Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1890-05-07
IN AN INDIA TEA FIELD.
A Brooklynte Who Knows All
About the Fragrant Leaf
China Has No Longer a Monopoly of Sup
plying the Cup That Cheers and
Does Not InebrIate - Brand
Straight and Faced"

at is surprising how little people
know about tea. The consumption of
this article in the United States
amounts to thousands Of chests annu-
ally and yet not one person in a thou
sand knows any thing about the growth
and subsequent preparation of the
fragrant leaf before it is put on the
market, and l may add that very few
know how to make tea when they have
the material at hand"
This was what Mr.. James Virtue. of
465 Fifth avenue, said to Brooklyn
Eagle writer the other day. Mr.. Virtue
IS a Scotchman by birth and for eight
cen years was a superintendent of tea
fields or commands, as they are called
in India. Most OF this time he spent in
the Doaars and Dagelling provinces,
which are in the northeast portion of
India and about four hundred and fifty
miles from Calcutta. Being asked to
tell something of what he knew of tea
culture Mr.. Virtue continued: 1.-THE
general idea is that all teas come from
China or Japan. This is an erroneous
supposition. The tea planting industry
in India is by no means a new one, and
its steady success has comm anded for it
extended territory, and has been the
means of giving employment to
thousands of natives who would other
wise have been idle or next door to it.
Tea gardens or plantations in India are
known in the trade as commands, with
only one m. In China and Japan these
commands are from one and half to two
acres in extent, rarely more than four,
while in India they will include from a
thousand to fifteen hundred acres, and
this would be about the average, al
though there are some much larger.
The Assam Tea Company, for instance,
has 'cOmand' of II, 900 acres. On it are
employed seventy Europeans-chiefy
English-as oyerseers and 25. 900 natives
who do the work. The company has its
own stores, supplies all groceries, cloth
ing, liquors, ETC., to its employees, has
theater, and in fact the 'comand' is
really a city within itself The manu-
facturer of tea depends to large extent
upon the honesty of the men engaged In
the business. There can be either a
straight or faced tea. BY a straight
tea 7 mean a leaf straight from the
bush; by faced tea l mean tea that
has been cut and used and again bruised
and faced with iron filings, indigo,
aloes and various other compounds. The
former manufacture is Indian, the lat,
ter Chinese. The tree planters of India
are generally honest, and pride them
selves upon giving straight article.
Indian tea, especially Assams, are
grown in very forcing climate marked
by great warmth and humidity. The
soil is loamy and stony. The climate
IS detrimental to Europeans, being
muggy and full of malaria, and few but
natives can reside there for any length
OF time Europeans are always en-
ployed as managers or overseers, who
watch the natives at their work, being
incapable themselves Of doing any
manual labor on account of the intense
heat. The workers are natives of Hin
.dostan and most of the pickers are
women. AS a rule they are very tract
able. The women work eleven or twelve
hours day, and the men, who are the
.cultivators, eight hours only. The tea
manufacturers, who are also men, work
sixteen hours. Tea is grown from q
seed which, of course, is obtained from
the tree, and is either planted seed at
stake (which means that a small stake
is used to make a hole in the soil, the
seed dropped in and covered), or from
what is called transplanting Seeding,
which is taken from forcing bed and
transplanted in the regular soil. This
planting is done in the rainy season,
which lasts from May to November.
This seed wants great deal of atten-
ton The lines or rows must be regu-
larly dug and weeded by hand at least
once month to prevent the growth of
Jungle which Is very prolific in such
a climate. Each plant requires a
space to itself about fye feet
square, and seed at stake will shoW
above ground in from three to four
months after planting. 4 transplanted
Seeding will appear in half the time.
The plant grows just like . young fiF
tree. 1t requires much care and clean
ing until the end of the second season
when the bush will have attained q
height of from three to three and half
feet ] have known tree to grow as
high as twelve feet. If it was left alone
the tea plant would reach a height of
fifteen or twenty feet and, as l said,
would be like fir tree ia shape, but we
prune it about twenty inches from the
ground, so as to educate it to spread and
thus yield a finer leaf, to give more
surface and more delicate product. II
we allowed 1t to grow, il would sap it
self and its leaves would be worthless.
The pruning is done in December and
the plucking begun Immediately the
sap rises, which is about from the mid
die of March to the first week in April.
The branch from the parent stem will
bear say nine leaves, of which three ave
plucked. and from the remaining six
new branches will grow which will
bear leaves in their return. If we were
TO strip a branch Of al its leaves we
should kill the tea bush, or, in other
words, we should be killing the
goose which lays the golden eggs
il such simile may be used. The
first leaves thus plucked are called
NO. 6ush.' They do not make tbs
finest tea, bnt rank about as low as .
leaf can be valued for commerce. These
leaves are taken on trays into the with
ering-house' by the women who pluck
them, and who are supervised by duffa-
dars,' or native men, whose business il
is to see that the women do not spoil the
bushes The tea is allowed to rest on
these trays until it is withered to the
pliancy of q kid glove, process which
takes from twelve to eighteen hours, ac-
.cording to the temperature. Then it is
carried away by men and put on the
rolling-table, where it is manipulated
for fifteen or twenty minutes. according