The Cultivation and Manufacture of Tea - Edward Money

Lower Assam and Cachar are much alike.

The opening in Chittagong is later than in the two just mentioned from want of early rains, but the season continues longer on account of the low latitude and consequent deferred cold weather.

Roughly, then, rather more than nine months may be assumed as the flushing period for these districts. The next point is how often do gardens in these localities flush in that time.

Not very many planters can say, certainly, how often their gardens have flushed in a season, because they are picked so irregularly, and no account of the different flushes kept. Enquiring on this point, when I was in Cachar some thirteen years ago, 9 to 24 were the minimum and maximum numbers given me at different gardens, showing how little was really known about it.

Such knowledge as I have on the subject is mostly derived from carefully kept records of my own garden in the Chittagong district. The plantation is all worked in sections, in the way described previously, and the dates given in the table below are the days each flush was finished (that is, the picking was finished) during the seasons 1869 and 1870; 1869 being carried up to the end of the season, 1870 up to the date I wrote the first edition of this Essay.

In the table it will be observed there is a great difference between the two years. The section for which the dates are given was planted from seed beds in the month of June, 1866. In 1869 it was therefore only three years old. This will partly account for the first flush occurring a month earlier in 1870, as it was then a year older; but fortunate early rains in 1870 had also much to do with it.

Flushes	1869	Interval in days	1870	Interval in days
Flushes	Dates	Interval in days	Dates	Interval in days
1	March 22	..	February 22	..
2	May 6	44	March 30	35
3	„ 29	23	April 13	10
4	June 11	12	„ 25	12
5	„ 23	12	May 5	9
6	July 5	11	„ 14	9
7	„ 17	12	„ 25	11
8	„ 31	14	June 4	9
9	August10	9	„ 12	8
10	„ 21	11	„ 22	10
11	Sept.2	11	July 1	8
12	„ 12	10	„ 8	7
13	„ 25	13	„ 16	8
14	October9	13	„ 25	9
15	„ 22	13	August 2	7
16	Nov. 2	10	„ 11	9
17	„ 11	9	„ 21	10
18	„ 19	8	„ 29	8
19	Dec. 4	14	Sept 7	8
20	..	..	„ 18	11
21	..	..	„ 27	9
22	..	..	October 5	7
Average intervals between Flushes.		Nearly 14 days.	..	Very little over 10 days.

In 1869 there was no flush between March 22nd and May 6th, a period of 44 days; and in 1870, none between February 22nd and March 30th, a period of 35 days, a very long time in both cases, which is entirely accounted for by the dry weather prevailing at Chittagong in the spring (see under head of Climate), for in Cachar, Assam, and the Western Dooars two or three flushes would have occurred in that time.

There were 19 flushes in all in 1869, and 22 in 1870, up to the time I wrote, so there were probably in all 27 in the latter year.

In the table I give the intervals between each flush. It shows an average of 14 days in 1869 to 10 days in 1870; the difference is due to the increased age of the plants, and the liberal manuring given in the cold weather 1869-70.