No. 216.] 279 



The great strength of the manure, teeming with ammonia, and 

 offensive to the senses, necessary to produce celery of a giant size, 

 communicates a strong offensive fibrous smellage character to the 

 plant which destroys its delicacy, and renders it fit only for the 

 manure yard. If the manure before it is put into the trenches be 

 thoroughly cured, the heat and ammonia expelled by age, and the 

 whole mixed with rich mould and chloride of lime, the composition 

 is sweetened, agrees with the plant, and produces a rich, tender, 

 sweet, stocky, and most delicious head of celery. The same principle 

 is applicable to varieties of potatoes. But I cannot pursue this 

 enquiry further at the present moment, but content myself with having 

 brought it before you and commended it to your practical consider- 

 ation. Undoubtedly the fruits of the field are directly affected by 

 the peculiar properties of the aliment upon which the plant feeds, 

 and that a superior flavor may be given to most of our fruits, or they 

 may be divested of it, by the appropriate character of the manure 

 and its judicious application by the farmer. 



Chemistry has done much for practical husbandry, but personal 

 experience and close observation are, after all, the most certain and 

 instructive laboratory, 



I see no reason why the quantity, quality, and flavor of the Tea 

 Leaf may not be affected in the same way as other plants, by the 

 process of manuring. It is quite possible that by very high manuring 

 we may obtain a greater weight of Tea Leaves of inferior qualit}, 

 than by a more restricted system, and yet the superior quality and 

 flavor of a smaller quantity from the same number of plants, m?.} 

 overbalance in value the larger quantity. 



That our soil will produce the Tea Plant, a native of temperate 

 latitudes, is inferred from the fact that it produces every other species 

 of vegetable indigenous to the temperate zone. It would be an 

 extraordinary thing if the Tea Plant were the only one it will not 

 produce; an absolute phenomenon; nay, well nigh a mn-acle! seeing 

 it would amount to a suspension and contravention of the established 

 laws of nature. We must therefore maintain, until we see far better 

 evidence, to the contrary, than can be found in popular opinion, that 

 our soil will produce everything that grows in the temperate latiludes 

 of this world, without one single exception. 



If the location of Tea Plantations requires a mountainous district 

 undulating hills, picturesque glades, sloping lawns, luxurious valleys, 



