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30 to 50 inches. Perhaps it will reach its greatest perfection where the mean annual 
temperature ranges from 60° to 65° Fahr. and where the rain-fall, or what is quite 
as important, the humidity of the atmosphere, is considerable during the growing sea- 
son, which, in northern latitudes, usually begins in March. Considerable heat, and 
foggy, cloudy weather, constitute what is known as a “ fine growing time” for the tea- 
plant. Moisture in the air, rather than moisture in the ground, seems to be requisite. 
Situations which are exposed to severe frost should be avoided, since it will entail too 
much labor to protect the young plants. 
Tea cultivation has been introduced, with more or less success, into British India, 
Ceylon, Cape Colony, Natal, the Australian Colonies, Saint Helena, Java, Réunion, 
Rio Janeiro, and the West Indies, and although these climates will grow the plant, 
yet the manipulation of the leaf has hitherto been so little understood that only two 
of these countries can claim tea as among their leading productions. India and Java 
export quantities, but the bulk is the produce of vast estates, under managers who 
very frequently know comparatively little of the industry, and yet make marketable 
tea. 
Soris.—Almost any good, free soil, upon which water does not stagnate, will grow the 
plant. A good garden soil will produce tea in perfection, but it will be best to describe 
a tea soil as a sandy, chocolate-colored loam, containing an abundance of humus or 
decaying vegetable matter in a fit state for absorption by the roots. 
PROPAGATION BY SEEDS AND CUTTINGS.—The first thing for the experimental grower 
is to understand the best manner of raising his plants. This is simple, the only pre- 
caution necessary: being to use fresh seed. If tea seed is kept for any length of time 
out of the ground it turns rancid, as the chestnut and many other oily seeds are apt 
to do. Ripe seed is known by its dark chestnut color. As soon as procured it should 
be laid upon a hard surface and covered with 2 or 3 inches of rotten leaves, decayed 
hops, or almost any convenient vegetable material. In this position the seed will ger- 
minate, and when the sprouts are 2 or 3 inches high the young seedlings may be trans- 
ferred to beds much in the same manner as market-gardeners prick ou celery plants. 
The plants may be set in nursery-beds at 3 or 4inches apart, according to the time 
they may possibly remain. If they are “pricked out” into beds in the spring, to be 
finally planted out in the fall, or in the fall to be planted in the spring, 3 inches will 
be ample; much will depend upon the time when the seed is received; if, however, 
the plants are likely to remain in the nursery-beds for more than six months, it will be 
best to allow 4 inches between plant and plant. An easier method is simply to plant 
the seed in the beds in drills from 1 to 2inches deep and 4 inches apart, in a half shady 
position; but vacancies from bad seed cannot well be avoided by this plan. By ger- 
mininating the seed a full nursery is obtained with very little extra labor. The seed 
may also be planted in hills, as gardeners plant melons, the Inlls being 5 feet apart. 
But here they must be weeded all the time, and as an acre of ground would have to be 
gone over for some 1,742 plants, much extra Jabor will be entailed by this method of 
planting the seed where it is to remain. Better to treat it as cabbage, nurse in beds, 
and afterward plant out. It may be useful to suggest here that it would be well for 
the nurserymen to turn their attention to the raising of tea-plants for sale in the locali- 
ties where they are known to thrive. 
The only attention a bed of young tea-plants requires is the routine work of weed- 
ing, occasional watering in dry weather, and possibly light shading with branches of 
trees in leaf, cut into lengths of about a foot, and stuck among the plants until they 
become established. If the pricking out or planting out is done in cloudy, showery 
weather, this labor may be saved. The propagation of tea by cuttings is a tedious and 
often very unsatisfactory process. The writer has put down many hundreds of thou- 
sands of cuttings, with the view of perpetuating superior varieties. The returns of 
rooted plants varied with the season from 10 to 75 per cent. This method of propaga- 
tion is expensive, tiresome, and unsatisfactory. A much better plan will be to secure 
a good pure lot of plants and keep them separate as much as possible. I would sug- 
gest the propriety of the Department of Agriculture, and others who have the distri- 
bution of plants in their hands, sending one “strain” of plants alone to given Iccali- 
ties as much as possible: the Assam kinds to hot and moist localities, and the Chinese 
type to drier and more elevated situations. The system of selection which has been 
_ practiced with such success in the case of corn, tomatoes, and other plants should be 
carefully attended to in the propagation of tea. 
THE PREPARATION OF THE SOIL.—The preparation of the soil for tea should be pre- 
cisely the same as the preparation for any other farm crop. Secure the best possible 
tilth, manure well, preferably with vegetable manure. A crop of any cheap seeded 
legume plowed in would be excellent; but any available manure in which straw is in- 
corporated would answer. Plow deep and well; even subsoil, where the experiment 
is intended to be thorough, and the land will bear it. Harrow and cross-harrow. 
Mark out the land 5 feet by 5 in straight lines, as for corn, and it is ready to receive 
the tea-plants, which plant at the intersections of the scoring. Or, if it be determined 
to grow the tea with some other crop, for instance, onions, turnips, tomatoes, melons, 
cucumbers, peanuts, low-growing peas, celery, or almost any crop which will not shade 
