114; Tea Plantation in Madeira. 



of a much hardier growth than has hitherto been conceived ; and 

 they even succeed as an underwood, for some of the plants which 

 are placed under the shade of chestnut trees are quite as healthy 

 as the others. 



The green-tea plant produces abundance of seeds, but the 

 bohea flowers later, and its seed does not, consequently, set so 

 well ; the gunpowder, however, gives flowers almost all the year 

 round, and is seldom to be seen without flowers and seeds in all 

 their stages of ripeness ; the sasanqua, from its double flowers, 

 rarely produces seed. 



My plantation was begun in 1827, and I received the few 

 plants, viz. 16 in number, with which I commenced it, partly 

 from Messrs. Loddiges of Hackney, and partly from China 

 direct. I have now about 500 full-grown plants, and about as 

 many more ready to plant out, with the means of multiplying 

 them by seed and layers to any extent ; but, unless I can succeed 

 better in the manufacture of the leaves, and at far less expense 

 than I do at present, it will never turn out a profitable speculation 

 to me, though it may likely prove an advantageous one in future 

 for the island, when practice and experience may have produced 

 greater expertness, and furnished a more perfect knowledge of the 

 preparation ; for though I can make excellent tea by merely dry- 

 ing the leaves, yet to roll them up is both so tedious and difficult, 

 without the destruction of at least two thirds of the quantity, by 

 being broken and reduced nearly to dust, that it costs me more 

 than the price of a pound of tea to prepare one, reckoning the 

 leaves worth nothing. It is evident, therefore, that though I 

 have obtained almost every information that books can teach me 

 on the subject of preparation, much real information and prac- 

 tical knowledge are still wanting. 



As I have proved that the tea plant is exactly suited to the 

 climate of the mountains of this island, and is a much hardier 

 plant than has hitherto been imagined (so much so, indeed, that 

 it will not succeed in my garden in Funchal), I should be glad 

 if, through your Magazine, I could obtain information from any 

 person who has seen the thorough process of drying in China, 

 for no other information could be of the least use to me; being 

 convinced, notwithstanding the variet}' or different species of 

 plants, that it is the mode of manufacture that produces the 

 different qualities of tea that come to our market, and that, con- 

 sequently, all kinds might be produced from the same plant, not- 

 withstanding that in different districts (as in the case of cheese 

 in England) are produced peculiar qualities. 1 have little doubt, 

 however, that if I had hitherto had leisure to give more attention 

 to the preparation, I should ere this have arrived at greater 

 perfection in rolling up the leaves ; for it is only since my retire- 

 ment from my official duties of Her Majesty's agent and consul- 



