greatly. A very small per centage of the public drink them pure (a large per centage in Ireland), but the public generally are now accustomed to the strength attained only by mixing, say one third of Indian to two thirds China, and will nothing weaker. Thus retail dealers must continue to use them, and thus though, as remarked, increased prices will check deliveries, they will not do so with Indian Teas to the same extent they would with China.

[196]

Another hopeful feature is (for details see further on) a growing demand for Indian Tea is now established in Australia, and has quite lately commenced in America. Thus, I think, the increased produce from India (which in no case can be large for some years[90]) will probably be met by this outside demand, leaving no greater quantity than now available for the home market. True Ceylon (a new field) will increase the supply, but it will not be by much for some time. Take it all in all, I look hopefully at the prospects of Indian Tea in the future. I never anticipate a range of prices as good even as ruled in 1881, but a good deal better than we had in 1882, and thus enough to make the industry a paying one.

I have lately received a valuable paper on Indian Tea statistics from Messrs. Gow and Wilson, Indian Tea brokers. I cannot transcribe the diagram they allude to, but otherwise I give the complete paper as sent me:—

The diagram omitted shows as follows: it gives the results quarterly, I only give them yearly in millions of pounds.

CONSUMPTION OF CHINA AND INDIAN TEAS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM FOR THE LAST FIVE YEARS.

Thus, while China Tea consumption has decreased in[202] five years by fourteen and a-half millions of pounds, Indian has increased by fifteen and a-half millions!

It must be remembered that the former table given at page 194 deals with imports, this with consumption, and thus the difference in the figures.

The following extract from the Tea Gazette (January, 1883) is interesting in a statistical point of view:—

The following, too, from the Tea Gazette this year is in some respects hopeful:—

The more Tea each individual drinks, the better doubtless for the producers. It is satisfactory therefore to find the consumption per head is increasing in the United Kingdom as follows:—

Nearly 1 lb. per head more in 1880 than 1870!

A few figures as to Indian Teas in Australia and America will finish this Chapter of Statistics.

The consumption of Indian Tea in Australia and the Colonies stands as follows:—

This is a satisfactory increase, but when we consider how vast is the great Australasian field, it stands to reason[205] two millions is but a small fraction of what it eventually may be.

The outdoor rough life, led more or less in the Colonies, makes its inhabitants the largest Tea drinkers in the world. For instance, each white denizen in New Zealand drinks nearly three times as much Tea as each person in Great Britain!

The following was the consumption in lbs. per head in 1878:—

I now give, in millions of lbs., the consumption in 1880 in the same Colonies:—

But what vast tracts exist outside these. The total consumption of all the Colonies must be very large. We make the best Tea in the world in India, why should we not have a large share of the market?

The population of Australia is nearly 2¼ millions, and of Tasmania and New Zealand nearly ¾ million, say three millions in all, or say three-quarters of the population of London. What a field exists there for Indian Tea!

America.

The yearly consumption (Canada is included) is over eighty million pounds, nearly all supplied by China and Japan. It is quite lately Indian Teas have been sent to America; so far, their reception has been favourable. But the Americans are accustomed to a greener Tea than we make in India, and this will prove a difficulty. Still we can[206] make the Tea they like, if they will buy it. It is early to speculate much as to America, but I think we shall succeed little by little, especially as in the States they are awaking to the fact that both China and Japan Teas are adulterated.

In closing this chapter I must put on record the fact, known to all in India, that the great success achieved in Australia, and the opening thus early attained in America, is entirely due to the labours of the Calcutta Tea Syndicate, and that I firmly believe, much as they have done, they would have done still more had they been properly supported by larger supplies of Tea by the planters in India, who, as a class, are strangely blind to the advantages of co-operation. I can only hope in this respect they will do better in future.

I have forestalled a good deal on the above in the last chapter, so this will be short, but, I hope, cheering.

Australia.

