The Cultivation and Manufacture of Tea

by Edward Money

This last simple expedient would have saved some grantees years of litigation, and many a hard thought of the said grantees against the Government. It would naturally occur to any one at all conversant with the subject; but, alas! in India this is often not the condition under which laws are made.

But there is another difficulty at the back of all this.

Though the Waste Land Rules enact that the Government, and not the grantee, shall be the defendant in any claim for land within a lot sold, practically the said enactment in no way saves grantees from litigation. Claimants for land always plead that it is not within the boundaries of the land sold, and ergo the grantee is made the defendant to prove that it is. The villagers never having been shown the boundaries by any Government official (for it is not enacted in the Waste Land Rules), the question whether the land claimed is within or without the boundaries is an open one, not always easily decided, and the suit runs its course.

I even know of cases where, though survey has been charged for at the exorbitant rate of four annas an acre, the outer boundaries of the lot have never been surveyed at all, but merely copied from old Collectorate maps, which showed the boundaries between the zemindaree and waste lands.[2] Is it strange, then, if buying lands from Government is often buying litigation, worry, loss of time and money.

In many countries, for example Prussia (there I know it is so, for I have tested it again and again), there are official records which can and do show to whom any land in question belongs. This may scarcely be practicable in India, but surely the question of title being, as it is, in a far worse state in India than in most countries, any change would be for the better. Anyhow, the present mode the Government adopts in selling lands is a grievous wrong to the purchasers. Words cannot describe the worry and loss some have suffered thereby, and it might all be so easily avoided.

I have above detailed two of the drawbacks Tea had to contend with in its infancy; the absurdly high price paid for land was the third.

Again, companies and proprietors of gardens wishing to have large areas under cultivation gave their managers simple orders to extend, not judiciously, but in any case. What was the result? Gardens might be seen in those days with 200 acres of so-called cultivation, but with 60 or even 70 per cent. vacancies, in which the greater part of the labour available was employed in clearing jungle for 100 acres further extension in the following spring. I have seen no garden in Assam or Cachar with less than 20 per cent. vacancies, many with far more; and yet most of them were extending. I do not believe now any garden in all India exists with less than 12 per cent. vacancies, but a plantation as full as this did not exist formerly.

As the expenditure on a garden is in direct proportion to the area cultivated, and the yield of Tea likewise in direct proportion to the number of plants, it follows the course adopted was the one exactly calculated to entail the greatest expenditure for the smallest yield. This unnecessary, this wilful extension, was the fourth and a very serious drawback.

Under this head the fourth drawback may also be included—the fact that the weeds in all plantations were ahead of the labour; that is to say, that gardens were not kept clean. This is more or less even the case to-day; it was the invariable rule then. The consequence was two-fold—first, a small yield of Tea; secondly, an increased expenditure; for it is a fact that the land fifty men can keep always clean, if the weeds are never allowed to grow to maturity and seed, will take nearer one hundred if the weeds once get ahead. The results, too, differ widely: in the first case the soil is always clear; in the second clear only at intervals. The first, as observed, can be accomplished with fifty, the latter will take nearly double the men.

The fifth drawback I shall advert to again later, viz., the selection of sloping land, often the steepest that could be found, on which to plant Tea. The great mischief thus entailed will be fully described elsewhere. It was the fifth, and not the least, antagonistic point to success.