CULTIVATION AND PREPARATION. 57 



produce five times that quantity, but the quality of the 

 tea will not be near so good. One Chinese authority 

 states that 2 catties, about 2 pounds, of green leaves are 

 obtained from the more celebrated trees, but that the 

 average quantity was between 10 taels and I cattie, or 

 from i pound to 22 ounces annually, adding that a 

 single mou (acre) of land contained from 300 to 400 

 plants. From these varying statements it is evident that 

 no definite amount can be fixed on as an average product 

 per plant, per acre or per annum. The average collection 

 for each picker is from 14 to 16 pounds of raw leaves 

 per diem, the average wages varying from four to eight 

 cents per day, according to the skill of the picker. 



CURING AND FIRING. 



As a general rule in China the small growers do not 

 prepare the tea for market, simply curing them up to a 

 certain point in which condition they dispose of it to the 

 merchant or commission man, locally known as " tea- 

 men/' who send agents into the country and who buy it 

 in small quantities from the growers and carry it to hongs 

 or warehouses established at different points in the tea 

 districts. In this preliminary preparation the leaves 

 when first collected by the grower are spread out in light 

 layers on straw mats and exposed to the sun until they 

 are thoroughly withered, when they are gathered up and 

 placed on bamboo trays and triturated until a large por- 

 tion of the sap or juice is pressed out. After this opera- 

 tion they are again exposed to the sun and then dried 

 in rattan cylinders, separated in the middle by a partition, 

 covered on top, and underneath of which is a chafing 

 vessel of ignited charcoal. The leaves when thrown into 



