SIKHIM AND BHUTAN
under the control and supervision of the Maharani, who took great interest in the work, a carpet factory at Gangtak. The Lachung schools turned out most excellent tweeds, thanks to the assistance given by Miss Johanson, a Scandinavian missionary, under whose care the village girls came regularly to work, collected the requisite dyes from the jungle, and followed the patterns; but that supervision withdrawn, the girls would work or not as the spirit moved them, the yarn would be uneven in quality and carelessly woven, and the pattern neglected; but so long as Miss Johanson remains the output is excellent. It is the same with the carpet factory. When I was at headquarters and could occasionally look in, the carpets made were excellent—could not have been better—but if I were away for a few months on tour, and the Maharani otherwise occupied, the work immediately became careless and inferior—mistakes in the pattern, bad colouring, and inferior weaving. It shows the necessity in all these undertakings of having trained supervision at the head, if they are to be successful.
But the great difficulty was to place the output on a proper commercial footing. It is easy for a few years to sell cloth or carpets, but it does not answer in the long run unless the goods can be sold in the open market. Before I left an attempt to do this was being made, but whether it will be successful or not I cannot say.
I also tried to introduce fruit-cultivation, and planted English fruit-trees in both the Lachung and Chumbi Valleys. In the former the apple-trees have done extremely well, and a few years ago one tree alone bore 3200 apples, weighing 832 lb.; and I have gathered apples which weighed over a pound apiece. But here again the distance they had to be carried was a difficulty in placing them on the market. A very large trade is done in oranges during the winter months; but oranges are indigenous to the country, and the natives understand their cultivation; and, in addition, they grow in the hot valleys near the plains. The orchards
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