MAK

Volltext: A classified and descriptive catalogue of the Indian department, Vienna Universal Exhibition 1873

121 
Number of hands employed on tea plantations in the 
district : 
About 3,000 men and boys; of this number a 
part are imported from Nepaul, and the remainder 
are the indigenous inhabitants. 
Remuneration: 
Rs. 4 per mensem for able-bodied men. 
The samples exhibited have been manufactured by 
Lee-kon-shew, Chinaman, tea maker, under the 
superintendenee and direction of Norman F. T. 
Troup, OfFg. Manager and Direetor. 
The only two samples from the Kangra district are 
exhibited by the Loeal Committee of the Punjab, 
viz.:— 
3.387. Black tea. Palampur. Kangra district. 
3.388. Green tea. Palampur. Kangra district. 
8,480. Pekoe, broken Pekoe, Congou, and Souchong 
withered in the shade, from Sylhet. 
8,480a. Pekoe,broken Pekoe, Congou,and Souchong, 
withered in the sun, from Sylhet. 
8,511. Brick tea, from Darjeeling. 
The first trial of the tea plant at Darjeeling was 
made in 1841, with a few seeds grown in Kamaon 
from China stock. It was quite successful as to its 
growth, and the quality was approved of by the 
Assam tea planter who visited Darjeeling in 184G, 
and made the first tea here. The original plants are 
now to he seen. All are of gigantic size; one is a 
bush 50 feet in circumference and 20 feet high. 
Nevertheless 7,000 feet, the elevation of Darjeeling, 
is too great for profitable planting; the frost kills 
the seedlings, and there is not a sufficiently rapid 
succession of leaf in the warm season to make the 
manufacture pay. At 7,500 feet the plant does not 
thrive at all. Elevations of 4,500 feet and under 
that to 2,000, are the best for tea, and from 3,000 to 
1,200'feet will probably be found the best for coffee. 
Tea and coffee plantations at higher elevations than 
these may eventually come into occasional use to 
secure high fiavoured produce without reference to 
profit. 
Although experiments continued to be made on 
the growth of the tea plant, and seed from Assam 
and Kumaon was distributed gratuitously by Go 
vernment, it was not tili 1856 that the first plantation 
was started at Kursing, and another near Darjeeling, 
by Captain Sander, who was also the first to try 
coffee. The success in both cases has been complete, 
and others have followed in the same path. Indeed 
all that is now required is earcful and liberal en- 
couragement by the Government, to render these 
hitherto valueless mountains a rieh and productive 
field for European enterprise, a profitable source of 
pleasant labour to the Hill tribes, and through these 
channels a source of strength and stability to our 
power. 
The manufacture of tea in Darjeeling begins in 
April and ends in October. Düring the period 
twenty pickings of leaves are reckoned on. The tea 
of April, May, and October is the finest. The coffee 
is cured from October to January. 
The number of tea plants per acre varies from 
1,860 to 2,700, aecording as they are placed at 5 or 
4 feet apart. The produce of tea per acre looked for 
from the first year of manufacture to the fourth or 
fifth, when a plantation is at maturity, cannot be 
correctly estimated. The produce per plant in the 
fourth year of age is variously estimated at J to 
3 ounces. Captain Massan in a memorandum of 
his operations at Tuckvor, States “ he got last season 
“ from a few indigenous Assam plants grown at an 
“ elevation of 5,000 feet above the sea one pound of 
“ manufactured tea from each tree. The trees were 
“ seven years old.” This is an immense return, and 
not to be reckoned on, on a large scale. 
Labour is still abundant, and is likely to continue 
so from the absence of demand in Eastern Nepaul, 
the great source of supply. The plantations give 
steady employment to about 3,000 persons, with 
extra hands occasionally. Wages of Coolies 4s. 8d. 
to 5s. per mensem. 
Employment on tea and coffee is preferred to that 
on roads and buildings. Wages of manufacturing 
Coolies amount to 8 rupees per mensem; that of 
European assistants to from 100 to 150 rupees; of 
managers from 200 to 400, with house, &c. 
8,481. Pekoe from Chittagong. W. Sarson. 
Dr. Leitner, Lahore. 
Specimen of Lhassa brick tea. 
This tea is pressed in the form of a brick, and is 
prepared when used with hutter and salt. It is pre 
ferred to all other teas by the natives of Central Asia 
and Tibet, trat the supply has lately ceased with 
China on account of the recent wars with the Mu- 
hammadans of Yarkand. 
SECTION III.—WINES, SPIRITS, &c. 
Country liquor is distilled from either molasses, 
mowah fruit, or the two mixed together; that from 
molasses is preferred at Furruckabad, from whence 
the following notes are supplied by H. Blunt, Esq. 
Molasses, or sheerah, when cheap, sells at Re. 1 per 
maund, and often rises to Rs. 4 ; now it is selling at 
Rs. 2-4. 
Bark of acacia, 8 annas to Rs. 2-8. 
The process for manufacturing the liquor is as 
follows:—Take five seers of refuse from the boiler 
after distillation, to which add two seers of hark of 
accacia in chips of two or three inches long, and one 
and one-half maunds of water, and allow these to 
ferment for a day and night in a large jar; the next 
day add thirty seers of molasses, and allow the whole 
to stand for two or three days; then stir up the 
mixture daily. In summer, after six or seven days 
the preparation is ready for distillation; in winter, 
in ten or twelve days. The whole is then thrown 
into the boiler, and with a brisk fire beneath in three 
hours the liquor is distilled. The way to test the 
“ lahnn,” or preparation, that it is ready for distil 
lation, is to apply a Same to the mixture; if it burns 
like spirit it is ready, if not, it is restored to the jar 
for further fermentation. The above quantity would 
give from two and a half to three gallons of liquor 
but if the distillation is extended to four or five 
hours the liquor is weakened. The distillers prefer
	        
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