SOIL THE MOST SUITABLE. 71 



may be employed with advantage *, in which 

 opinion I am disposed tb coincide even as regards 

 black tea, though the Chinese universally affirm 

 that manure, is not employed for that tea, and is in- 

 jurious to its flavour. Further, as has been shown 

 in this investigation, a knowledge of the surface 

 soil only, as in cultivation generally, whether by 

 analysis or otherwise, affords but very inadequate 

 data, unless due attention be also paid to the nature 

 of the substratum rock and subsoil as regarding 

 drainage and nutritive properties. 



If by " shelter on two sides " t be meant open 

 vallies, or hills converging together, with a southern 

 exposure to the sun, we should deem such favourable 

 to the cultivation of tea. But if " shady declivities 

 of hills in moist vallies," J or contracted sheltered 

 vallies, where ventilation is imperfect, and the sun 

 has little influence, be found favourable, which 

 I am disposed to doubt, may it not be because 

 such situations are moist, not because they are 

 shady or sheltered ? Whether protection from 

 easterly winds may not be necessary immediately 

 in the neighbourhood of the sea-coast, as at Amoy, 

 I cannot determine ; but all inquiry and in- 

 formation on the subject tend to show that, inland, 

 such shelter is unnecessary. The Chinese, however, 

 do say, that an easterly gale is much to be dreaded, 



* See note at the end of this chapter, p. 76. 

 f Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. iv. p. 103. 

 t Parliamentary Papers, "Tea Cultivation," Feb. 1839. 



p 4 



