Pruning. 27 
sort of work is a very heavy first flush, medium 
second flush and scarcely any tea made after the 
beginning of July. 
The best light pruning is expensive but with 
China bushes gives a very good return, About 
5 inches of new, healthy wood must be left, all 
knots cleared out and all twigs and rotten wood 
cut away, a fair amount of leaves should be left 
all over the bush but not enough to prevent the 
free passage of the wind, Where trees suffer bad- 
ly from red spider take off the leaves in the lower 
parts of the bush, and leave a fringe at the top 
chiefly on the new wood, Many planters do not 
allow the sides of the bushes to be more than 
tipped, or in some cases leave the sides altogether. 
What does quite as well, if not better, is to prune 
the sides back to decently strong wood and then 
make the coolies leave them alone, not even 
plucking open leaf for the first 2 flushes. This 
results in strong wood at the sides of the bushes 
which yields as well as the centre does. All 
branches trailing on the ground must to be cut 
off as they give no leaf and only take a large 
