GEOGRAPHICAL DISXRIBXJ- 

 TIOPOT, 



ESIDES the character of the different varieties of 

 tea and other information connected with the 

 plant and its product, we have to notice the dif- 

 ferent parts of the world in which it is now or 

 may be grown in the future, as many practical questions 

 of considerable importance are dependent on the subject. 

 For upwards of two centuries and a half the world's 

 supply of tea was furnished exclusively by China, and it 

 was not until well into the middle of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury that China and Japan were the only two tea-produc- 

 ing countries in the world, their product reaching the 

 western markets through the narrowest channels and 

 under the most oppressive restrictions. Its cultivation 

 however, has in that time been extended to other coun- 

 tries, most notably into Java, India and Ceylon. 



Tea is more or less cultivated for local consumption in 

 all the provinces of China, except the extreme northern. 

 But to what exact degree of latitude it is difficult to be 

 precise, as we are without definite information from those 

 regions, and the vast empire of China not being suffici- 

 ently explored by botanists to warrant the assertion that 

 the plant is not to be found in other parts of the country, 

 at least in a wild state. So far, however, it has not been 

 discovered there, except in a state of cultivation, or as 

 having evidently escaped from cultivation on roadsides 

 or other out-of-the-way places. 



We know that it is cultivated in Tonquin and Yunnan, 

 but only to a limited extent, the product of these 



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