No. 133.] 263 



TEA. 



■ Such is the general inferiority of tea plants, that a very small 

 proportion of them yield tea worth anything. The difficulty in 

 general is to get the seeds in good order. The Rev. Mr. Gutzlaflf 

 is known all over the world by his works, and Mr. Ball, a tea 

 merchant, and for twenty years a resident of Canton, and whose 

 word is worthy of all confidence, say that "it has been observed 

 that the Chinese universally agree, from remote antiquity to the 

 present day, that only the Bohea mountains produce the highest 

 flavored teas." They afiirm, moreover, that it is only in the 

 central division of these mountains, which are known to the Chi- 

 nese by the appellation of Vuy-Shan, (inner mountains,) where 

 the highest flavored teas are produced, and that the tea deterio- 

 rates in quality, until in some of the remote districts the leaves 

 are thin and poor, and of no fragrance or sweetness in infusion, 

 and that no labor can make them good. 



The seeds that the Chinese would give, even if they had good 

 ones, would be the most inferior; but the good seeds are not at 

 hand, and as there are no means oi kaouing the seed of an infe- 

 rior plant from the best, money would not procure the better 

 ones. But the jealousy of China is too weH known to suppose 

 that she would impart to foreigners the means of shutting up her 

 thirty millions of dollars' worth of export tea. It must be re- 

 memembered by all who have read the history of the silkworm, 

 that it was conveyed out of China in a cane by a Jesuit. 



The people who make their living on tea trading in China are 

 innumerable, and through their agency the price is raised to 

 twenty cents a pound by the time it reaches Canton. 



Gutzlaff says the rent of an acre is about one dollar and fifty 

 cents a year ; a poor man raises on it three hundred pounds of 

 tea, for which he gets seven cents a pound, or twenty one dollars, 

 very poor support. The Hong laborers or coolies get $^5 a year; 

 shoemakers about as much ; tea packers have |3G a year. 



Mr. Fortune says of the tta planters. They are a poor, hard- 

 working people. Their cottages remind one of those we used to 

 see in Scotland formerly, where cow, pig and peasant lived and 



