Pomona College Journal of Economic Botany 445 



building we found tea-leaves in every stage from those in the wilting piles to 

 the assorted kinds of tea ready for the market. 



We were interested in the heavy machines for rolling the leaves into the 

 characteristic form with which we are so familiar. Each rolling machine 

 consists of a large heavy flat plate about four feet in diameter, on which 

 swings with a rotary motion another heavy, flat plate perforated in its center, 

 somewhat like an old fashioned mill-stone. Above the central hole is a hopper 

 through which are fed the wilted leaves, which later drop from the machine 

 neatly rolled into the desired shape. These rolled leaves are then placed 

 loosely upon flat trays and subjected to the gentle heat of the drying oven. 



When dry enough the leaves are dropped upon tables where skilful pickers 

 run over them rapidly and pick out the little sticks and twigs, with other 

 foreign matter that may have become mixed with the tea. It is then passed 

 through cylindrical screens of different fineness of mesh, the different grades 

 of tea depending upon the mesh of these screens. In a row of compartments 

 under these long cylinders one can find every grade of tea down to the coarse 

 "screenings" consisting of little more than twigs and other foreign matter 

 that the pickers failed to remove. 



Last comes the packing into cans or paper packages, and the pasting of 

 the appropriate labels. This is done quite as for any other similar commodity. 

 In this particular case, the labels were, of course, in the Russian language, and 

 since the tea was grown and manufactured upon the Emperor's estate this 

 fact was duly set forth, in Russian, also. That this tea is of fine quality 

 we can fully vouch, after testing it many times, and that it is of sufficient 

 importance to find a place in the markets of southern Russia is shown by the 

 fact that we found it in the tea-stores of Jalta, five hundred miles to the 

 westward. 



While visiting this tea plantation, and afterward, the question has been, 

 whether there are not places in California where tea might be grown. I have 

 not taken up the questions as to the particular soil and climate necessary for 

 tea growing, preferring to leave that to others, but I venture the suggestion 

 that in the southern half of California there will be found many places 

 between the western sea and the eastern mountain chain where tea can be 

 well grown, and I am sanguine that when once the successful growing of the 

 plants is assured, our ingenious American workmen will be able to surmount 

 the mechanical difficulties connected with the manufacture of California grown 

 tea. 