This, from the correspondent of the Tea Gazette in Melbourne, as to the size of chests, should be attended to:—

A fierce fight has been going on in Melbourne between the advocates of China and Indian Tea. The latter say China Tea is often adulterated, but this is disputed by the former. Of course I cannot say which is right, but chemical analysis, to which China Teas have been subjected in Melbourne, would seem to prove that in some cases they are not pure. We all know China Teas in London have, in several instances, been pronounced unfit for consumption, so it is possible, of course, that similar Teas are sent to Australia.

The Tea trade in China has taken alarm at our attempts on the Australian market. This is what the North China Herald (an organ of the China Tea trade) said lately:—

Mark you, this is an enemy’s opinion. May his prognostications be accomplished to the letter!

The following is from the Tea Gazette lately received:—

I conclude my notice of Australia as a market by the[209] following, also from the Tea Gazette. Matters there certainly look promising for the Indian planter:—

America.

The following is from the Daily News—a Calcutta paper:—

This from the Tea Gazette:—

Again from same paper:—

What possible foreign markets have we besides Australia and America? Russia and many European countries are on the cards, and if the Calcutta Syndicate will continue its work great results may ensue. Those who know the Continent often say, and it is true, that no good Tea can be had in France, Germany, or Italy (it is not so in Russia), and retail dealers have offered again and again (made the offers to me) to take large quantities of the Indian Tea of which I have shown them samples. As this is so, why not supply them? But it cannot be done well to any extent by individual planters. The Calcutta Syndicate could easily do it, and I quite believe they would find the work in Europe easier than in America.

The Amsterdam Exhibition, so soon to take place, affords a great opening, and from all I hear it will be taken advantage of. Inhabitants from all countries will be there, and the fame of our Teas should thus spread throughout Europe. The Tea Gazette says:—

Thibet.

This is a large, mountainous, and table land country on the northern side of the Himalayas. It is at a very high elevation, intensely cold, and very thinly populated. The Thibetans drink much Tea per head, but they use Brick Tea; this is made of the coarsest leaves compressed with some glutinous substance.

There is no difficulty in its manufacture. At present it is supplied by China, which is close by, but not nearer than India. Many think much of our coarse Tea (particularly from the Himalayan gardens) might find a market in Thibet, and I incline to the belief they are right. The quantity would not be very large, “but every little helps.”

Formerly much Tea was sold to the native tribes over the northern border by the gardens in Kumaon, Gurwal, and Kangra. Why I know not, but I hear the trade has fallen off to some extent; the Teas are taken to the Central Asian markets.

I have done with foreign markets, but there is yet another and a very large one regarding which nothing has yet been done: I allude to the market among the natives of India, in other words

[213]

The Local Market.

The following is from the Calcutta Englishman on the subject:—

When last in India I wrote on this subject largely, but all to no avail. The following was one of my letters which appeared in the Tea Gazette:—

Nothing has been done to this day; and thus, to our shame be it said, we are allowing a market capable of indefinite expansion to remain dormant.

Several plans have at times been proposed in India with a view to make the merits of pure Indian Teas known in England. When I was last out there I saw the following letter in the Calcutta Statesman, and it appeared to me the plan suggested was in every way an excellent one:—

[219]

I wrote the following remarks on the above to the same paper:—

Alas! in this case, like the one of supply of Tea to natives, nothing practical came of it. A very few gardens agreed to subscribe, and the matter dropped.

Of all the plans that have been mooted, this of Mr. Drews I believe to be the best. I wish a small company in England would try to initiate it. No greater boon, in my opinion, could be conferred on the Indian Tea industry; and were such a Company, with good names, launched in England, a large proportion of the shares would probably be taken in India. A very moderate capital would suffice.

So much has it been extended and improved since the Third Edition was published, I have much to say on this subject.

I will divide it into two headings, “Tea Cultivation” and “Tea Manufacture.” Of course the machines for the last far outnumber the first, which are very few, but much of great importance to the industry will find its place under the first heading—

Machinery and Implements for Tea Cultivation.

