SOIL AND CLIMATE 



OF 



AMERICA AND CHINA 



COMPARED. 



IT has been supposed that the Chinese could bring 

 their barren mountains and hills under tea cultivation. 

 They may do so, but they never can make barren or 

 sterile mountains, nor any unfavorable soil produce pro- 

 ductive tea trees. It is a physical impossibility for the 

 tea plant to be productive in other than a soil that would 

 be capable of producing other things. Tea trees as "well as 

 all plants, trees and vegetables require nourishment; 

 and the richer and deeper the soil the better. 



The plant likes a loose loamy soil, of a yellow to a 

 reddish color. It does not like a hard stiff earth, nor 

 will it do at all, in a dry parched or baked earth ; sand 

 with clay mixed, if deep, would do well ; or a clay soil 

 with sand of two and one-half to three feet deep would do 

 well also. 



The root of the tea- tree penetrates the soil downwards 

 in pursuit of sustenance ; therefore if the soil be not very 

 rich, but deep, it will do well ; and for the same reason 



