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.
Simmonds, P. L. (Peter Lund)
Botany, Economic
In 1851, Mr. Frank Bonynge set on foot a subscription list of fifty
dollars each, to procure tea and various Indian plants for culture in
America. That tea can be grown successfully in Carolina, Georgia, and
Florida, is almost certain, because the experiment has been pretty
fairly tried, as above shown, by Dr. Smith. The thermometer at
Shanghai indicates the cold as more severe by thirteen degrees than at
Charleston, South Carolina. The cold winter of 1834-5, which destroyed
the oranges in Mr. Middleton's plantation, in Charleston, left his tea
plants uninjured.
The question of cultivating tea in California has been seriously
discussed, and will no doubt be gone into when the gold digging mania
has a little subsided. There is the necessary labor and experience on
the spot, in some 12,000 or 14,000 Chinese, most of whom doubtless
understand the culture and manufacture. The climate, soil and surface
of California exactly answer the requirements for the growth of this
plant. The time may yet come when the vast ranges of hills that
traverse this State shall present terraces of tea gardens, cultivated
by the laborious Chinese, and adding millions to the value of its
products.
A company for the cultivation of tea, under the title of the Assam
Company, was established in March, 1839; and which, with a called-up
capital of £193,337, has made up to the present time very profitable
progress; having now got its plantations into excellent cultivation,
and all its arrangements in admirable working order, it has sold teas
to the amount of £90,000, and has a steam-boat, a considerable plant
and machinery.
In the report of the Company, at their annual meeting, held at
Calcutta, in Jan., 1850, it was stated, as the result of their
operations, that during the year 1849, the manufacturing season was
unusually cold and ungenial, in consequence of which the development
of leaf for manufacture was much checked. Although some loss was
sustained, there was considerable increase in the crop
notwithstanding, attributable to the continued improvements in the
culture which had been obtained, and improvements over the previous
season in some departments of the manufacturing process. The gross
quantity of unsorted tea manufactured in the southern division was
207,982 lbs., being 2,673 lbs. less than that of the previous season,
but the actual net out-turn was expected to reach 200,000 lbs. As much
as 157,908 lbs. of the crop had been already received and shipped to
England. These teas consisted chiefly of the finer qualities. Whilst
the crops have been thus sensibly advancing in quantity and quality,
and the value of the company's plantations permanently raised by
extended and improved culture, and some increase to the sowings, the
total outlay had been somewhat less than the previous year, the
expenditure being limited to £500 for a crop of 12,000 acres of tea.
With more extended gardens, the produce will be raised at a yet lower
rateable cost than at present.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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