PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 119 



Loureiro says that it is found both " cultivated and un- 

 cultivated" in Cochin-China.^ What is more certain 

 is, that English travellers gathered specimens in Upper 

 Assam ^ and in the province of Cachar.^ So that the 

 tea-plant must be wild in the mountainous region 

 which separates the plains of India from those of China, 

 but the use of the leaves was not formerly kno^sTi in 

 India. 



The cultivation of tea, now introduced into several 

 colonies, has produced admirable results in Assam. Not 

 only is the product of a superior quality to that of 

 average Chinese teas, but the quantity obtained increases 

 rapidly. In 1870, three million pounds of tea were pro- 

 duced in British India ; in 1878, thirty-seven million 

 pounds ; and in 1880, a harvest of seventy million pounds 

 was looked for.'* Tea will not bear frost, and suffers from 

 drought. As I have elsewhere stated,^ the conditions 

 which favour it are the opposite to those which suit the 

 vine. On the other hand, it has been observed that tea 

 flourishes in Azores, where good wine is made ; ^ but it 

 is possible to cultivate in gardens, or on a small scale, 

 many plants which will not be profitable on a large scale. 

 The vine grows in China, yet the manufacture of wine 

 is unimportant. Conversely, no wine-growing countrv 

 grows tea for exportation. After China, Japan, and 

 Assam, it is in Java, Ceylon, and Brazil that tea is most 

 largely grown, where, certainly, the vine is little culti- 

 vated, or not at all ; while the wines of dry regions, sueli 

 as Australia and the Cape, are already known in the 

 market. 



Flax — Linum usitatissmiumi, Linnseus. 



The question as to the origin of flax, or rather of the 

 cultivated flax, is one of those which give rise to most 

 interesting researches. 



^ Loureiro, Fl. Cochin., p. 414. 



- Griffith, Beports; Wallich, quoted bv Hooker, Fl. Brit. India, i. 

 p. 293. 



2 Anderson, quoted by Hooker. 



■* The Colonies and India, Gardener^s Chronicle, 18S0, i. p. 659. 



* Speech at the Bot. Cong, of London in 1866.'' 



« Flora, 1868, p. 64. 



