COFFEE AND TEA CULTIVATION. 219 
be comprised therein) how it is that the flushes are 
not more frequent? In other words, how is it that 
from 18 flushes they get nearly double as much tea 
as we do, as a rule, in India from 25 and upwards ? 
Can it be due to the hedge system of planting ad- 
opted, and the consequently larger number of plants 
in an acre? Fourxfour (perhaps the most general 
mode in India) gives 2,722 plants, and four xtwo 
(the Java system) would give just double, viz., 5,444 
bushes. I have always looked with favour on the 
hedge system, though never bold enough to adopt it. 
There is much to be said for and against it (more 
than I have room to say here, for it would be enough 
for a whole letter: Iwill say it all ere long), but I 
think, the ‘for’ preponderates. 
As, supposing the facts correct, and that from 18 
flusbes they get more than we do from say 25, not- 
withstanding a lighter system pf picking, (to which 
latter the Java tea bears evidence) itis plain that each 
plant of their larger number, must, at each flush give 
as much, if not more, leaf than the fewer plants we 
have to pick. Now, the leaf producing area of plants 
two feet apart in the lines, cannot be so large as that 
of plants four feet apart. In other words, each bush 
is smaller. The equal, if not larger produce, then, 
from each individual plant must be due to its flinging 
out a larger number of shoots on each square foot of 
the leaf producing area, and this I hold can only be 
caused by the stimulus the bush has received from 
high cultivation of one kind or other. 
_ Still, as I said, I am puzzled; for high cultiva- 
tion produces frequent flushes, and this they lack 
in Java. : 
‘‘T maylearnmore later, and if I do you shall 
have it. In the meantime I invite, and hope you 
will, discuss. 
“TI think it better while the subject, owing to my last 
letter, is fresh in your readers’ minds, to discuss the 
advisability ot ‘Tea Hedges,’—that is, of tea planted 
two feet apart in the lines,—which system, as I ex- 
plained and dilated on in my last communication, is 
followed out in Java. 
**In no work on tea that I have seen is this point 
fully gone into. I give you here an extract, however 
which refers more or less to it. I quite agree with 
the opinions here expressed.:— 
‘* ‘Four feet is, I think, the best distance between 
the line.* 
** ‘lt gives space fenough for air to cultivate, and 
* | think 43 feet on flat land.—K. M. 
. 
