TEA AND SILK FARMING IN NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6003, 12 February 1881, Page 6

TEA AND SILK FARMING IN NEW ZEALAND.

[FROM OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT.J December 30, ISSO An" important series of letters Oil the above subject lias been appearing in one of the chief Scotch newspapers. The writer is Mr. William Cochrane, of Teesdale House, Dunblane, and lie is well known in colonial circles. He is strongly impressed with the conviction that there is a great future before New Zealand in these two departments of industry, and liis letters have been written for the purpose of creating a public opinion favourable to the starting of a Tea and Silk Company. He disclaims personal motives in the niattea, and discusscs the probabilities of the industry entirely from the point of view of one interested in colonial development. With regard to the cultivation o£ tea lie argues that New Zealand—by which lie more particularly means Auckland—offers the perfection of climate; (2) a certain hereditary aptitude for the industry on the part of the natives; (3) an enormous demand for tea on the spot and in Australia ; (4) the hope of production at a comparatively cheap rate; (5) the absence of oppressive fiscal 01- otlier charges ; - (0) and an anticipated large return per acre. He points out that the consumption of tea in the colonies is on so lar.ije and increasing a scale that the Indian and Ceylon planters have long looked upon them as their best customers. And he adds that the excessive demand for tea has produced a very trashy article in , China. Comparing New Zealand witli India ' and China, lie concludes that the cost of production would be less for the former than the latter, and that tea produced in India at Is 2:} d per lb. might be produced in Auckland under a shilling. With regard to silk farming lie is equally sangune, not being unalive to what has already been attempted in New Zealand in that branch. He quotes ill". Batchelor's attempts to waken up colonial zeal in behalf of silk culturo, "but unfortunately the subject gradually slid into oblivion." Coinparing New Zealand with Australia, be holds that there are drawbacks and disadvantages in the latter which there are not in the former. New Zealand has no severe and protracted droughts, accompanied' by withering sand and dust storms, so fatal to vegetable and insect life. The same climatic reasons that would make tea pay he adduces as likely to make silk pay. About the profits of the trade, as it is already carried out in China, Japan, Turkey, Arnien : a, and Persia —not to speak of Victoria—he has something more definite to. say. Even in the hands of an ignorant peasantry it is remunerative. Take Tnrkistau for example. The average current productions per family of five persons is about lOSlbs. of yreen (uudried) cocoons. At the proper time the peasant lays aside 1 Albs, of cocoons, the moths from which deposit an ounce of eggs ; from those are hatched a stock of worms, which, ere they begin to spin, have devoured the leaves of twenty mulberry trees, costing thirty eight shillings. Without allowing anything for the family's labour, or for tile cost and deterioration of such rude plants as the peasant can afford to employ, his outlay, so far, is equal to -15s 7d. Should he dispose of his cocoons on the spot, ho may obtain an average price of (iSs 5d per a profit of 22s lOd, after paying for his mulberry leaves, and 4d more per lb., should lie possess a small mulberry plantation of his own. About lOSlbs. of green cocoons dries up to about 3Glbs., and of that only !)lbs. will be available for the ordinary silk of commerce, so that it costs to produce not less than 4s S.i'il, and it is worth in the London market from 20s to 25s per lb. In the one case, says Mr. Cochrane, taking his facts from Eugene Schayler, the peasant's gain is a shade over 2Ad per lb., and in the other 6id—the middleman's," vastly more ; from which he concludes that New Zealand, with the finest breeds of silk-worms, free from the diseases of the Northern hemisphere, under skilled management, aided by the best appliances of the period, and by an adequate capital, should, with the financial iesults on a large scale, far transcend those of the setni-barbarous Turk of Asia Minor. To the mulberry experience of Victoria, he also alludes, in support of his contentions. The two industries, lie thinks, might be worked best in unison, " so as to interlace in the important items of labour. "In this way," he concludes a little eloquently, "the New Zealand Tea and Silk Company, like a species of Khotlian Collossus, would stand with one foot on the Antipodes and the other planted oil the midst of Europe, drawing a supply of il from both hemispheres, and holding aloft the lamp of its attractive industries ill the interests of civilisation, commerce, and peace." lam bound to say that .Mr. Coehrane'.s advocacy of the scheme has not been without opposition from practical men. To them, however, he lias been content to answer that, after the appearance of his earlier letters, "the area of interest in the subject has greatly expanded, and now embraces Indian tea-planters, professional men in various parts of England, and fanners and others connected with the Antipodes, all of whom, directly or indirectly, have expressed their belief ill and high approval of the enterprise. Some of them indeed have requested to bo considered early contributors to the share list in any company which iniy hereafter be formed." So that Auckland may become the seat of a new industrial improvement on a considerable scale.

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