POMONA COLLEGE JOURNAL 



of ECONOMIC BOTANY 



Volume III MAY 1913 Number 2 



Tea Growing in Transcaucasia 



CHARLES E. BESSEY 

 THE UNIVERSITY OP NEBRASKA 



It is not generally known tliat tea is successfully grown in the country 

 lying at the east end of the Black Sea, and south of the Caucasus Mountains. 

 Such, however, is the case, and it was once my good fortune to inspect the 

 plantation under most favorable auspices, and it has occurred to me that it 

 might be of interest to readers of the Pomona College Journal of Economic 

 Botany, if I should write an account of what I observed. 



Figure 187. Sketch map of a part of Transcaucasia, showing the location' of Chakva and 

 the Emperor's tea plantation. 



Just ten years ago (in 1903) I travelled through Russia from Moscow 

 southward across the steppes, to, and finally across the great mountain chain 

 — the Caucasus — which stretches like a wall from the north shore of the Black 

 Sea eastward to the Caspian. North of this barrier is a dry open country 

 where the rich soil when irrigated by the waters of the mountain rivers yields 

 immense crops of wheat and maize, and still further north are the grass 

 covered steppes, w-holly treeless except along the meandering streams, quite 

 as on our own Great Plains from Texas to Saskatchewan. South of the 



