278 [Assemble' 



its healthful and vigorous growth depends, in a great measure, upon 

 suitable and abundant sustenance; and that its very life is at stake, 

 and liable to be prematurely sacrificed by starvation. Therefore 1 

 would recommend cultivating the Tea Garden as every Garden 

 should be cultivated, by ploughing, digging, hoeing and manuring, 

 when the soil requires it, and keeping it clear from weeds, clean, 

 and in good heart. Nothing is ever lost by good husbandry, nothing 

 gained by bad. No cultivator can be deluded into the expectation 

 of reaping a crop from a mere sand bank; the idea is preposterous. 

 In the Tea districts of China, every cottager has his Tea Garden, 

 from one to five or six acres, the produce of which supplies the wants 

 of his family, and the surplus is sold to the Tea dealers, who go 

 about the country to purchase and prepare it, for home and foreign 

 markets. A gravelly sub-soil covered with just that coating of rich 

 mould, which gives growth and beauty to our mountain foliage, and 

 abundant crops to our spreading valleys, will unquestionably natur- 

 alize the Tea Plant, and invest it with all its native grace and 

 excellence. 



The quality and flavor of the Tea Leaf is not only affected by the 

 soil, climate and location, but by the character and quality of the 

 manure used in cultivation. From the general tenor and drift of 

 the agricultural reports published in this country, 1 am constrained 

 to believe that our farmers and horticulturists have paid more atten- 

 tion, indeed their chief attention, in their experiments upon manures, 

 to the quantity rather than to the quality of the produce grown. 



In this way it may happen, and I am certain it does happen, that 

 the inferior quality of the larger bulk is oftener less valuable than a 

 smaller bulk of superior quality, and thus if I may indulge an Hiber- 

 nianism, the success of the experiment is a failure. This is in perfect 

 accordance with the fact observable in the growth of other plants. 

 As this point is curious and of great importance, and of daily appli- 

 cation to the husbandman, I beg to call his particular attention to 

 it, and to illustrate it by a single example, drawn from my own 

 experience, and for the correctness of which I can vouch. Take the 

 article of celery which I have been in the habit ot cultivating for 

 my own table for nearly half a century, and which I presume is 

 familiar to you all. This vegetable depends entirely for its flavor 

 upon the character and quality of the manure used in its cultivation, 

 and not at all upon the kind of soil contiguous. I am quite certain 

 ^hat I can grow celery twice the size of any I have seen in this 

 ^.ountry, and yet I am equally certain that it would not be fit to place 

 ypon any gentleman's table. 



