AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES. 



soms and fruit, and is, in fact, so great, that the tea-plant has come 

 lately to be looked upon by many as only a particular species of 

 the genus camellia, since there are no generic differences {e.g. in 

 Bentham and Hooper's "Genera Plantarum"). 



The history of the spread of tea-culture points, like the name 

 itself in various languages, all back to China as the starting-point 

 of the plant. In the greater part of the Chinese Empire, and 

 particularly in Peking and Canton, the name of the leaves as pre- 

 pared for the trade, and especially of the extract drawn from them 

 by boiling water, is cha (tscha) ; and this is the name, too, in 

 Japanese, Portuguese, and Russian (tschai). The words thea, 

 Thee, the, te, te, tea, etc., seem traceable to the province of Fukien, 

 for, according to Williams (" The Middle Kingdom "), the plant is 

 called tai in Amoy and ta in Futschau. But it is still doubtful 

 whether China, the land where it has been longest cultivated, is 

 its original home, and if so, which part of China. In 1826, as is 

 well known, the tea-plant was found, growing wild apparently, 

 in the jungle-forests of Assam ; but the fact was not thoroughly 

 understood till eight years later. Thea Assainica, Masters, like the 

 camellia in Southern Japan, here reaches the size of real trees, 

 7 to 9 m. high, with light ash-coloured bark and large elliptical leaves, 

 being widely differentiated through the latter from the bushy and 

 small-leaved forms of the Chinese region of cultivation. 



According to personal information furnished by Sir David 

 Brandis, the Assam valley was thickly populated and in excellent 

 cultivation even in the last century. This cultivation, however, 

 was in great part destroyed by the incursions of the Burmese. At 

 the present day the forests which have grown up over the ancient 

 seats of civilization, contain the tea-tree, and it is probable, there- 

 fore, in spite of many peculiarities, that it has there only degenerated 

 and become wild, and also possible that the tea-plant in a real state 

 of nature is to be found in the primeval forests, still unexplored, 

 of the neighbouring Indo-Chinese border-land. 



According to recent opinions, however, the tea-tree of the Assam 

 valley, like the various forms, checked in their development, of the 

 cultivated shrub in China and Japan, belongs to the same species, 

 which is called Camellia the'ifera, Griffth., or Thea chinensis, Sims. 

 According to this view^ a Thea viridis^ L., /3 Thea Bohea, L., 7 Thea 

 assamica, Masters, are all varieties in different degrees of transition. 



Its general characteristics (see Table I.) are as follows : Bush or 

 tree up to 9 m. high, with hard, light wood and many branches. 

 Bark smooth, light ash-coloured, resembling that of beech, and 

 brownish in young branches. Crown thick. Leaves persistent, 

 short-stemmed, and from elliptical to narrow lanceolate ; sharply 

 serrated, with a bright, lasting, dark-green polish, but much thinner 

 and less stiff and leathery than in the case of Camellia japonica ; 

 covered, when young, with a white down or silken hairs, which 

 drop off in the course of development. Blossoms belonging, ac- 



