America.
That the proper climate for Tea can be found there (a huge Continent to choose from!) goes without saying. But equally sure is it that Tea will not pay except labour is cheap.
By the extract below, it appears Georgia has been selected for experimental Tea cultivation, and I doubt not it is a good selection:—
Tea Planting in America.
Successful experiments have been made in this branch of cultivation in the United States, as is shown by a report just published by Mr. Jackson, a Scotch gentleman now settled in America, who was at one time manager of the estates of the Scottish Assam Company. The Commissioner of Agriculture has, at Mr. Jackson’s advice, selected a tract of land in Georgia for an experimental farm, on which the raising of Tea on an extended scale will be carefully and thoroughly tried. Samples of the Teas already produced by Mr. Jackson have been sent to Messrs. Thompson, tea merchants, Mincing Lane, London, to be examined. The reply was that—“They represented Teas of a high type. The flavour, though not strong, is remarkably fragrant. In appearance they resemble Indian Tea, but the flavour is more like that of the finest Chinese black Tea, or of the hill Teas of India.”
No reason why the Teas should not be good, but the labour difficulty will, I think, prevent Tea paying there, as elsewhere in America, for Mr. Jackson himself, who continues the above, asks further on, “Can we afford to pay our labourers four times as much as they pay in India and still make Tea a success?” He, strange to say, tries to prove “yes.” I say no, a thousand times no, in spite of all Mr. Jackson says. I like, however, to give both sides of a question, and so will let Mr. Jackson speak for himself:—
The stock cry continually raised against Tea culture in this country is, how can you raise Tea in a country where wages are so high? You can cultivate Tea at a profit only in a country where labour is at the lowest possible minimum, and so on. And so it is taken for granted that the Tea culture is to be allowed to retain its antiquated forms and systems for all time, and that the skill and intelligence of a civilized nation can do nothing to raise it to a level with corresponding branches of agriculture, such, for instance, as rice growing. What would the people of South Carolina say if told that the only way to cultivate rice at a profit was to sow all their seed in nursery beds and, when sprouted, to transplant their entire crop, seed by seed, by hand, as is done in India? What would a Minnesota farmer say if told that the only implement with which he could profitably rear a crop of corn was the hoe, wielded by an attenuated skeleton of a man? If the hundreds of wealthy Tea planters in Assam were told that they must return to the original system of manufacturing their Teas by hand, they would throw up their farms in despair. Seventy million pounds of Tea are now annually manufactured by machinery in India and Java, and I have satisfied myself that green Teas, suitable for the American market, can be manufactured at one-third the cost of the black Teas prepared by machinery for the English market. There is but one division of Tea culture into which the labour question would enter at all, and that is the picking of the leaves. Everything else can be carried on with the mechanical precision of the cultivator, reaper, and floutring mill. Is not the real truth of the matter to be found in the fact that the American people know nothing—absolutely nothing—of the modern system of Tea culture and manufacture, and are therefore in no position to form a sound judgment of the possibilities of their country and countrymen in regard to Tea? I say again, as I have often said before, that the question of labour will prove no barrier to successful Tea culture in America. Let any who are interested enough in this subject to feel sceptical about it favour me with a call at No. 229 East Fourth Street and I will take pleasure in showing them what achievements modern skill and mechanical genius have already attained and what may very easily be accomplished in America. I believe that then there is a bright future in store for successful Tea culture.
In another place Mr. Jackson says he has always cultivated with ploughs, and done it successfully. Naturally this would make his cultivation much cheaper, and it is high time, as I say elsewhere, that we in India should try and do the same thing.
We, all the world knows, how ingenious, how inventive the Americans are, and thus it is possible they may by the use of machinery for all branches of manufacture, by improved steam-ploughs and other agricultural instruments which shall dispense with hand labour for cultivation, so cheapen the cost of Tea that its production will pay in spite of the high rate of wages ruling. Only in this way, however, can the industry succeed in America, and if it be done (I hope it may, for we in India shall then benefit by the ideas carried out), the United States will add one more laurel to the many they have achieved already in other branches of commerce.