Formerly, with prices as they ruled, Tea paid under most circumstances. It is not so now. Unless Tea, and good Tea, can be made cheap it is hopeless to look for profit from a Tea garden. To cultivate cheaply, and efficiently, is therefore all important (far more important than has hitherto been recognized), and assuredly the more machinery can be made to take the place of hand labour, the sooner shall we attain that end. On this point I need only observe that in most of the Tea districts in India labour has to be imported at a great cost, varying from Rs. 50 to Rs. 100 per coolie, and anything which would lessen this want would materially help to success.

The following, signed “Nil Desperandum,” appeared in the Tea Gazette in August, 1881. I quite agree with the writer and have myself often expressed the same opinions:—

[223]

I will now consider the cultivation implements I know of.

Planting Pots.—These are made of clay, cow dung, and cut straw. They are placed in the nurseries and the Tea seed planted in them. When the seedlings are big enough to put out, pot and all is buried where the Tea bush is to be. The pot being broken a little when placed in the ground, the rain soon destroys it. The seedling does not know it has been transplanted, and the check of six weeks or more, experienced by all transplants, is entirely avoided. I know not who invented the pots, but the idea is an excellent one.

Jebens Transplanter.—This is an implement for lifting seedlings without injuring the rootlets or disturbing the soil around them. It is noticed at page 79 favourably: since that time (1878) it has been used more or less in all Tea districts. I have seen many opinions both for and against it. I believe the truth is it works very well in light soil, and with smallish seedlings, but does not answer in hard soil or with plants above 2½ feet high. Where the soil and size of seedlings are suitable, it certainly saves much of the check experienced otherwise by transplants.

I know of no other peculiar implements for Tea cultivation.

[224]

The greatest expense connected with cultivation is, naturally, opening the soil or digging; the spade is never used in India and would not answer. Coolies dig with a kodali, a thing something like a spade, with the handle set at right angles to the blade. Could we dispense with this, and cultivate between the lines of Tea with ploughs of any suitable pattern, whether worked by steam or animal power, an enormous saving would be effected. I am sure the whole space between two lines of Tea can never be so done, round each and every bush the soil must be opened by hand; but the centre space, say about 2½ to 3 feet, could, I am convinced, be so worked, and I think it is only a question of time when it will be so treated.

The planting community are gradually appreciating the fact that something may be done in this way. The following appeared in the Tea Gazette, end of 1881, re ploughing by steam:—

[225]

Again, “Nil Desperandum,” quoted above, continues:—

In the above, two bullocks to drag the plough or digger are evidently contemplated. My experience is, that two draught cattle cannot be used, simply because there is not room for them between the lines of Tea.[95] If animal power is used, it must be a single bullock alone. How to harness a single bullock to the plough is the question. A collar with a hinge below, which allows it to open at top, may be put on from below, and then the sides fastened together at the top. But I advise another plan, which I have seen most successfully practised in Austria. The traces, joining together, and thus becoming one behind the bullock, are fastened to the horns, and tightly connected with a leather pad across the animal’s forehead. The bullock thus pulls by his head, and I am sure he can pull in no more efficient or easier way to himself. Bullocks in pairs, or singly, are thus harnessed for plough work in Austria, and I have seen single animals dragging ploughs of much greater weight and power than we should require in our Tea gardens.

[227]

Given a proper plough, and I feel sure a large strong bullock thus harnessed would be successful.

A really good Tea garden plough has yet to be invented. All that is necessary is to give some agricultural machinists here at home the conditions necessary for success, and I predict what we want would be soon forthcoming. I will myself try to do so, let others do the same; one of us is sure to succeed.

I give all these extracts to show that many think as I do.

