160 



JOUENAL OF HOETICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



[ Angast SI, 1S71. 



&o.| are to be daily seen in all the splendonr of French polish, 

 and of the latest Enropean designs ; it is generally known as 

 " Toon wood," and is very remarkable for its lightness, being 

 only a little more heavy than deal, unless of the scarce moun- 

 tain species, when its density increases, as its beauty also. 

 ,This latter kind is rather rare in commerce, though so plentiful 

 in the virgin forest of the upper Barrampooter districts ; the 

 reason being that no local saw-mills have yet been started, and 

 the rapids are too heavy to raft such fragile logs ; indeed, there 

 are few woods can withstand the terrible grinding force of those 

 vast cataracts, which not only smash gigantic trees into drift 

 wood, but more frequently impound them for ever in some 

 unapproachable cavern beneath the waves. In the vicinity of 

 the great north-east rivers, the Upper Bnrrampooter, the De- 

 bong, and Dehong (the latter supposed to be the veritable 

 Sampo of Tartary), the nomadic tribes have long ago felled 

 and cut out into canoes all the specimens of this valuable tree, 

 not only for their own use, but for barter with strangers and 

 frontier traders in salt and cloth, their two chief desiderata. I 

 obtained two or three of my own canoes in the rough after this 

 fashion, the Toon wood boats being preferred by experienced 

 hands for navigating the most dangerous waters, their elasticity 

 and buoyancy rendering them more manageable than other 

 timber. When on two expeditions into that remote highland 

 country (N. latitude 26°) in 1858-59, I carried all my troops, 

 and two mountain howitzers with their ammunition, and several 

 days' commissariat, in these hollowed trees, the most primitive 

 form of cava trahes, and by portage at the most difficult rapid 

 of the Dehong, I reached my destination just fifteen miles 

 beyond where the only European traveller, Lieut. Wilcox, had 

 ever set foot. But few accidents occurred during the return 

 voyage. Some arms and two or three canoe men were lost ; in 

 my own light and handy canoe I managed to rescue more than 

 one man, and mine was the last boat to leave that inhospitable 

 and treacherous country. 



While traversing its wonderful forests I frequently came on 

 some crumbling giant Cedrela, fallen and defunct from. anti- 

 quity, and I well remember walking in at the base of the grand , 

 old relic of Nature and out at the upper trunk, with plenty of ; 

 space overhead (I am nearly 6 feet high). I was always a i 

 canoe fancier, and possessed all the best that could be obtained. ' 

 Two of these were fitted in " barbaric pomp," with ornamental 

 roofs and screens of a particular leaf, combined with lattice of ' 

 split bamboo and rattan, adjusted to form a sitting cabin and 

 a sleeping berth; these were, of course, larger than usually met I 

 with. There was also a tiny cook boat, fitted with its clay { 

 hearth and the latest inventions of portable culinary utensils, ; 

 from the sheet- iron stove for charcoal down to the newest I 

 toasting-fork, and the little craft had its store-boxes and bunks ' 

 well freighted with commissariat. The most symmetrical of ; 

 the lesser " dug-outs " I had selected for the fishing depart- ' 

 ment ; it was hollowed and fitted out under my own eye by two 

 experienced " cutters," and then I added all manner of small 

 angling dodges, and finally stowed away a spare steering paddle 

 of tested Terminalia citrina (should this break all will certainly 

 be ducked and bruised, perhaps drowned), with the best canoes 

 and the best men money could procure. Not once in three 

 years did I ever meet with a contretemps, though I dared any- 

 thing and everything " in a hsll of waters," which must be 

 seen and encountered to be understood by the fireside English- 

 man. Now that the Forest Department has been thoroughly 

 organised by Government, doubtless the CedrelacEfe will be 

 protected within our actual territory ; but on the debateable 

 hunting-grounds of the above nomadic savages poisoned arrows 

 will ever be more plentiful than foresters ! 



In this valuable order of timber trees we have the satinwood 

 of Southern India and Ceylon, yielding also a useful oil for 

 painters ; also Swietenia Mahagoni, or mahogany tree, long 

 introduced and partially acclimated ; in fact, the first instance 

 of this exotic seeding has just occurred at Madras. The 

 cyclone in 1864 or 1865 destroyed one or more noble specimens 

 in the Calcutta Botanic Gardens said to have been planted by 

 the founder of the establishment. General Kidd, a century 

 before. In a gale at Berhampoor, in Lower Bengal, a most 

 promising beauty was blown down, and I was so lucky as to 

 meet with a piece of the wood some time after. It had been 

 Bold by auction. Its grain was good, but colour so unusually 

 pale that I had to employ very dark French polish in finishing 

 my work, using plenty of dragon's blood. 



