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 Government,
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 encouragement
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 preferred
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 Muhammadans
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 distillation,
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