Cultivation with ploughs of any kind can never be feasible except on flat land. The hill gardens in India must in no case hope to introduce it; but I sincerely trust the planters in India who own level gardens will not rest till they have solved the problem, and that Messrs. Kinmond, Jackson, and other inventors of Tea machinery will give their valuable aid. The following two letters from the Tea Gazette show the difficulties to be encountered in steam cultivation:—

Though the signatures differ, I conceive Mr. C. B. Fergus, C.E., wrote the second as well as the first. He has evidently pondered the matter well. Let others do so too, and I foretell that the day is not far distant when flat Tea gardens will, in a great measure, be cultivated by steam or animal power. When this is so, even 8 annas (say 10d.) per lb. for our Tea all round should pay us well.

Tea Manufacturing Machinery.

The processes in Tea manufacture, as generally practised in India to-day, are—

• 1. Plucking.
• 2. Withering.
• 3. Sorting green leaf in a measure, and separation of Pekoe Tips.
• 4. Rolling.
• 5. Fermenting.
• 6. Drying or firing.
• 7. Sorting.
• 8. Final heating before packing.

No. 3 is not always done, the others invariably.

[232]

I will consider the machines invented for each process, in the order of the said processes.

Plucking.—No machine has ever been invented for this, and I do not think any is possible.

Withering.—In any but continued wet weather no artificial means are necessary. The leaf, spread thinly and exposed to the action of the air below and around (former attained by any kind of mesh), withers perfectly.[96] In continued wet weather artificial means are sometimes required. The various Dryers in use (see further on) are sometimes supposed to furnish the means, but their use necessitates much labour, nor is the result satisfactory. A good withering machine (it must be on a large scale) might, I think, be easily invented; there is none at present. Why do none of the inventors of other Tea machinery try to succeed in this?

Sorting Green Leaf.—This is sometimes attempted in a rough way by the use of sieves of different meshes. To separate the fine from the coarse leaf, and in some cases to eliminate the Pekoe tips, is the object. A machine by John Greig and Co., of Edinburgh, professes to do the latter. I have never seen it, but I doubt any machine abstracting the Pekoe tips alone. A machine which would, however, separate the fine from the coarse leaf previous to rolling is, I think, quite feasible, and it would conduce much to good Tea. This, again, is an opening for inventors.

Rolling.—This is perhaps the most important of all processes in Tea manufacture. The object of it is to break the cells in the Tea and liberate the sap (fermentation could not take place otherwise), and further to give a tight[233] roll or twist to the leaf. Formerly this was always done by hand (it is so done in China, I believe, to this day), but the process was lengthy, expensive and dirty. I might perhaps add inefficient, for doubtless machine-rolled Tea is better done (better in appearance, better in liquor) than hand-rolled.

I will now consider—

Tea Rolling Machines.

The inventors are Jackson, Kinmond, Haworth, Lyle, Greig and Thompson. There may be others, but I have not heard of them.

Jackson has invented five machines. The details of each, how much each can do, the testimonials regarding them, &c., would fill many pages. All can be seen in the illustrated catalogue he supplies, so I will only offer a few general remarks. All planters know Jackson’s rollers, and they are held in high estimation. His last invention (if I mistake not) is the Rotary Tea Roller, which is on quite a different principle to the others. It consists of an elongated revolving barrel or cylinder, with a polygonal internal surface, and a roller with a fluted external surface, mounted within the said barrel its whole length. These revolve in opposite directions (the roller the quicker) and the leaf is rolled in the annulus between. It is not yet known what the success of this last invention will be. Not so with his Cross-action and Excelsior Rollers. These are first-rate machines, and all who have tried speak well of them.

Kinmond invented the first Tea roller (see page 117), many years ago. Many improvements resulted, eventually, in his “Improved Double Action Tea Roller,” which is a very good machine and has given satisfaction to the many who have used it. From all I have heard and seen,[234] however, I doubt if, take it all in all, it is equal to Jackson’s Cross Action Excelsior. Kinmond, some two years ago, invented a “Centrifugal Roller.” It was made in two sizes. The smaller seems to have done well, not so the larger; one of the latter on the Phoolbarry garden (in which I am interested) has proved a failure. But Mr. Kinmond has quite lately materially altered the said Centrifugal machines, and is confident that they will do well. He is now leaving for India with one, and anticipates good results.

