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The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom: Considered in Their Various Uses to Man and in Their Relation to the Arts and Manufactures; Forming a Practical Treatise & Handbook of Reference for the Colonist, Manufacturer, Merchant, and Consumer, on the Cultivation, Preparation for Shipment, and Commercial Value, &c. of the Various Substances Obtained From Trees and Plants, Entering into the Husbandry of Tropical and Sub-tropical Regions, &c.Simmonds, P. L. (Peter Lund)

Science

The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom: Considered in Their Various Uses to Man and in Their Relation to the Arts and Manufactures; Forming a Practical Treatise & Handbook of Reference for the Colonist, Manufacturer, Merchant, and Consumer, on the Cultivation, Preparation for Shipment, and Commercial Value, &c. of the Various Substances Obtained From Trees and Plants, Entering into the Husbandry of Tropical and Sub-tropical Regions, &c.

Name: The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom: Considered in Their Various Uses to Man and in Their Relation to the Arts and Manufactures; Forming a Practical Treatise & Handbook of Reference for the Colonist, Manufacturer, Merchant, and Consumer, on the Cultivation, Preparation for Shipment, and Commercial Value, &c. of the Various Substances Obtained From Trees and Plants, Entering into the Husbandry of Tropical and Sub-tropical Regions, &c.
Author: Simmonds, P. L. (Peter Lund)

Simmonds, P. L. (Peter Lund)

Botany, Economic

If we multiply the population of China by four, we have--

                                                                lbs.
  Total consumption of tea in China                        1,411,464,048
  Export of Great Britain and Ireland, for the year ending
    June 30, 1851.                                            64,020,000
  Export to the United States, same period                    28,760,800
  Export to Holland, returned at 2,000,000 in Davis's
    "China"                                                    3,000,000

  Inland trade to Russia                                      15,000,000
  Export to Hamburg, Bremen, Denmark, Sweden, &c.,
    seven cargoes, about                                       3,000,000
  Export to Sydney, and Australasian Colonies, at least        6,000,000
  Export to Spain and France, four cargoes                     2,000,000
                                                               ---------
                                            Total lbs.     1,533,244,848

The above is exclusive of the heavy exportation in Chinese vessels to
all parts of the east where Chinese emigrants are settled, such as
Tonquin, Cochin China, Cambodia, Siam, the Philippines, Borneo, and
the various settlements within the Straits of Malacca. In comparison
with such an enormous quantity, the 54 million lbs. consumed in the
United Kingdom sink into insignificance.

                                                                 £
  The cost of tea to America, at the ship's side in China,
    say 29,000,000 lbs., at an average of 1s. per lb.,
    would be                                                 1,450,000
  The cost to England, 64,000,000, at the same price         3,200,000
  The cost to other places, say 25,000,000                   1,250,000
  Russia, 15,000,000                                           750,000
                                                            ----------
                                               Total        £6,650,000

It is therefore clear, that were the demand to be doubled from Great
Britain, it would make very little difference in the Chinese market;
since it would be only a question of letting us have six per cent, of
their growth of the article, instead of three.

When we remember that the tea plant attains to maturity in three
years, and its leaves are then fit for picking; and that there is a
vast extent of country to which it is indigenous, growing in every
climate between the equator and the latitude of 45 degrees, it is
evident that, were there a necessity for it, the actual production of
tea in China could be increased to an almost unlimited extent in the
space of three or four years, an extent far more than compensating for
the extra three per cent., which might be, in the first instance,
required by the British.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.