_PREMIUM, THREE HUNDRED RUPEES AND THE GRANT GOLD MEDAL._
PAST AND PRESENT FINANCIAL PROSPECTS OF TEA.
_Will Tea pay?_ Certainly, on a suitable site, and in a good Tea climate; equally certainly _not_ in a bad locality with other drawbacks.
_Why, then, has Tea only paid during the last few years_ (?) Simply because nothing will pay, which is embarked on without the requisite knowledge; and this was pre-eminently the case with Tea.
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 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, 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.