Tea machinery is still so much in its infancy that the best machines are likely to be improved upon, and perhaps superseded by others, but as things are now, I think, though some do not agree with me, that Jackson has carried off the palm in rollers.

The following two letters on rollers appeared in the Tea Gazette, and are well worth attention:—

Haworth’s Roller.—This machine was invented long ago. The leaf is placed in bags and so rolled. In some respects the machine resembles a mangle. It has not been largely used, and thus is not much known. I have no personal experience of its worth, but have heard much of it from an old friend of mine, Mr. Carter, of the Chandpore Tea Estate, Chittagong. He has, I believe, had one from the first on his plantation, and thinks very well of it. Mr. Carter is a first-rate judge on all Tea matters. He conducted some experiments to test the value of Tea rolled by Jackson’s and Haworth’s Rollers, and did it with great care, that the quality of leaf, the withering, the drying, all but the two modes of[236] rolling should be exactly the same. The samples were then sent to Calcutta and valued. Results as below:—

By above it appears Haworth’s gave better liquor, and Jackson’s the best Tea in appearance. From all I have heard I think it likely Haworth’s roller has not received the attention it deserves.

Lyle’s Roller.—I have never seen this. From the drawing before me it has no resemblance to other rollers. The inventor claims for it simplicity, cheapness, strength, durability, good rolling, and large outturn with a minimum of labour. One testimonial I have seen speaks very highly of its capabilities.

Greig’s Roller.—This I have not seen or heard of. I can only give the description sent me by the inventor:—

[237]

Thompson’s Challenge Roller.—This (quite lately invented) though given last is likely, by all I hear, to stand well among rollers. I have no drawing or description of it, but why I think well of it is that a Tea engineer, Mr. Ansell, of Kurseong, who thoroughly understands Tea machinery, thinks so highly of the machine that he has recommended its purchase by the Phoolbarry Tea Company. I have every faith in Mr. Ansell’s judgment, and feel confident therefore the machine must be a good one. One feature and advantage claimed for it is, “free contact of the leaf throughout the roll with the outer air.”

I may conclude my remarks on rollers with a quaint letter (from Tea Gazette) by a native. If he can judge of Tea machinery as well as he can write English his opinion is worth preserving:—

[238]

Before going to press I received drawing and description of “Thompson’s Challenge Roller.” It is impossible to judge of its merits by the drawing, but some very strong testimonials are appended—one much in its favour from Mr. Ansell, the Tea engineer above mentioned. By the testimonials (more than one from men I know) the following advantages appear to have been obtained:—

• “Balling” of the leaf is avoided.
• The tips are kept quite bright.
• Heating prevented.
• Simplicity of “feed” and “discharge.”
• One attendant, a minimum of motive power, and low priced.
• A good twist attained.
• Simplicity in the machine, and ease of transport and erection.

If all the above are facts, I quite think the “Challenge” will prove a great success.

The following, written by me to the Tea Gazette, may be worth the attention of Tea-rolling machine inventors:—

Fermenting is the next process in the list. After the leaf is rolled it is put together; some make it up in truncated balls, some put it in baskets, but in either case it is allowed to stand until a given amount of fermentation has set in. This is done in the warm atmosphere of the factory. Naturally no machine is required for this process; but shelves, at varying height from the factory floor, are useful to regulate the fermentation, inasmuch as the higher the shelf the warmer the air, and warmth hastens the process. This plan of shelves was devised by Mr. J. Fleming, at the Phoolbarry Garden, and it seemed to me to answer well.

