102 DIFFICULTY OF GETTING GOOD SEEDS. 



royalty ; no planter, except on a most extensive scale, 

 could sell his teas for 5 cents per Ib. I have never been 

 able to ascertain if other causes operated against its suc 

 cess in that Dutch possession. 



DIFFICULTY OF GETTING GOOD SEEDS FROM CHINA. 



I WILL now add the evidence of others, who it will be 

 seen have had long experience in China, to show the 

 difficulty of getting good tea seeds from that country. 

 One of them, Rev. Mr. Gutzlaff, is known all over the 

 civilized world by his works, and the other, Mr. Ball, was 

 a tea merchant and tea taster, to the honorable East 

 India Company, and for twenty years a resident at 

 Canton, and whose word is of all others the most worthy 

 of confidence. 



Mr. Ball states that a It has been observed that the 

 Chinese universally agree from remote antiquity to the 

 present, that only the Bohea mountains produce the highest 

 flavored teas ; they moreover affirm that it is only in the 

 central division of these mountains, which are known to 

 the Chinese by the appellation of Vuy-Shan, (inner 

 mountains,) where the highest flavored teas are produced, 

 and that the tea deteriorates in quality, till in some of 

 the remote districts, the leaves are thin and poor, and of 

 no fragrance or sweetness in infusion ; that no labor can 

 make them good,&quot; and, that &quot; The Ankoy teas, grown 

 in the vicinity of Amoy, are for the most part inferior ; 

 and the Honan and Waping teas of Quang-Tong, (Can 

 ton,) may be given as examples of still greater inferiority. 

 And again, says the samd author, &quot; the vast inferiority 

 of the flavor of Twankay tea, the product of the green 



