100 MR. J UNI US SMITH. 



friend, Mr. Prideaux, offered for him, to place the con 

 cern under me. I declined, feeling that there could 

 he no success. Since then, I see from the news 

 papers, that Mr. Fortune has been to China for seeds, 

 and brought round some 1,700 in a budding state. I 

 wish him success of a dry climate and China seeds. 



The Washington Government has commissioned their 

 men-of-war to bring home tea seeds from China ; hence 

 the necessity of this article on the qualities of the tea 

 plant. Government will, of course, distribute the seeds 

 to all parties ; they will sow them ; they may, or may 

 not, germinate. If they do not, so much the better; be 

 cause further expense and labor will be saved. If they 

 do germinate and grow up, years and years will roll on, 

 and the little tree will grow up to three, possibly to four, 

 feet in height, bloom, and produce seed. The seed will 

 be carefully saved and sown, and so the country may 

 become extensively provided with tea bushes, and will 

 not be one pound of tea the better. As far as I can 

 learn of the cultivation now being carried on by Mr. 

 Junius Smith, LL.D., from his own letter, and other 

 people s accounts, he has unfortunately fell into the 

 evil against which I would caution all. For Mr. 

 Smith s part in tea affairs, I am not surprised at the 

 little advance he has made. Unacquainted with the 

 cultivation, picking up his knowledge from magazines ; 

 and by compilations from them making up a pamphlet, 

 he reasoned himself into the belief that all was fair 

 and square before him; and with a spirit of enthu 

 siasm and enterprise, he resigned his long-loved smokes 

 of London, and the thin and highly-polished pumps 

 of the citizen, for the great thick brogans of a clod- 