Drying or Firing comes next. Up to this point the leaf is of a brownish green colour, and soft. After the drying it is black and crisp, in fact, made Tea. By the drying process all the moisture in the mass is driven off. For many years charcoal only was used to fire Tea, and it was an established belief that the fumes given out by the said charcoal had some chemical effect on the Tea—in fact, that good Tea could not be made without it. When, twelve years ago, I published the First Edition of this Essay, I had begun to doubt the soundness of the above belief, and four years later I had thoroughly satisfied myself of its fallacy. It was not, however, till 1877-78 that I devised a means of firing Teas without charcoal. The invention was well received, and thought well of. At all events, it proved what I had long urged—viz., that any fuel, if contact with the smoke was avoided, would dry Tea. My invention was a very crude[240] one, and quickly superseded by far more perfect designs; still I have the satisfaction of knowing that on this head I have done much to perfect Tea manufacture, and that the conviction I had attained to in 1874 is now general and practised throughout India. (Pages 119-121, 295, to end of Addenda, bear out the above remarks.)

I will now consider the various

Tea-Drying Machines.

Robertson’s Typhoon.—This is a late invention: it was noticed in the Tea Gazette in 1881. It had, however, made a great noise at end of 1880, and so well was it spoken of, many, in the early part of 1881, purchased it. The following was the report as to its merits (Tea Gazette, September, 1881):—

Of course all the above was very favourable, and its low price gained it many purchasers. I think, as a first success, it beat any machine yet invented. But, alas! its fall was sudden as its rise, for, judging from several letters in the[242] Tea Gazette, the purchasers were not satisfied with its capabilities, and I doubt consequently if it is now manufactured; still I may be wrong.

Allen’s Tea Drying Apparatus.—I have never seen this, and have not heard much about it. Advantages claimed for it are—1. Quick drying. 2. Coke can be used as a drying agent, 10 seers to one maund of Tea. 3. Only manual labour required. 4. Not necessary to turn the Tea. 5. Perfect control over temperature. I have three testimonials to its merits before me, one from an engineer, and all three speak highly of it.

The following letter from the inventor to the Tea Gazette gives further information:—

[243]

I omitted to extract the broker’s reports, but they were favourable. I think it likely this Dryer is well suited to small gardens, which cannot afford steam motive power.

Davidson’s Sirocco.—Many of these, over 200, have been set up in all the Tea districts; it has done good work in its time: had it not done so it would not so long (some years) have commanded attention. When it came out it was, I think, the best machine going. I doubt much that being the case now. It requires no motive power, and is thus, in that respect, cheap to work. The following letter to the Tea Gazette in many respects embodies my views of the machine:—

There may have been an answer, but I did not see it.

Gibbs and Barry’s Tea Dryer.—This machine has been lately invented. I saw it when not as complete as it is now. I have tried to get details, but failed. It must have merit, however, for though a late machine, some thirty-six are now in operation; I heard one good judge speak very well of it. More are, I hear, being despatched to India. No trays are used with this Dryer.

Shand’s Dryer.—This hails from Ceylon. Steam for drying Tea is not quite a new idea. I saw an apparatus to use steam in Cachar years ago. The great advantage claimed for this Dryer is that Tea cannot be burnt. It is quite a new invention. This, from the Tea Gazette, describes it:—

I have now considered all the Dryers I know of except Kinmond’s and Jackson’s. I have purposely left these to the last. While in the case of Rollers I thought Jackson had done best, in Dryers I most decidedly award the first place to Kinmond.

Jackson’s Dryer.—A long and exhaustive report upon it from Mr. Carter, of the Chandpore Garden, Chittagong,[247] appears in the Tea Gazette, November 7, 1881. It is too long to insert here. No one can read it and doubt that the trials were most carefully conducted, and without bias of any kind. The results are not in favour of the machine. Moreover, were Jackson’s Dryers a real success I should have been aware of the fact long ago. I incline to the belief Mr. Jackson thinks he can do better, for he has lately brought out a Self-acting Tea Dryer regarding which the following appeared in the Tea Gazette:—

I know nothing about this new Dryer beyond what is printed above, and I rather doubt if any have yet been set up. If the advantages detailed are truly all realised, they are doubtless of much value.

