Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1900-11-30

and is becoming one of the principal
r articles of export
."''''"''o" Oh nc" of India to the
United States. The
plant in the wild state is bushy
shrub and sometimes small tree, but
in cultivation it is kept dwarfed by
pruning. Like other plants long in
cultivation, tea has produced several
marked varieties which have been de-
scribed as distinct species. The east
has always been considered the home
of the tea plant, China having grown
it for centuries, although the original
country of tea is not known; it has
been found in truly wild state in
Assam. 1t may be cultivated in the
east through a wide range from 1rdia
to Japan. The industry, however, is
not indigenous to India but rather a
child by adoption. 1t is but little
more than century ago that an at
tempt was made to cultivate the tea
plant in India; and it was not until
as late as 1871 that the first public
sale of tea occurred at Calcutta,
which city seems to have ever since
controlled the market of the Indian
tea trade.
The area under tea culture in India
at the end of 1899 was over 516,732
acres. 65 per cent. of this acreage be-
ing in Assam in the valleys of the
Brahmaputra and Surma rivers, 25
per cent. being in Bengal. and the
other ten per cent. being divided be-
tween the northern provinces and
the Punjab. in northern India, and
Nilgiris. Malabar and Travancore, in
southern India. The production of
tea. is therefore, to the extent of
nine-tenths of the whole area, limit
ed to the two provinces of Assam and
Bengal. There is a small area of 1890
acres in Upper Burmah; but in this
made into tea. but is picked to be eat
en- by the Burmans. and the area and
the production may therefore be left
out of the account. There are also a
few other small areas devoted to the
culture, such as the Jaintia and Chit
tagong Hill tracts, Simla and Cochin.
The cultivation in India has been
mainly concentrated in tracts where
heavy rainfall and humid and
equable climate permit the repeated
fushes and pickings of the leaf. In
the valleys of the Brahmaputra and
Surma. the yield averages about 44s
pounds to the acre; in Bengal, about
400 pounds. and in Darjeeling. about
2S1 pounds. In Travancore, the aver
age yield is stated at GA pounds per
acre. In the northwestern provinces,
the yield per acre is 297 pounds. Else
where the yield is much lower. The
area under tea has expanded from
year to year without pause during
the last Is years. In 1885, the area
was about 2SA,O0O acres; in 1899, it
had increased to 516.732 acres, the in
crease being in the ratio of SO per
cent. The average addition in the
last five years (23,241 acres) was
much larger than the average addi-
tion Q3,365 acres) in the five preced-
ing years.
The quantity of tea produced has
increased in the past Is years in much
larger ratio than the area under cul-
tivation; for, while the area has in
creased SO per cent, the increase in
production has been 161 per cent. In
1899, the production in Assam, where
the season was favorable in most of
the districts, increased by more than
1s,OOOOCO pounds. and in Bengal by
more than 100000 pounds.
The number of persons employed in
the tea industry in 1899 is returned at
55s,0C1 permanently and 96,615
temporarily, or, altogether. about
two-thirds of million people (654,-
GIG persons), which would work out
to about 1.27 persons to the acre. The
capital invested in tea plantation
alone may safely be estimated to
equal $1O0,OO0,O00.