The Cultivation and Manufacture of Tea

by Edward Money

Cut down, burn, or carry off all jungle, and then take out all roots, whether grass or other. Now make the surface level. After this mark off the beds and paths, the latter one foot broad only, with string and pegs. Then raise the path six inches above the spots marked off for the beds. This latter must not be done by earth from the beds, but by earth from outside the intended nursery. Next dig and pulverise the soil of the beds to a depth of six or seven inches, no more, and level the surface.

All is now ready for the seed. A string, five feet long, with a small peg at either end, is given to two men who stand on the path at either side of the bed. Each man has a six-inch measure. The string is laid across the bed, beginning at one end and pegged down on either side. A drill is then made along the string about one inch deep, and this done the string is, by means of the six-inch measure on either side, removed, and pegged down again in the place for the next drill. Seeds are then sown or placed along the first drill made, two or three inches apart, and the earth filled in. This is repeated again and again till the whole bed is sown.

If the character of the seed is doubtful it must be laid in thicker, but with good seed two-and-a-half to three inches is the best distance.

The sowing finished the artificial shade has to be given. Along the paths, at five feet apart, put in forked stakes, two feet long—viz., six inches into the path, and eighteen inches above it. Connect these with one another by poles laid in the forks; now lay other (but thinner) poles attached to the first poles at either end across and above the bed; and again across these latter, that is along the length of the beds, split bamboos, and then bind the whole framework here and there. The said framework made will then be two feet above the beds—viz., eighteen inches of stake support, and the six-inch raised paths. The eighteen inches of opening all round, under the frame, that is, between the frame and the path, allows the necessary air to circulate; while the expense, danger from high winds, and the objectionable entrance of the sun at the sides, all of which high artificial shade is subject to, are avoided by this low frame-work.

Mats are the best to cover the frame-work. In case of accidental or incendiary fire they are not so objectionable as grass, for they burn less and slower, but mats are expensive. Any coarse grass (freed from seed) will answer, and it should be laid on as thin as will suffice to give shade.

The beds may be watered, if there is no rain, a fortnight after the seed is sown, and from time to time during the dry season, whenever the soil at a depth of three or four inches shows no moisture.

The soil should also be kept free of weeds, and after the plants are three or four inches high, the spaces between the drills should be slightly stirred every now and then.

After the seed has germinated, and the seedlings have, say, four leaves on them, the artificial shade should be taken away. But it must be done gradually, taking off portions of the grass first, so that the young seedlings may by degrees be inured to the hot sun.

Though cultivation, as described, by watering and opening the soil at times is well, these should not be done much, or the seedlings will be too large when the time comes to transplant them. Large seedlings do not, as a rule, thrive as well as moderate-sized ones, after being transplanted.

Among the many very absurd mistakes made in the cultivation of the Tea plant, none exceeds the ridiculous way Tea seed used to be sown in the Government plantations in the North-western Himalayas. The seed was sown in drills, as I have advised, but in six linear inches of the drills, where it is right to put two, or at most three, seeds, perhaps thirty were placed! I do not exaggerate; the drill, six inches deep, was filled with them. Many and many lacs of seed, in those days worth many thousand rupees, were thus sacrificed. Private planters in the Himalayas, taught by the Government method, once did the same. I believe the absurd practice is exploded now.