August 26, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



399 



The Oolong tea of south China is nearest to green tea, its fer- 

 mentation being limited to three or five days only, while the 

 richly flavored black teas of north China are allowed to fer- 

 ment for twice that period, to prepare them for the Russian 

 and English markets. . . . The Japanese government made 

 experiments in the manufacture of black tea in the province of 

 Ise, but the results were not satisfactory, and no further efforts 

 have been made to compete in that line with China. Japan 

 will continue to furnish the world's supply of green tea. . . . 

 The young tea-leaves, picked in May and early June, comprise 

 more than half the whole season's crop, succeeding growths of 

 leaves being coarser and having less flavor. Tea which is to be 

 exported is treated to an extra firing, to dry it thoroughly before 

 the voyage, and, at the same time, it is " polished," or coated 

 with indigo, Prussian blue, gypsum and other things, which 

 give it the gray lustre that no dried tea-leaf ever naturally 

 wore, but that American tea-drinkers insist on having. Be- 

 fore the tea-leaves are put in the pans for the second 

 firing, men, whose arms are dyed with indigo to the elbows, 

 g-o down the lines and dust a little of the powder into each pan. 

 Then the tossing and stirring of the leaves follows, and the dye 

 is worked thoroughly into them. . . . This skilled labor is 

 paid for at rates to make the Knights of Labor groan, the wage- 

 list showing how impossible Tea-culture is for the United 

 States until protectionist tea-drinkers are ready to pay ten dol- 

 lars a pound for the commonest grades. During the four busy 

 months of the tea-season the firers are paid the equivalent of 

 eleven and four-tenths cents, United States gold, for a day's 

 work of thirteen hours. Less expert hands, who give the 

 second firing, or polishing, receive nine and six-tenths cents 

 a day. Those who sort and finally pack the tea and who work 

 as rapidly and automatically as machines, get the immense 

 sum of fifteen cents. . . . Each year the United States pays 

 over $7,000,000 for the nerve-racking green tea of Japan. 



How We Renewed an Old Place. 



XVII. — DISCOURAGEMENTS. 



IT was, I believe, Sir George Cornewall Lewis who declared 

 that life would be a very enjoyable thing were it not for its 

 pleasures, which is convincing proof that he must at some time 

 or other have interested himself in gardening, since this pursuit, 

 which at first seems, of all others, themostgentleand enticing, 

 leads the unwary dilettante from woe to woe before it has done 

 with him. 



As soon as our forest is tall enough to show above it, we are 

 talking of erecting an arch at its most obvious point of en- 

 trance, with the appropriate inscription, 



Abandon hope, all ye who enter here ! 

 our experience leading us to think that the only true way to 

 enjoy a prospective wilderness is to find one's blessedness in 

 being among the happy few who expect nothing, and there- 

 fore can never have any but agreeable surprises. This arch, 

 which perhaps will more appropriately take the form of a 

 lich-gate, is to be sculptured with high-reliefs of the wood- 

 chuck and the field-mouse, while the rose-bug and the borer 

 are to find a prominent place in the general decoration. This 

 architectural step has been suggested by the appearance of a 

 new enemy, which has destroyed the last vestige of our confi- 

 dence in conifers, and is a new proof of that perversity in trees 

 to which I have before reluctantly called attention. 



Early in July we noticed a tendency to droop in the leaders 

 of some of the Pines and Spruces, but concluded it might be 

 the dry hot weather which had affected their uprightness. A 

 week or two more passed, and the new tassels of the year's 

 growth all began to turn yellow and to hang down disconso- 

 lately. We then supposed that some one in passing might 

 have given the tops of the little trees an unfriendly twitch, 

 from which they were suffering ; but as the days went by and 

 a stout little Norway Spruce near the house began to lose its 

 top-knot, and Episcopus himself showed a bad kink in his 

 mitre, we thought it worth while to look into the matter more 

 closely, so we chopped off the head of one of the sufferers and 

 gave it a post-mortem examination. Dissection revealed rav- 

 ages, and the fatal secret was out. There was a worm at the 

 core ! 



And not one worm, but many, small, white, plump and per- 

 severing, indifferent to resin, and coolly tunneling their way 

 down the inside of the stem toward the ground. Certain leaks 

 on the outside, and port-holes of their own construction, 

 showed the exact length to which they had gone, so that by 

 cutting just where these signs disappeared, we had the satis- 

 faction of ending the earthly career of the leading invader by 

 snipping his fat unpleasant carcass neatly in two. 