There are still a few experimental trees at Berhampoor, 

 planted in low alluvial ground, where they do not appear to 

 roake any growth. Then we have the fine Chickrassia tabularia 



in this family, scattered over the more rainy of our climates, 

 for it is a moisture-loving tree, in large demand by the Calcutta 

 upholsterers and cabinet-makers, being beautifully veined. 



All this order contain a great amount of febrifugal property 

 in their bark, their habitat being the most feverish localities, 

 like the Cinchona and the Willow, both furnishing the potent 

 alkalines quinine and salicine. — (English Mechanic and World 

 of Science.) 



THE PREPARATION AND PROPERTIES OF THE 

 VARIOUS KINDS OF CHINESE TEA. 



It is proposed to review the various stages and processes of 

 growth and manufacture of Tea, as supplied by China to the 

 civilised world, with reference to the medicinal and dietetic 

 properties of the various forms of this " necessary of life." It 

 is to the credit of the Celestials that, whilst they do not live 

 under the strict rule of Islam, they have elected to confine 

 themselves chiefly to the use of a drink which has commended 

 itself to all sorts and conditions of men. In no other country 

 is such a store of wealth drawn from the very leaves of trees as 

 in China, where the Mulberry leaf furnishes sOk for clothing, 

 and the Tea leaf material for satisfying hunger and thirst. 



The Tea plant of China, the Thea cantoniensis or Thea, 

 vkidis of botanists, is not the same as that used in very remote 

 periods by the people of the classical period. They probably 

 used the leaf of the Chicory, as well as those of other plants 

 still used in various parts of the country, such as the WiUow, 

 the Holly, the Sageretia theezans, and other plants. 



Since the seventh century of the Christian era the growth 

 of the Tea shrub has been sufficiently extensive to invite taxa- 

 tion by the Emperor, though to a much less extent than cereal 

 crops, the chief dependence of the people of the " Middle King- 

 dom," the name by which China is known to its own people. 

 The Tea shrub is met with in Hupeh province as a small, 

 stunted evergreen bush, varying from 1 to 3 feet in height, and 

 covered with a precarious growth of young shoots, bearing 

 shining, ovate, pointed, and irregularly serrated leaves. It is 

 grown on the hill-sides or terraces of such districts as have a 

 red and rapidly disintegrating sandstone soil, where rice could 

 not well be raised, from the difficulty of irrigation. The shrubs 

 are renewed from young seedlings, after some ten years or e.o, 

 according to the enterprise of the peasant grower. Formerly 

 the bushes were renewed every five years, but the extraordinary 

 and insatiable demand for Tea has led to the exhaustion of the 

 plants, as anything in the shape of Tea is bought by the specu- 

 lative and indiscreet foreign trader. The seeds are often abor- 

 tive, from the damage done to the tree by the remorseless 

 stripping of the leaves. The seeds require some peculiar treat- 

 ment, such as the soaking in a prepared liquid, or in an arti- 

 ficial mould made of exhausted oilcake. Several seeds are 

 placed together to insure the growth of a single seedling. The 

 seeds yield a fixed oil, which is said to never turn rancid. The 

 Tea oil known to foreign residents in China is the product of 

 the seeds of the Camellia oleifera, a plant called by the same 

 name (Ch'a) as the Tea shrub. The various kinds of Tea — 

 namely, green, black, red, and brick Tea — are all produced by 

 the same kind of shrub, which shows some slight tendency to 

 variation in some such simple characteristics as the length of 

 the leaf, &c. The leaves are picked at three or four periods of 

 the year, commencing with the latter part of April. The bushes 

 are finally clipped to make some of the brick Tea, and to en- 

 courage the growth of young shoots in the coming spring. The 

 raw leaves are dried in the sun by spreading on mats, and the 

 shrivelled product pressed and rolled by men, who stand in 

 tubs, kneading the leaves into a ball with their naked feet. 

 This operation gives the twist to the leaf, and removes super- 

 fluous watery juices. The Tea is seldom dried by fire by the 

 small Tea growers, unless the weather be wet and the Tea 

 liable to mould from the want of sun heat. It is stored in bags 

 long enough to collect a quantity, and is then " fired " by 

 placing it in thinnish layers on the convex diaphragm of a 

 large hopper or basket, shaped like a dice box, with both ends 

 open, which is put over a charcoal fire. The leaf is exposed to 

 this heat {which never exceeds 212°, and is moderated by plac- 

 ing a thick layer of wood ashes over the fire) for about two 

 hours, being stirred up several times, so as to heat the whole 

 of it gradually and thoroughly. Processes of sifting, winnow- 

 ing, mixing, and picking follow, and a final "firing," to get rid 

 of moisture acquired during the manufacture, fit it for packing 

 in chests. The stalks are usually rejected, as foreign Tea 

 buyers do not like them. They contain all the properties oi 



