52 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF TEA. 



other, and the plants from the Amoy districts, that the most practised 

 eye, when they are mixed together, cannot separate 



Several varieties. . 



them, showing that they are nothing more than 

 mere varieties of one and the same plant, the changes in the form of 

 the leaf being brought about by cultivation. Moreover, throughout 

 the plantation fifty varieties might easily be pointed out ; but they 

 run so into each other as to render it impossible to assign them any 

 trivial character ; and the produce of the seed of different varieties 

 does not produce the same varieties only but several varieties, proving 

 that the changes are entirely owing to cultivation ; nor do the plants, 

 cultivated at 6,000 feet in the Himalayas, differ in the least in their 

 varieties from those cultivated at 2,500 feet of altitude in the Dehra 

 Dhoon. 



'That the Assam plant is a marked species is true, it being 

 distinguished by its large membranous and lanceo- 



Assam species. . . . , ' , . . 



late leaf, small flower, and upright growth. 



' It is a very inferior plant for making Tea, and its leaves are 

 therefore not used. 1 Though the plants received from the different 

 districts of China do not differ from those first sent to the plantations, 

 it is highly important to know that the Tea plants from well-known 

 green and black Tea districts of China now exist in the plantations, 

 as it is stated that local causes exert a great influence in the quality 

 of the Teas as much as the manufacture does. The expense, there- 

 fore, incurred in stocking the Government plantations with the finest 

 kinds and varieties of Tea plants procurable in China, though great, 

 will be amply repaid. From them superior kinds of Tea are pro- 

 duced.' 



The above extract is a sample of the said ' Records.' 

 They abound in errors and highly coloured statements, which 

 induced many to embark in Tea on unfavourable sites, and 

 ' the red book ' (it is bound in a red cover) is not exactly 

 blessed by the majority of the Himalayan planters ! 



1 A little enquiry would have shown this was not true, even when it was 

 written. All Tea planters, brokers, and all interested in Tea, know now (many 

 knew it then) that the ' Assam species, ' viz. , the indigenous, makes the most 

 valuable Tea produced. E. M. 