We pursued our insidious foe from tree to tree with the 

 shears, and beheaded him with great slaughter. But, alas ! it 

 was only a realization of the old nursery sneer, about cutting 

 off your nose to spite your face, for when we had decapitated 

 the worm we left a headless tree to serve as his monument, 

 and, in some cases, the wretched little monster compelled the 

 destruction of three years' slow growth. 



The parent of the worm, being a fly of ambition and taste, 

 invariably picked out the biggest and showiest of the poor 

 little struggling trees to lay her eggs in, so that after the day 

 of judgment was over and the ins(ect)urrection crushed, our 

 pride was crushed with it, for the borer, not being, alack ! the 

 baseless fabric of a vision, left an awful wrack behind, both of 

 our Pines and our vainglory. 



Small comfort do we find in the assurance that the Pines 

 will be none the worse for topping, for, with a life and trees 

 so short as ours, " a few years " are not to be lightly regarded, 

 and the poor hill had precious little good looks to lose, and 

 has been waiting for its beauty already quite long enough. 

 Moreover, what assurance can we have that every summer 

 will not bring with it fresh devastation ? It takes a year or two 

 for insects to find you out ; but their first call is never their 

 last. If the borers have intelligence of the existence of Pines 

 on "Doctor's Hill," they will come again as sure as the tax- 

 collector, and new woes are in store for us from their visi- 

 tations. 



Moved by that desire to find consolation in our neighbor's 

 ills, to which La Rochefoucauld cynically alludes, we go about 

 spying at the tops of other people's evergreens, and find that 

 this is the borer's year. Driving, a few days since, in a neigh- 

 boring village, I saw, with concern, a long row of tall Norway 

 Spruces at least forty feet high, that enclose a public garden, 

 all suffering from the attacks of our fell marauder. Luckily, 

 their tops will hardly be missed, while ours — Wae's me ! as 

 Carlyle would moan. 



Now the question arises, Is there any prevention as well as 

 cure for this infliction ? Is there any application obnoxious to 

 the borer's mamma that can be put where she would lay her 

 eggs, and so induce her to move on ? Has she any avowed 

 distaste for whale-oil soap or coal-tar or kerosene emulsion, 

 or any other unpleasant odor ? And if there is such a deter- 

 rent, where should it be applied — on the very top of the 

 leader, or at the place where the new shoots start from the old 

 year's growth ? 



When a person sets out to plant a tree or two he scarcely 

 bargains for having the study of entomology thrown in, with 

 a course of chemistry into the bargain, not to mention toxicol- 

 ogy and the trade of wholesale murder, until he might as well 

 begin the career of gardener by serving an apprenticeship to 

 the Czar of Russia. I am horrified by the bloodthirstiness 

 developed by this seemingly innocent diversion ; still, this but 

 confirms the view of pleasures before quoted. Indeed, I am 

 not sure but there is opening for an essay on the Dangerous 

 Moral Tendencies of Gardening. The only objection to it is, 

 that if the Legislature of Massachusetts got wind of such a 

 thing it would pass a law which might prove inconvenient. 

 There are advantages in having your morals legislated about 

 by a paternal, not to say Puritanically paternal, government, 

 but there are drawbacks also — one does not always wish to be 

 virtuous by act of Parliament. Still, if the legislation can be 

 brought to bear upon worms, we will not complain. 



An eminent Philadelphia physician, visiting Boston, was 

 struck with an inscription in the Public Garden, " Dogs for- 

 bidden to swim in this pond on Sunday," and remarked that 

 he knew that education had been carried to an advanced stage 

 in Massachusetts, but he had not learned before that even the 

 dogs had been taught to read ! How delighted we should be 

 to learn that the Gypsey Moth has been warned off by the 

 General Court. So far we of the South Shore have been left to 

 cope, somewhat ineffectively, I admit, with our own insects, 

 but if the famous moth finds us out we may expect the govern- 

 ment myrmidons at its heels, and let us hope that they will 

 carry the Web-worms with them. But a commission ramping 

 about the fields, even for so praiseworthy a purpose, has its 

 terrors. 



Another discouragement comes in the worm which saws off 

 the small branches of the Oaks and leaves the ground strewn 

 with twigs, as after a storm, but that supercilious insect 

 disdains trees the size of ours, and he is still to be antici- 

 pated. 



Upon some of the dwarf evergreens we have discovered a 

 white scale insect, something like a Mealy-bug, which covers 

 the trunks and branches with its white spots, but that seems to 

 yield to the dissuasive effects of soap and water, and disappears 

 after a good scrubbing. 



