THE GARDENS OF INDIA.

Putaruru Press, Volume VI, Issue 268, 24 December 1928, Page 5

THE GARDENS OF INDIA.

STORY OF GREAT INDUSTRY. Since 1840, when the East India Company added to its monopoly of importing tea frbm China that of growing tea in India, the Assam tea industry has become of ever-increas-ing importance. In the Empire Review for October, Sir William Reid gives an account of the Indian tea gardens in which he traces the industry from its inception. As far :back as 1823 an expedition up the .Brahmapootra discovered the existence in Assam of indigenous taa, but the prospect of establishing a new industry was not seriously considered until 1840, when seed Was brought from China and planted in Assam. It was only after much loss and trouble that the experimenters awoke to the fact that the native tea tree in Assam was the only one which was suitable to soil and climate, and which showed an undoubted superiority ini every respect over the Chinese plant. Since the first experience a tremendous extension of the industry has taken place, although the lot'of the pioneer growers was even more haazrdous than that of most pioneers. As late as 1880 plantations were raided by maraud-: ing natives, and their owners or managers murdered, together with the native labourers. '•

In planting a new garden seeds are first soym in a carefully prepared nursery, where they are tended until the rains of the following year. The seedlings are then taken up, each with its little cone of earth adhering, and planted in staked out rows at regular intervals. After two years the bushes are ruthlessly cut down to make them spread, and a year later they should bear. During the whole period of its growth each plant requires constant cultivation wit.i the hoe. With the first rains of April young green shoots appear on the mature bushes, which are said to flush. This marks the beginning of the manufacturing season, which last until November or December. The shoots and the tender leaves next them are then plucked by hand. They are known jointly as leaf, and ultimately become the tea of commerce. All through the season flush succeeds flush, and the entire labour force is kept hard at work to go round the estate, and gather each lot of leaf before the next is ready for picking. As a rule only the bud and the two leaves next it are taken. Anything more is regarded as coarser tea. '

There has -been very little alteration in tlhe manufacture of tea, except that processes once carried out by hand have been ousted by machinery. The freshly plucked tea is weighed in the baskets in which it has been collected, as the pluckers are paid by piecework. It is then taken to the factory, where it is thinly spread out on tlrays to weather for several hours. When sufficiently soft it goes to the rolling tables, where it is crushed between rotating plates of metal. This opens the cells and frees the juices. • The leaf is then spread out once more to ferment, and then undergoes its first firing by being carried on slowly moving trays through a machine which subjects it to currents of intensely hot air. The leaves and tips are now broken , apart and sorted mechanically in the various grades known as Orange Fekoe, Pekoe and Souchong. Then follows another firing, and the tea is packed while hot in lead lined cases. With the approach of cold weather the bushes cease tb flush. The season ends about November and the factory closes for an overhaul. At the same time unceasing work begins in the garden, where older bushes are pruned and organised campaigns are conducted against the numerous pests bp which the tea bushes are infested.