Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1888-11-05
Tea-planting in India.

Twenty millions of British gold are
invested in the tea gardens of India,
and some thousands of Englishmen
are engaged in managing the half
million of coolies employed in the
gardens. China has been forced TO
Weld its monopoly and to take sec
ond place, while British pertinacity
and vigor have once more asserted
their supremacy. The Caucasian has
met the Celestial, and, by sheer SUI
periority, driven him step by step
from his vantage-ground.
Civilization and its resources, coup
led with its readiness and ability to
make use of natural advantages, have
undoubtedly been the cause of this.
In India, when once the leaf is pick
ed, the remaining treatment is entire
" performed by machinery, which in
wolves cheapness, rapidity, and less
variable results. Rollers and driers.
equal.zers and sifters, are all worked
bv steam in thoroughly well-appoint-
ed factories.
Not 30. y wever, with the Celes-
tial.. IS ith his well-known reverence
for custom, it is not altogether sur
prising to find him still working with
his own hands, as his fathers did
aforetime and in every stage of the
manufacture the results are as less
remunerative as they are less salts
factory.
Assam has the advantage of China
in its tea-plant. The indigenous tree
of Assam will grow to a height of
twenty and sometimes thirty feet, ,and
the leaf it bears is six times as large
as that produced by the dwarf shrub
of China. Granted, even, that the
conditions are the same, the crop Of
Assam is at least twice rs much per
acre as that of China.
A scientific study and comprehen-
sion have enabled the Assamese tea
planters to combat successfully with
one object after another, and the
probability is that in two or three
years the quarter of million acres
now under cultivation will yield the
marvellous total of one hundred and
twenty million pounds of first-rate
tea, and the planters of Assam will
then command the market.
Although the price of tea is rapidly
declining, the cost of producing II
fortunately diminishes and the great
tea planting companies pay good
dividend and have every reason TO be
we'll satisfied.
The best soil for the tea=plant is
rich light loan. AS rule the soil OF
Assam is wonderfully fertile, the
great proportion of it being of an al
luviaI nature and rich in vegetable
matters with the accompanying adj
vantages of phosphorus and potash
In some places a white, coarse sand
ssstrikes" up, in which are found the
grinding of lime-rocks in abundance
and below all there is a general sub
stratum of clay.
Assam is in configuration somewhat
like saucer; it is a vast plain oI
shallow basin, surrounded but moi
traversed by elevated regions. Al
one time it was undoubtedly one
great bog, and even now peat may b6
found all over the country at an av-
erage depth of fifty feet. When the
damp heat of the CLIMATE is added tc
this, it is not to be wondered at that
the country is as favorable to vegeta-
ton as it is inimical to the health oi
the European. Cholera and dysen'
terry, jungle fever and dropsy rank
chief among the diseases of Assam
but the man who is temperate in al
things, and, particularly, withstand'
the too general custom of "nipping,
has every right to expect fair health
The Assam tea-plant is indigenous