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 concluding this part of my Report, I beg to suggest the propriety
of obtaining some of the _best varieties_ of the tea plant which
have been introduced lately into the government plantations from
China. Dr. Jameson could, no doubt, spare a few, but they ought to
be given to those zemindars only who have succeeded with the
original variety.
Having described in detail the various government plantations, and
also those of the zemindars which came under my notice in the
Himalayas, I shall now make some general remarks upon the
cultivation of tea in India, and offer some suggestions for its
improvement.
GENERAL REMARKS.
1. _On land and cultivation_.--From the observations already made
upon the various tea farms which I have visited in the Himalayas, it
will be seen that I do not approve of _low flat lands_ being
selected for the cultivation of the tea shrub. In China, which at
present must be regarded as the model tea country, the plantations
are never made in such situations, or they are so rare as not to
have come under my notice. In that country they are usually formed
on the lower slopes of the hills, that is, in such situations as
those at Guddowli, Hawulbaugh, Almorah, Kutoor, &c., in the
Himalayas. It is true that in the fine green tea country of
Hwuy-chow, in China, near the town of Tunche, many hundred acres of
flattish land are under tea cultivation. But this land is close to
the hills, which jut out into it in all directions, and it is
intersected by a river whose banks are usually from 15 to 20 feet
above the level of the stream itself, not unlike those of the Ganges
below Benares. In fact, it has all the advantages of hilly land such
as the tea plant delights in. In extending the Himalaya plantation
this important fact ought to be kept in view.
There is no scarcity of such land in these mountains, more
particularly in Eastern Gurhwal and Kumaon. It abounds in the
districts of Paorie, Kunour, Lohba, Almorah, Kutoor, and Bheemtal,
and I was informed by Mr. Batten, that there are large tracts about
Gungoli and various other places equally suitable. Much of this land
is out of cultivation, as I have already stated, while the
cultivated portions yield on an average only two or three annas per
acre of revenue.
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