126 THE GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 



brick tea, and in Tartary it is the usual me- 

 dium of exchange. 



Now let us look a little at the consumption 

 and produce of tea. It was first brought to 

 Europe by the Dutch, in 1610. A small 

 quantity came to England in 1650. It is 

 first publicly noticed in an act of parlia- 

 ment of the year 1660, in which it is enu- 

 merated as one of the beverages sold in coffee- 

 houses, and a duty of eightpence per gallon 

 was laid on the liquor made and sold from 

 it. In the Journal of Pepys, then secretary to 

 the Admiralty, he says : " Sept, 25, 1661. I 

 sent for a cup of tea, (a China drink,) of 

 which I had never drunk before." In 1664, 

 the British East India Company sent two 

 pounds of tea as a present to the king. Two 

 years later, a quantity was imported from 

 Holland by lord Arlington and lord Ossory, 

 at which time it was sold for sixty shillings per 

 pound. In 1667, the East India Company 

 issued their first order to import tea, directing 

 their agent at Bantam to send home 100 pounds 

 of the best he could get. Since that time the 

 consumption has steadily increased. In 1734, 

 the quantity imported was 632,000 pounds ; in 

 1768, it was nearly 7,000,000 pounds; in 1812, 

 20,000,000 pounds ; and during the last four 

 years of the East India Company's charter, it ave- 

 raged 31,500,000 pounds. Since the abolition of 

 the monopoly, and the consequent reduction in 

 price, the consumption has received a power- 

 ful impulse, and the importation of 1847 was 



