Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1872-10-11

The English tea gardens extend along line
OF 1000 miles, on the foot hills of the Himalaya
Nevadas of India. The plant thrves best at
Dareeling, where snow covers it for more than
two months of the year. The country was
dense jungle, the home of elephants and tigers.
10 get clearing for tea garden costs twenty
fold the price of ready cleared land in our foot
hills The soil and climate Of our mineral belts
are equally adapted to tea. But, as in India,
the plant must be irrigated, if you pluck its
leaves; well up inside the snow line the best
qualities OF tea are raised in China; and the law
will hold good in our country The failure of
the Schnell plantation in FL Dorado county was
due TO lmproyldence and untOWaTd circumStan-
ces ola peculiar character.
The soil and climate proved to be all right.
But the Japanese labor contracts were broken,
and the waters of irrigation were charged with
iron and sulphur, which killed the young tea
plants The proprietor was involved in finau-
cial troubles and lost his property through
failure of remittances from Japan. The expert
ment, however, settled the question in the
affirmative. Can we raise our own tea in Cali
t0rnia? We can do on the foothills of our Ne
vadas all that English enterprise has done and
is doing, on the same kind of foothills of the
snowy Himilayas.
Twenty millions of pounds of teas, superior
far to China, were shipped in 1871 to London
giving attestaton of most brilliant success. The
teas Of India bear higher prices than those of
China; and this is probably the reason why
none has been shipped to the American market.
Assam is country 1000 miles away to the east.
ward OF the region we have been describing. Tea
has been grown there for twenty years past; and
now Its production is very large, though, owing
TO peculiar circumstances, the public traces no
record of the quantity. Tea is grown there, on
the hot and humid banks of Brahmapootra, a
tributary of the Ganges. 1t is therefore rank
and niggery. 1t is unfit for beverage. But il
tetches the highest prices for all that! The En-.
glish market is full of spurious teas, homemade
and foreign, that never came from the tea plant.
They are chiefly for adulteration. But an ounce
OF Assam mixed with pound of Spurio, gives
it favor that greatly promotes its value.
Hence is price. 1t is bought only by grocers
who use il solely for doctoring. 1t is never for
sale to the public. Labor is cheap in India. In
this respect California has disadvantages,
The only way to overcome it is to encourage
cooperative associations among the Chinese
after the fashion that has necesstated the farm.
ing out of the strawberry beds of Santa Clara.
1t Is not the farming that costs-American de-
vice can overcome that-but the leaves require
hand picking and careful selection. New sources
OF irrigation must also be found. The mining
waters of our ditch system will not answer
They deposit ring of metal around the young
plants that throttes them beyond recovery.
Thus we have the whole story of our disad-
vantages. And after all the fact remains pa.
tent that our soil and climate are adapted to tea
growing, and American ingenuity has overcome
more obstacles than stand IN our way to achiev.
ing success in raising tea for home consumption
Pacific ReTal.