Kinmond’s Dryer.—I shall devote extra space to this, for I believe in it. I have seen it working for a long time on the Phoolbarry Garden, and I continue since I left India to receive good reports of it. This is what the inventor himself says of it recently:—

The best of the three sizes is No. 3. I have quite lately sent out two of them, one for the Phoolbarry, one for the Leesh Company’s Gardens, both in the Western Dooars. I think the prices are much too high, and might with advantage (to both inventor and planters) be reduced; but as to the excellence of the machine there can, I think, be no doubt. My opinion is shared by many. I have before me many testimonials as to its excellence. Space forbids me inserting them here, but Mr. Kinmond or his agents will send them on application.

In March, 1881, so satisfied was I even then with the Dryer (both the manager, Mr. Pillans, at Phoolbarry, and I am still more so now), I wrote the following to the Tea Gazette, and I give it here as details are embodied:—

Since the above was written, further improvements and alterations (suggested by Mr. Ansell, the Tea engineer, and Mr. Pillans, manager at Phoolbarry) have been carried out. The machine is now very perfect, and I consider it the best Dryer at present in the market.

Mr. Kinmond has invented quite lately a coke-burning Dryer. He is now taking this with him to India to try it, and has sent me the following prospectus of it:—

I know nothing of this Coke Dryer. Its price compares favourably with his other Dryers.

In April, 1881, the following leader, written by me, appeared in the Calcutta Statesman. Though other Tea matters are included (all of interest), I give it here as further testimony to the merits of Kinmond’s Dryer:—

I may state that Kinmond and some other inventors of Dryers claim for them that in wet weather green leaf may be withered by their means. But, as I stated some pages back, I do not think any Dryers suitable for withering. That machine has yet to be invented.

[258]

To conclude my remarks on dryers, I give (again from the Tea Gazette) an estimate of the cost of drying by the old primitive mode with charcoal, and with machines. There was no signature to the letter. I cannot say if the figures assumed are quite correct, but in any case the machines have much the best of it:—

Sorting or Sifting is the next process—that is to say, dividing the Tea (by passing it through sieves) into different kinds, as Pekoe, Broken Pekoe, Pekoe Souchong, and Broken Tea. All do not divide it thus, for some make other kinds also. In the body of this Essay (page 122) I say, “I do not believe in any present or future machine for sifting Tea.” I did not then; that was in the early days of Tea; but I was wrong. A sifting machine, on the large scale on which Tea is now made, is essential for every garden.

Jackson’s Sifter.—I have seen this, and heard it well spoken of, but I have no experience of it.

Greig’s Sifter.—This I have not seen, but from the drawing I have I should doubt if it would sift enough per day for a large garden.

Pridham’s Sifter.—This is quite a new thing. I know nothing of it.

The fact is, the manager at Phoolbarry and I have been[260] so thoroughly satisfied with the Sifter we use there (Ansell’s) I could conceive nothing better, and I have not therefore looked into the matter of Sifters.

In January, 1881, I sent an article to the Tea Gazette describing Ansell’s Sifter, and as I thought then I think now. I believe it is by far the best Tea Sifter yet invented. Many are the testimonials, too, in its favour. The price, £80, is too high; but the manufacturers (Ransomes, Head and Jeffries, of Ipswich) advise me they propose reducing it to £70. Even that, I think, is too much; but there can be no question the use of it effects a great saving in a factory.

I add two more letters in favour of the machine from the same paper:—

Packing.—This is the final process. Unless Teas are packed directly they are made, they require to be heated once more to drive off any moisture imbibed. This can be done in a way in most of the dryers described, perhaps in Kinmond’s best of all.[103]

This concludes my remarks on Tea machinery; but I shall not have a more appropriate place than this to mention the ornamental tin boxes devised by Messrs. Harvey Bros. and Tyler, as a new mode of packing Teas. The following is an article of mine on the subject to the Tea Gazette, written in 1880:—