208 HYSON SHRUB, THE SINGLO SHRUB 



that in very early times a new mode of culture 

 sprang up in the neighbourhood of these towns. 

 The wild shrubs were taken from the hills or 

 mountains, and planted in the plains, and round 

 the borders or embankments of fields, and manured ; 

 so that this improved mode of cultivation pro- 

 duced a great and favourable change in the shrub. 

 Hence arose a distinction between that grown on 

 the hills, which is called hill tea (Shan Cha), and 

 that grown on the plains, called garden tea (Yuen 

 Cha) ; so that the ancient term Singlo seems, in 

 these districts, so far to have given place to the 

 more recent classification into hill and garden tea, 

 that some of the Chinese of the present day are 

 unwilling to admit that these teas were originally 

 the same. 



As the fact of their identity, therefore, cannot 

 be established on the universal testimony of the 

 tea factors, I shall simply state what I have col- 

 lected upon this subject. 



In the first place, Du Halde observes that " there 

 are only two kinds of tea, the Singlo, which takes 

 its name from a mountain in Kiang Nan, and the 

 black tea, produced in the mountains of Vu Ye, 

 in Fokien." 



In the Chinese statistical works of the districts 

 of Hieu Ning and Moo Yuen, the Hyson districts 

 of the present day, all that is said under the article 

 Tea is as follows : — 



