The enormous size of the tea estates in India and Ceylon as compared with the small gardens of China and Japan give the growers in the former countries several advantages over those in the latter as they can be worked more systematically and with less expense in larger areas. The use of machinery in curing and firing also lessens the cost of preparation for market, together with a saving in freight and quicker sale consequent to English preferences giving a speedier return for the money invested. The advantages which India and Ceylon tea-growers have over those of China are greater command of capital, as in both India and Ceylon tea estates are generally owned by companies consisting of shareholders whose living is not dependent on the product of the plantations. The companies can consequently afford to carry on the business at a loss for several years, can purchase extensive tea lands, and can spend large sums on machinery, labor and experiments as well as on agents to introduce and distribute them. The India and Ceylon tea-growers can obtain loans at a lower rate of interest, borrowing money at from 4 to 5 per cent., while their Chinese competitors have to pay from 20 to 30 per cent. for the same accommodations, in addition to a command of better chemical and agricultural knowledge. But against these admitted advantages of India and Ceylon, China possesses one great advantage, that is, that the Chinese grower, working for himself instead of wages, brings greater care and more industry to the task. Experience with him takes the place of science, and he is thus enabled to produce a finer flavored tea than has yet or ever will be produced in either India or Ceylon. Again the great decline in the consumption of China teas in England and her dependencies cannot be attributed, as is so loudly proclaimed by her statisticians, to any falling off in the quality of China teas or any inherent merit possessed by those of India or Ceylon, but simply to the narrow and contracted policy of her merchants of favoring and forcing the product of her colonies to the prejudice if not positive exclusion of that of the older tea-growing countries.