AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES. 115 



trees. Mixed gardens of this sort are, however, exceptions ; as 

 a rule, the tea-garden, mostly lying free, serves no subordinate 

 purpose. 



In Japan, particularly in Kiushiu, tea-shrubs are not unfrequently 

 found singly on the borders of terraces, fields, and roads, and some- 

 times even joined together as hedges. Such plants, however, yield 

 only inferior products, and are not to be at all regarded as examples 

 of a rational culture. 



It is plain that E. Kaempfer — who did not become acquainted 

 with those districts where tea culture is more extensively and 

 carefully carried on — had such methods in view in Kiushiu, when 

 he wrote that Tsja (Tscha) no ki, or the tea-tree, is given no other 

 place but the borders of fields and similar spots inconvenient for 

 use otherwise.^ In like manner, and led astray in the same fashion, 

 Maron remarks : " The tea-shrub is but little grown, and only in 

 hedges and the borders of gardens, and I think it is scarcely any- 

 where cultivated in the open fields." ^ 



In China the tea-gardens are mostly little spots of land, such as 

 the peasant with his own family can work, though Fortune mentions 

 some that embraced four or five acres. Plantations of this sort are 

 not at all infrequent in Japan. It often happens that many of 

 them lie contiguous, like the vineyards of different owners in Ger- 

 many. Over softly swelling land, with a gentle rise, frequently by 

 the side of yellow-green rice-fields, these tea-gardens present in 

 summer an exceedingly pleasant aspect, with their foliage of dark 

 green, especially if the picture is still further enlivened by women 

 and children in their gay, clean clothes, busily picking the leaves. 



The proper method of trimming the tea-shrub is one of the 

 most important operations in tea-gardening, and calls for great 

 skill and intelligence. For a pleasing appearance of the plan- 

 tation is not the only object, but rather an increase in the 

 amount and quality of crops. Like planting and manuring, this 

 trimming must be done in the colder time of the year, just as in 

 the cases of trees with us — a time when there is a cessation of 

 growth, and the production of sap is at its least. 



The tea-plantations are well manured, often four times a year, 

 the strongest supply being given in spring, when the new epoch 

 of vegetation begins. Oil-cakes and fish-guano are held parti- 

 cularly effective, and their use is preferred, especially for young 

 plants. Where they cannot be had, and for older plants, recourse 

 is had to human faeces. Since a year's crop of 1,600 lbs. of tea 

 leaves per hectare deprives the soil of 100 kg. of nitrogen and 

 24 kg. of potash, etc., it is above all things necessary to replace 

 this with an appropriate fertilizer. For this purpose wood-ashes 

 and sea-algae are the best, where they are to be obtained. 



^ E. Kaempfer: " Geschicbte und Beschreibung von Japan," p. 131 ; and E. 

 Kaempfer : " Amoen exot.," p. 612. 

 2 Salviati : " Annalen der Landwirthschaft," 1869, p. 71- 



