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 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.
SUNGOO RIVER PLANTATION, CHITTAGONG, _November, 1870_.
I. PAST AND PRESENT FINANCIAL PROSPECT OF TEA 1 II. LABOUR, LOCAL AND IMPORTED 10 III. TEA DISTRICTS AND THEIR COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGES. CLIMATE, SOIL, &C., IN EACH 13 IV. SOIL 31 V. NATURE OF JUNGLE 34 VI. WATER AND SANITATION 35 VII. LAY OF LAND 37 VIII. LAYING OUT A GARDEN 42 IX. VARIETIES OF THE TEA PLANT 47 X. TEA SEED 54 XI. COMPARISON BETWEEN SOWING IN NURSERIES AND IN SITU 57 XII. SOWING SEED IN SITU, ID EST, AT STAKE 59 XIII. NURSERIES 62 XIV. MANURE 67 XV. DISTANCES APART TO PLANT TEA-BUSHES 71 XVI. MAKING A GARDEN 73 XVII. TRANSPLANTING 76 XVIII. CULTIVATION OF MADE GARDENS 81 XIX. PRUNING 86 XX. WHITE ANTS, CRICKETS, AND BLIGHT 89 XXI. FILLING UP VACANCIES 92 XXII. FLUSHING AND NUMBER OF FLUSHES 97 XXIII. LEAF-PICKING 102 XXIV. MANUFACTURE. MECHANICAL CONTRIVANCES 109 XXV. SIFTING AND SORTING 134 XXVI. BOXES. PACKING 147 XXVII. MANAGEMENT, ACCOUNTS, FORMS 152 XXVIII. COST OF MANUFACTURE, PACKING, TRANSPORT, &C. 160 XXIX. COST OF MAKING A 300-ACRE TEA GARDEN 163 XXX. HOW MUCH PROFIT TEA CAN GIVE 168 XXXI. THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE OF INDIAN TEA 174 XXXII. COUNTRIES OUTSIDE CHINA AND INDIA THAT PRODUCE TEA 183 XXXIII. STATISTICS REGARDING INDIAN TEA 194 XXXIV. MARKETS OUTSIDE GREAT BRITAIN 207 XXXV. MAKING INDIAN TEA KNOWN IN THE UNITED KINGDOM 218 XXXVI. TEA MACHINERY 222 XXXVII. WEIGHING AND BULKING OF INDIAN TEAS AT CUSTOM HOUSE 272