The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1909-07-24


appeared upon the leaves Of Ceylon coffee
plants forty years ago. ana within dec
ace almost killed a great industry, caused
Ceylon 10 become famous as "A producer
or tea British planters. facing disaster.
made experinle nts in the early seventies,
ana the result was that before many years
naQ elapsed great tea estates replaced the
CoIIee plantations. Today 'Ceylon tea
/ Is familiar to the markets of the world,
and many merchants of the younger gen
GRAFTON are unaware Of the youth OF the
industry
J In the streets of Colombo one sees pack
/ ages Of tea bound for the water front in
strange looking carts drawn by white
numped bullocks branded with ldmll
/ characters for decorative effect and tor
the cure OF rheumatism. II is not until
/ he begins to ascend the mountains toward
/ the quOndam capital Of the kandyan kings
that the visitor sees tea trees growing
ana cOOlte women and children picking the
! leaf tips that make the tea of commerc
I The tea industry is picturesque FROM the
I time the tea tree appears above the SOIL
until the dried leaf reaches the lighter
! that takes 1t TO "A cargo boat IN the Co
iQmbo harbor, it exists in an environment
all its own.
/ Upon the rocky slopes Of the foothills,
I where there seems to be scant nourishment
for plant life, the tree flouTishes and
! would STOW to a height or Irteen OF
/ twenty feet were IL not for the pruning
| that reduces it 10 three feet for the bet
/ ter development Of its productive power
/ IL is stated by planters that the peculiar
] action OF the climate upon the rock tnat
/ crops up on the hills causes II TO dlsn-
/ tegrate and form d sort OF soil upon which
| the roots of the tea plant thrive. IL is
! always April in the CeylOn mountains. II
one judges by the fickleneSs OF the skies.
! Swiftly formed clouds precipitate sudden
! showers. and the sun shines through the
storm upon scenery that detleS the pest
! efforts Of the painter in words or OILS
! Cocoanut groves and banana patches dot
/ every little plain and valley, and the
! matched hUts Of Siuhalese or Tamil ma
/ tives nestle amid the tropical foliage.
Here and there are tiny terraced rice
! fields, irrigated from mountain torrents
whose rushing waters are often heard
/ above the noise of the train as II moves
/ slowly up the steep incline.
! As the higher hills are reached the rice
fields disappear. The regions I'm which tea
/ Teign6 supreme are mountainous, and
l occupy approximately one-seVenth OF the
/ area of the island. Although CeylOn is
/ only a few degrees from the equator, the
tea country boasts cool nights throughout
/ the year. As the altitude increases the
I climate becomes more temperate. and at
/ Nuwara Eliya. $500 feet above sea level,
the mean temperature Is fifty-seYen de-
/ grees Fahrenheit.
Tea planters who reside in the highlands
and now and again motor down to Co
| lOmb0 upon business or to enjoy social
| contact with members of a European col
| Ony larger than can be found In the coun-
| try, are prosperous over-lords whose daily
life is not unlike that Of a southern
planter in the United States I'm ante-bel-
/ lum days. They watch tea quotations as
an American business man watches the
/ fluctuations Of the stock market, and
| complain of hard times over their whisky
and soda. but they live like princes and
| are addressed as master by the armies
Of Ceylonese and Indian coolies they en-
plOy.
At o'clock in the morning all Of the
| employees, many of whom are women ana
I4T-s1 1ra MAJ he Ton fa
/ tory BY the blast Of horn. Divided into
| gangs and assigned to taskmasters or
/ ''Canganes,' those who are to work in the
| fields are sent to their tasks Under the
| supervision Of a conductor" correspond
/ ing to an overseeT, the taskmasters are
/ kept on the alert When the days work
/ is in progress the owner, or superntend-
| ent, returns for his chOta haZari, or Tit
/ tie breakfast" at his bungalow. After
| ward he visits the factory. and later in
] the forenoon he inspects the fields At II
10 clOck the planter has meat breakfast
/ and his afternoon is usually given up TO
attending to his correspondence or other
office work Incidental to the conduct of
! the business. At 4 o'clock the horn or
/ tom-tOm musters the coolies from the
! fields, and after the time" of each is
marked in the cheCk-roll. they go to the
/ Zines which correspond to the GUAR
| ters" of old-fashiOned southern planta-
/ lions.
| During the first two years Of its life,
/ the tea tree undergOes rigorous pruning
/ at the hands Of experts. AS there are
| between 1900 and 1900 trees to the acre,
| plantation work When the leaves are
/ ready for plucking, the pickers, mostly
women and children. invade the fields.
I The women are trained to select the del
shoots and for this skilled labor a good
picker receives % cents in CeylOn coinage.
/ the equivalent of eight and One-third cents
/ In American money. This is considered
/ high pay in India. and many coOlie women
emigrate to CeylOn to find prosperity
I In the coffee days infant mortality was
I high In CeylOn, but nowadays, because
children have q value as tea piCkeTs, I'M
der parental direction, the parents are
careful to rear them and add to the fam
/ lily earnings at the rate of three or four
/ cents a day for each urchin. Stockings
are taken to the tea fields by their
mothers and when they get large enough
1 to endanger their lives by crawling about
where they might tumble into mountain
chasms the mothers make hammOCks for
them out Of their "cumblies,' and swing
I them to the branches of trees. Nurses
cannot be employed by tea pickers.
! Because of the chance for high wages.
and the opportunity to save money and
return home to become landowners. Tamil
coolies from southern India go over to
/ CeylOn in great numbers to earn a few
cents a day more than the wages of a
woman. At home the Tamil gets one or
] two cents a day, and there is an Occa-
/ In Ceylon he may earn q dime a day.
There is no famine and there is plenty OF
/ fruit. He lives Cheaply, sends money
/ home to help feed poor relations, contrib
utes to the support Of a few of the hun
/ dreds of insatiate gods of his country, and
saves money with which to buy real es-
tate, although he rarely carries out his
plan to return to India.
In the meantime his clothing consists Of
a lOin cloth and if he sleeps upon the
bare ground, it Is what his forefathers
have enjoyed. and it is all that his pos
terity will desire. He never strikes, mas
ter" pays him more than he has ever
had If he shiTks his work he is locked
Labor prices in the orient form a key 10
the problem Of why tea cannot be prof
itably raised In South Carolina to COM
pete with oriental products The British
in Ceylon are we'll content to allow the
brown brother to retain his standard OF
living and his ideas as to what working
man should earn.
The two tenderest leaves. where the
planter is picking especially fine tea. and
four leaves where the standard of excel
lsnCe is less rigid. are plucked from each
bOugh. The baskets are dumped on mats
at the factory and sorted to eliminate
coarse leaves accidentally piucked. With
ering. feTmenting and firing are the next
processes TO which the leaves are sub
jeCted.
7 Tea leaves are vfthered nv being sDread