386 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



China ! The enoraiity of the opium trade has deepened that 

 hate in every intelligent man in China. The recent attack on 

 Canton is known to have rendered that hatred of ns so extreme 

 that the Chinese lower classes will rush to certain death to be 

 revenged. We have supposed (weakly,) that China was deeply 

 interested in the great demand for tea among our christian nalflons 

 of the West. We know little of that empire yet, but we have 

 data to determine that China grows annually above one thousand 

 millions of pounds of tea of which she has never yet exported 

 so much as ten per cent I The trade in tea, therefore, is of no 

 importance to her.. The exasperation of the people against us 

 seems to have stopped the civil war in China, and w^e may be 

 assured that they will not again, for an indefinite period, trade 

 with us at all, and we must try to provide for a supply otherwise. 

 Trance has been anxious for many years to grow tea. Ten years 

 ago, finding that Brazil had succeeded, sent a commission to 

 examine it, whose report I have translated and it is published in 

 our transactions. 



In the year 1846, a valued member of this Institute, Junius 

 Smith, he who was first to say, (when Dr. Lardner declared the 

 impossibility of ocean steam navigation,) that the day had nearly 

 come when steam ships would cross the ocean in less than half 

 the time required by sail vessels. Mr. Smith having an intelli- 

 gent daughter resident in the East, employed her to obtain genuine 

 tea plants and tea nuts for him. She succeeded and he having 

 decided that the upland of South Carolina would probably be 

 best for this trial, formed a tea plantation. He prepared a full 

 and valuable paper on tea, which was published by a member of 

 the Institute, Mr. William E. Dean, and it was also published in 

 our volume of Transactions of 1847. Mr. Smith received no 

 encouragement. His little plantation was about to flourish when 

 he was assailed by some wretches there, he was attacked, came 

 back to New York, and soon died in consequence of the wounds 

 he had received. 



This was the pioneer attempt. It cost much time, knowledge, 

 laBor and the life of a most valuable citizen. This melancholy 

 result will not deter others from trying to Americanize the tea 

 plant, for its admirable qualities admit of no argument. Tea we 

 must have ! and that whether we have lager beer, whiskey, 

 wine, brandy, or even cider. The scientific analysis of tea,, by 

 Ure and others all show its excellency for all orders and ages of 

 men. 



