272 [Assembly 



Hitherto, no friendly fostering hand has been raised in behalf of 

 the Tea Plant, but content in the enjoyment of the purchased fruit, 

 we have repelled the cultivation from our shores, until we have 

 come to a conclusion that it cannot be cultivated at all. 



Whilst we invite public attention to the enquiry, and the co-ope- 

 ration of southern and western planters and farmers in correcting our 

 errors and more fully developing the subject, we beg to apprize the 

 surface readers of our day, that it is not one calculated to amuse the 

 imagination, but rather to instruct the understanding and enlarge 

 the sphere of practical husbandry. 



The Tea Plant is a hardy evergreen. It grows ordinarily from 

 four to six feet in height, and spreads in numerous branches from 

 the bottom, forming a thick bushy top like a currant bush, but resem- 

 bling more closely perhaps, the myrtle. The shrub is covered in its 

 season with a great number of white flowers with yellow stamens, 

 like a wild rose, and is slightly odoriferous. When the flowers fall 

 off" a round pod remains, in which, when ripe, there is a round black 

 seed about the size of a buckshot. The leaves are of bright green, 

 serrated, and run to a sharp point life the leaf of a peach tree.* It 

 is not our intention to discuss the often mooted question, whether 

 there are two distinct species of Tea Plants, Green and Black, or 

 whether there be but one species producing both Black and Green 

 Tea. Learned naturalists, after exhausting their strength, have left 

 the matter where they found it. 



Botanically considered the Tea Plant is undoubtedly but one 

 species, and yet produces both green and black Tea, just as a grape 

 vine produces white and black fruit, but is still a grape vine; or an 

 apple tree produces red and green fruit, but is still an apple tree. 

 Soil, climate, cultivation, manure, mode of curing, time of collecting 

 the bud and the leaf, produce a decided difference in the leaf of the 

 same plant, and in the quality of the Tea. 



In many respects the Tea Plant resembles the grape vine more 

 than any other plant. In France and Europe generally, it is well 

 known that the grape vine of the same species produces very differ- 

 ent qualities of wine, even from vineyards lying contiguous. The 

 difference from the above-mentioned circumstances, is not easily ac- 

 counted for with precision. It is precisely the same with the Tea 



• Sec McCartney's Embassy by Sir Geo. Staunton. Foreign Missionary Maga- 

 zine, New-York, Aug., 1847. McCuUoch's Commercial Dictionary. 



