Tea Plantation in Madeira. 113 



public : and I have now only to add, with respect to the above- 

 mentioned notice of this fly, that the search for it need not be 

 limited, as there stated, to the month of May, as I have con- 

 tinually found it throughout the month of June; and in the 

 preceding year it continued to be very numerous and destructive 

 to the middle of July. I did not find that it lays its eggs in 

 the earth, as stated in the above notice, but on the shoots of the 

 plant itself, on which they may be distinctly seen ; and the 

 wound on the shoot effected by the ovipositor causes it to die 

 completely off. 



Art. VI. An Accomit of the Tea Plantation of Henry Veitch, Esq., 

 in the Island of Madeira. Communicated by Mr. Veitch. 



Dr. Lippold, as you requested, has visited my plantation of 

 tea, and will, I conceive, report to you that he never saw a 

 plantation of any kind in a more thriving condition. The plants 

 are both beautiful and luxuriant, and he saw them covered with 

 flowers, and with the ripe seeds not yet fallen and new. ones 

 formed. He took samples of all, which he will, no doubt, pre- 

 serve with his usual ability, and forward them to you. I have 

 four different qualities of plants : the green, the black or bohea, 

 the gunpowder, and the sasanqua ; but I have not been able to 

 prepare tea from the last. The leaf is too fleshy and brittle, 

 and I have not succeeded in destroying its herbaceous taste, 

 by any process that I have as yet tried. Of the other kinds, the 

 green tea is the most robust ; some of the old plants being from 

 7 ft. to 8 ft. high, and from 4 yards to 5 yards in circumference. 

 The black is next in height, but it has scarcely half the spread of the 

 former; while the gunpowder is by far the smallest, only growing 

 from 4 ft. to 5 ft. high, and its leaves are not half the size of the 



• Til- 



Others. The sasanqua is a very wide-spreadnig plant, but its 

 branches are unable to support themselves, and might be trained 

 along walls to a great extent; it has handsome double white 

 flowers, while those of the other kinds have single flowers. 



The plantation is situated at my country residence in the 

 mountains of this island, called the Jardin da Sejra, or garden 

 of the hills, in a sheltered valley, about 3000 ft. above the level 

 of the sea, where snow sometimes falls, but lies for a very short 

 time, and where there are frequent hoar or white frosts, but never 

 ice. It is considerably above the cultivated vine-grounds, and 

 where grapes will not grow; though the luxuriance of geraniums, 

 fuchsias, hydrangeas, and many other green-house and even some 

 tropical plants, is surprising. The plantations are on terraces, 

 on the side of a hill ; and the edges of the walls have hedges of 

 gooseberries and currants. This proves that the lea plants are 



