TEA-CULTURE, A PROBABLE AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 263 



bed. My plants are in a rich dry soil, and grow very rapidly, 

 requiring only three or four years to reach the height of 4 feet, 

 they are as thrifty and bear the vicissitudes of our climate as well 

 as the native Cassina. If there could be invented some machine 

 to imitate this hand labor, to effect the same slow process by means 

 less expensive than the man-hand, I think that the cultivation of 

 tea might become not only practical, but profitable to a large por- 

 tion of our Southern country. 



Rev. W. A. Meriwether, Columbia, S. C, says : 



I obtained a Chinese tea-plant from North Carolina nine years 

 ago, and set it out in open ground in a plot of Bermuda grass. It 

 has received no cultivation, and is now a fine shrub, measuring to- 

 day six and a half feet in height by nine feet across the branches 

 at the base. The soil where it grows is light, sandy land, with no 

 clay within two feet of the surface. The plant is not affected by 

 the severest cold to which our climate is subject. It was not the 

 least injured by the intense cold of December, 1870, when my 

 thermometer registered i above zero ; the coldest weather I have 

 ever known in this latitude. That the climate of the Southern 

 States is well suited to the cultivation of the tea-plant, I think 

 there can be no question. I sincerely hope you may succeed in 

 your efforts to arouse our people to the importance of its cultiva- 

 tion. If only enough tea were made to supply the home demand, 

 what an immense annual saving would result. 



Hon. James Calhoun, Trotter's Shoals, Savannah 

 River, S. C., says : 



Eighteen years ago some half-dozen tea-plants, brought from 

 China, were sent me. I set them in what had been a strawberry 

 bed, in a soil friable, of medium quality, unmanured. Nothing 

 had been done beyond keeping down the weeds with the hoe. 

 The plants have had no protection : but during a portion of the 

 first summer, seedlings have some shelter. As yet there has been 

 no damage from blight or from insects. Frequently leaves are 

 clipped in moderation from all parts of the bush, care being taken 

 not to denude it. They are parched in an iron vessel at the kitchen 

 fire, constantly stirred, and immediately afterward packed in air- 

 tight boxes. I enclose leaves plucked to-day, measuring from 3^ 

 to 5 inches, and, as you will perceive, exhibiting three varieties. 



