42 



aroma by such a mode of exact control over the degree and 

 duration of the heat. Tea-culture in the ranges would show 

 us which soil, or which geologic formation, produced here the 

 best leaves. The yield of the latter would in the equable air 

 of the humid forest-glens be far more copious than the harvests 

 which we obtain from the tea-bushes planted in poor soil or 

 exposed localities near the metropolis, while localities in the 

 ranges are often not accessible to ordinary cereal culture. But 

 I do not speak of tea-cultivation as an ordinary field industry, 

 but rather as a collateral occupation in forest-culture of the 

 lower ranges. - 



Foreseeing the likelihood that this branch of rural culture 

 would be adopted in many favourable warm spots of this 

 colony, I have distributed during the past dozen years the 

 tea-bush rather extensively among country residents, partly 

 with a view of directing attention to a plant which, even for 

 the sake of ornamental value, is so eligible and easily grown ; 

 partly with an intention of seeing thus independent local 

 supplies of seeds forthcoming. In the same way the cork oak 

 was also very generally distributed by myself, in order that 

 their acorns might, in due time, become locally accessible in 

 very many places. 



The tea, in its commercial form, will however, here, not 

 likely be manufactured by the grower. It is more probable 

 that whenever plantations are formed in any forest region, an 

 enterprising man will establish, amidst the tea-farms, a 

 factory for preparing the tea-leaves, and purchase the latter 

 from the producers. This is the system, by which in many 

 parts of South Europe the multitude of small lots of silk- 

 cocoons pass into the central reeling establishments; and this 

 is the manner in which, from numerous peasants, the beet- 

 root is obtained for the supply of sugar factories. In the 

 same way the branches of the Sumach, a shrub which with 

 care could be reared in our ranges, would be rendered saleable 

 at a central sumach mill.* The demand for tea being so 

 enormous, and geographic latitudes like ours being those which 

 allow of its growth, it will be fully apparent that it must 

 assume a prominent part in our future rural economy, particu- 

 larly as the return for capital and labour thus invested and 

 expended will be quite as early as that from the vine. The 



*An essay by Professor Inzenga, on Sumach- culture in Sicily, 

 translated by Colonel H. Yule, C.B., is published in the Transactions 

 of the Botanic Society of Edinburgh, vol. ix. 341-355 ; and was, on 

 niy suggestion, transferred to a local journal. 



