which was thence introduced at a prehistoric date into China. The
real progress of tea-planting in Assam dates from about 1851, and
was greatly assisted by the promulgation of the Waste-land Rules
of 1854. By 1859 there were already fifty-one gardens in existence,
owned by private individuals; and the enterprise had extended
from its original headquarters in Lakhimpur and Sibsagar as far
down the Brahmaputra as Kamrup. In 1856 the tea-plant was
discovered wild in the district of Cachar in the Barak valley, and
European capital was at once directed to that quarter. At about the
same time tea-planting was introduced into the neighbourhood of
the sanatorium of Darjeeling, among the Sikkim Himalayas. The
success of these undertakings engendered a wild spirit of speculation
in tea companies both in India and at home, which reached its climax
in 1865. The industry recovered but slowly from the effects of this
disastrous crisis, and did not again reach a stable position until 1869.
Since that date it has rapidly but steadily progressed, and has been
ever opening new fields of enterprise. At the head of the Bay of
Bengal in Chittagong district, side by side with coffee on the Nilgiri
hills, on the forest-clad slopes of Kumaon and Kangra, amid the
low-lying jungle of the Bhutan Dwars, and even in Arakan, the
energetic pioneers of tea-planting have established their industry.
Different degrees of success may have rewarded them, but in no case
have they abandoned the struggle. The area under tea, of which
nine-tenths lies in the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam,
expanded by 85% during the sixteen years from 1885 to 1901, while
the production increased by 167%. This great rise in the supply,
unaccompanied by an equal expansion of the market for Indian tea,
involved the industry in great difficulties, to meet which it became
necessary to restrict the area under tea as far as possible, and to
reduce the quantity of leaf taken from the plant, thus at the same
time improving the quality of the tea. The area under tea in 1885
was 283,925 acres and the yield 71,525,977 ℔, while in 1905 the area
had increased to 527,290 acres and the yield to 222,360,132 ℔, while
the export alone was 214,223,728 ℔. As much as 92% of the export
goes to the United Kingdom, where China tea has been gradually
ousted by tea from India and Ceylon. The other chief countries that
afford a market for Indian tea are Canada, Russia, Australia, Turkey
in Asia, Persia, and the United States. India’s consumption of tea
is computed to average 814 million pounds, of which 512 millions are
Indian and the remainder Chinese. There should therefore be
considerable room for expansion in the home market. In 1905 there
were 134 tea-planting companies registered in India, about 80% of
the capital being held by shareholders in London.
Coffee.—The cultivation of coffee is confined to southern India, though attempts have been made to introduce the plant both into Lower Burma and into the Eastern Bengal district of Chittagong. The coffee tract may be roughly defined as a section of the landward slope of the Western Ghats, extending from Kanara in the north to Travancore in the extreme south. That tract includes almost the whole of Coorg, the districts of Kadur and Hassan in Mysore, the Nilgiri hills, and the Wynaad. The cultivation has also extended to the Shevaroy hills in Salem district and to the Palni hills in Madura.
Unlike tea, coffee was not introduced into India by European enterprise; and even to the present day its cultivation is largely followed by the natives. The Malabar coast has always enjoyed a direct commerce with Arabia, and at an early date gave many converts to Islam. One of these converts, Baba Budan by name, is said to have gone on a pilgrimage to Mecca and to have brought back with him the coffee berry, which he planted on the hill range in Mysore still called after him. According to local tradition this happened more than two centuries ago. The shrubs thus sown lived on, but the cultivation did not spread until the beginning of the 19th century. The state of Mysore and the Baba Budan range also witnessed the first opening of a coffee-garden by an English planter about 1840. The success of this experiment led to the extension of coffee cultivation into the neighbouring tract of Manjarabad, also in Mysore, and into the Wynaad subdivision of the Madras district of Malabar. From 1840 to 1860 the enterprise made slow progress; but since the latter date it has spread with great rapidity along the whole line of the Western Ghats, clearing away the primeval forest, and opening a new era of prosperity to the labouring classes. The export of coffee in 1905 was 360,000 cwt., being the highest for sixteen years. The over-supply of cheap Brazilian coffee in the consuming markets caused a heavy fall in prices at the beginning of the decade, the average price in London in 1901 being 47s. per cwt. compared with 101s. in 1894. The United Kingdom and France are the chief consumers. An agreement with France at the beginning of the decade secured to Indian produce imported into that country the benefits of the minimum tariff, thus protecting the coffee industry from taxation in French ports on a scale which would have seriously hampered the trade. There is practically no local market for coffee in India.
