70 TROPICAL AGRICULTURE 



TEA 



Tea is a beverage which ranks second only to coffee in 

 commercial importance and, in fact, is used in many countries 

 far more extensively than coffee. The tea plant is called 

 Camellia thea and the variety name viridis is used for Assam 

 tea and the name bohea for China tea. The tea plant is a 

 native of China, Japan, and India. The China tea is a low 

 bush, while the Assam tea is taller, reaching even a height of 

 40 feet and becoming a tree of large proportions if unpruned 

 and left to itself. Tea has been cultivated in China and Japan 

 since the dawn of history and in India since 1875. At that 

 date the seriousness of the leaf blight of coffee had become 

 apparent and the coffee growers began to experiment with 

 tea. These experiments rapidly led to the general adoption 

 of tea as a crop for replacing coffee in India and Ceylon. 



Tea requires a heavy rainfall for its most vigorous growth. 

 It thrives best in a rainfall of 90 to 200 inches. The Assam 

 tea does best at low altitudes, while China tea gives satisfac- 

 tory results at elevations up to 5,000 feet. 



Tea is propagated from seed planted either directly in the 

 field or in seed beds from which the seedlings are later trans- 

 planted in the field at distances of 4 by 4 or 5 by 5 feet. In 

 commercial plantations tea is usually prevented from growing 

 more than 5 feet high by repeated pruning. The first picking 

 takes place about 3 years from the time of planting the seed 

 and full bearing begins when the plants are about 6 years old. 

 The crop of leaves continues unabated for 50 years or more. 

 In fact, by means of severe pruning after a plantation has ap- 

 parently almost run out, a renewed vigor may be reestablished 

 for a considerably longer period. 



The yield of tea ranges from 200 to 1,000 pounds of cured 

 leaves per acre, according to the number of flushes, the nature 

 of the soil, the variety of tea, and the locality in which it is 

 grown. In Ceylon, there are about 400,000 acres devoted to 



