AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES. 113 



commerce is only the result of different ways of preparing the 

 leaves, so that it depends merely on the process whether tea 

 appears on the market as black or green. Almost all Japanese 

 tea is green, though coming from several varieties of low-trimmed 

 Bohea bushes. I have scarcely anywhere ^qqw the form Thea 

 viridis. Although Fortune, in his accounts of travel in China, 

 broke down the erroneous but widespread idea that green and 

 black tea were products of entirely distinct plants, Thea viridis and 

 Thea Bohea respectively, he was by no means the first author to 

 state the matter correctly. This had been done by Lettsom half a 

 century before, on page 7 of his excellent work on the tea-plant,^ 

 in plain words, as follows : 



•* There is only one species of this plant, for the difference be- 

 tween green and Bohea tea depends on the nature of the soil, the 

 cultivation, and the method of drying the leaves. It has even been 

 observed that a green tea-tree, planted in the Bohea district, will 

 yield Bohea tea, and likewise the contrary." 



The principal tea-districts of India, China, and Japan begin at 

 the tropic of Cancer (in Japan at 33° N.) and reach to the thirty- 

 fifth parallel. In Japan the fortieth degree is the extreme northern 

 limit of tea-plantations ; in China, the thirty-sixth. In Java the 

 tea-gardens have been laid out in the lower mountain zone, 1,000- 

 1,200 m. above sea-level ; in India they are in general 800-1,200 m. 

 high, but in Assam and Chittagong only 60-80 m. In the lower 

 temperature-belt for tea-culture, not only in Northern China and 

 Japan, but also in the Himalayas, the bushes are often exposed 

 to frosts in winter, which may be as severe as —9° C, without killing 

 them. Climate, soil, and method of preparation, together with 

 differences of character in the bushes, have, of course, the greatest 

 influence on the quality of tea produced. As to soil, a moist 

 sandy loam, on the lower slopes of hills, is the best bottom for 

 a tea-plantation. Atmospheric water flows off easily from gently 

 inclined ground of this sort, without carrying away good earth. 

 There are no tea-gardens on the sides of steep mountains, and 

 only exceptionally do we find terrace-culture for gardens of 

 this sort. On the other hand, there are in Japan plantations on 

 level plains, e.g. in the celebrated tea-district of Uji, on the Yodo- 

 gawa, between Osaka and the Biwa Lake. In such a case, how- 

 ever, the ground must be well drained and the underground water 

 kept away from the roots. Forest land, with damp, feitile soil on 

 a bottom of sandy loam, has proved particularly favourable for 

 raising the tea-plant in India and Java. Such soil is easily pene- 

 trated by its tap-roots, which find in it support and moisture. In 

 China and Japan, where this virgin forest soil is seldom to be found, 

 the ground is all the more carefully and deeply worked, well kept 

 and manured, and these are essential elements in planting and 

 tending a tea-garden. 



^ Lettsom : "The Natural History of the Tea-Tree," London, 1799. 

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