104 CULTIVATION IX CHINA. 



be remembered by all who have read the history of the 

 silk worm, that it was conveyed out of China in a cane- 

 stick by a Jesuit. 



There is no admittance for strangers into China ; a 

 few years ago, half a dozen Englishmen went up the river 

 from Canton in a boat, and went on shore. They were 

 all murdered. Mr. Fortune states in his book that he 

 proceeded as far inland as Soochoo, but Mr. Martin 

 states that he failed in the attempt ; and from his de 

 scription of tea making, and his statement that the tea 

 plant must be renewed every four or five years, there 

 seems to be internal evidence in his own work, that he 

 has been laboring under some hallucination on the subject. 



As he has now proceeded to Kamoun to plant tea 

 plants, where he will find plants now in bearing, some of 

 them fourteen or fifteen years old, and which will bear 

 for several years to come, he will find out his error. 



GEOGRAPHICAL EXTENT OF CULTIVATION OF TEA IN 

 CHINA. 



Valleys, and table lands, and round the bases, and 

 partially up the sides of hills or mountains, seem to 

 be favorable sites for tea plantation. To ascertain what 

 is going on in the interior of China is very difficult, the 

 Jesuits and other Catholic Missionaries alone obtained 

 ingress into China and except their attention be drawn 

 to the particular information required, they deem such 

 matters out of the scope of their calling. Therefore, it 

 is only by running over the various authors who have 

 written on the subject that information can be obtained, 

 and then it requires an intimate knowledge with the tea 