Cinchona.—The cultivation of cinchona was introduced into India in the year 1860 under the auspices of government, owing to the efforts of Sir Clements Markham, and a stock of plants was prepared and distributed to planters in the Nilgiris and in Coorg. At the same time governmental plantations were established in the Nilgiri hills and at Darjeeling, and these have been continued up to the present time. A considerable amount of the bark from private plantations is bought by the government and treated at the government factories. The sulphate of quinine and the cinchona febrifuge thus produced are issued for the most part to medical officers in the various provinces, to gaols, and to the authorities of native states; but a large and increasing amount is disposed of in the form of 5-grain packets, costing a farthing each, through the medium of the post-offices. This system brings the drug easily within the reach of the people.
Cattle.—Throughout the whole of India, except in Sind and the western districts of the Punjab, horned cattle are the only beasts used for ploughing. The well-known humped species of cattle predominates everywhere, being divided into many varieties. Owing partly to unfavourable conditions of climate and soil, partly to the insufficiency of grazing ground, and partly to the want of selection in breeding, the general condition of the cattle is miserably poor. As cultivation advances, the area of waste land available for grazing steadily diminishes, and the prospects of the poor beasts are becoming worse rather than better. Their only hope lies in the introduction of fodder crops as a regular stage in the agricultural course. There are, however, some fine breeds in existence. In Mysore the amrit mahal, a breed said to have been introduced by Hyder Ali for military purposes, is still kept up by the state. In the Madras districts of Nellore and Kurnool the indigenous breed has been greatly improved under the stimulus of cattle shows and prizes founded by British officials. In the Central Provinces there is a peculiar breed of trotting bullocks which is in great demand for wheeled carriages. The large and handsome oxen of Gujarat in Bombay and of Hariana in the Punjab are excellently adapted for drawing heavy loads in a sandy soil. The fodder famines that accompanied the great famines of 1897 and 1900 proved little short of disastrous to the cattle in the affected provinces. In Gujarat and the arid plains of the south-east Punjab the renowned herds almost disappeared. In the affected districts of the Punjab the loss of cattle averaged from 17 to 45% of the whole. In Rajputana more than half of its thirteen or fourteen millions of stock is said to have perished in 1900 alone. In one state the loss amounted to 90%, and in four others to 70%. In Gujarat half of its 112 million cattle perished in spite of the utmost efforts to obtain fodder. The worst cattle are to be found always in the deltaic tracts, but there their place is to a large extent taken by buffaloes. These last are more hardy than ordinary cattle; their character is maintained by crossing the cows with wild bulls, and their milk yields the best ghi or clarified butter. Along the valley of the Indus, and in the sandy desert which stretches into Rajputana, camels supersede cattle for agricultural operations. The breed of horses has generally deteriorated since the demand for military purposes has declined with the establishment of British supremacy. In Bengal Proper, and also in Madras, it may be broadly said that horses are not bred. But horses are still required for the Indian army, the native cavalry, and the police; and in order to maintain the supply of remounts a civil veterinary department was founded in 1892, transferred in 1903 to the army remount department. Horse-breeding is carried on chiefly in the Punjab, the United Provinces, and Baluchistan, and government keep a number of stallions in the various provinces. Formerly Norfolk trotters held the first place in point of number, but their place has been taken in recent years by English thoroughbreds, Arabs, and especially Australians. For the supply of ordnance, baggage, and transport mules a large number of donkey stallions have been imported by the government annually from various European and other sources. But the supply of suitable animals is not good, and their cost is large; so the breeding of donkey stallions has been undertaken at the Hissar farm in the Punjab.
Forests.—The forests of India, both as a source of natural wealth and as a department of the administration, are beginning to receive their proper share of attention. Up to the middle of the 19th century the destruction of forests by timber-cutters, by charcoal-burners, and above all by shifting cultivation, was allowed to go on everywhere unchecked. The extension of cultivation was considered as the chief care of government, and no regard was paid to the improvident waste going on on all sides. But as the pressure of population on the soil became more dense, and the construction of railways increased the demand for fuel, the question of forest conservation forced itself into notice. It was recognized that the inheritance of future generations was being recklessly sacrificed to satisfy the immoderate desire for profit. And at the same time the importance of forests as affecting the general meteorology of a country was being learned from bitter experience in Europe. On many grounds, therefore, it became necessary to preserve what remained of the forests in India, and to repair the mischief of previous neglect even at considerable expense. In 1844 and 1847 the subject was actively taken up by the governments of Bombay and Madras. In 1864 Dr Brandis was appointed inspector-general of forests to the government of India, and in the following year an act of the legislature was passed (No. VII. of 1865). The regular training of candidates for the Forest Department in the schools of France and Germany dates from 1867. In the interval that has since elapsed, sound principles of forest administration have been gradually extended. Indiscriminate timber-cutting has been prohibited, the burning of the jungle by the hill tribes has been confined within bounds, large areas have been surveyed and demarcated, plantations have been laid out, and, generally, forest conservation has become a reality. Systematic conservancy of the Indian forests received a great impetus from the passing of the Forest Law in 1878, which gave to the government
