120 



TEA. 



5 feet apart. But here they must be weeded all the time, and, as an 

 acre of ground would have to be gone over for some 1742 plants, 

 much extra labour will be entailed by this method of planting the 

 seed where it is to remain. Better to treat it as cabbage, nurse in 

 beds, and afterward plant out. It may be useful to suggest here that 

 it would be well for the nurserymen to turn their attention to the 

 raising of tea plants for sale in the localities where they are 

 known to thrive. 



The only attention a bed of young tea plants requires is the 

 routine work of weeding, occasional watering in dry weather, and 

 possibly light shading with branches of trees in leaf, cut into 

 lengths of about a foot, and stuck among the plants until they 

 become established. If the pricking or transplanting out is done in 

 cloudy, showery weather, this labour may be saved. The propagation 

 of tea by cuttings is a tedious and often very unsatisfactory process. 

 The writer has put down many hundreds of thousands of cuttings 

 with the view of perpetuating superior varieties. The returns of 

 rooted plants varied with the season from 10 to 75 per cent. This 

 method of propagation is expensive, tiresome, and unsatisfactory. A 

 much better plan will be to secui'e a good pure lot of plants, and keep 

 them separate as much as jDOSsible. I would suggest the propriety of 

 the Department of Agriculture, and others who have the distribution 

 of plants in their hands, sending one " strain " of plants alone to given 

 localities as much as possible : the Assam kinds to hot and moist 

 localities, and the Chinese type to di'ier and more elevated situations. 

 The system of selection which has been practised with such success 

 in the case of corn, tomatoes, and other plants, should be carefully 

 attended to in the propagation of tea. 



The Freparation of the Soil for tea should be precisely the same as 

 the preparation for any other farm crop. Secure the best possible 

 tilth, manure well, preferably with vegetable manure. A crop of any 

 cheap seeded legume ploughed in would be excellent ; but any available 

 manure in which straw is incorporated would answer. Plough deep and 

 well ; even subsoil, where the experiment is intended to be thorough, 

 and the land will bear it. Harrow and cross harrow. Mark out the 

 land 5 feet by 5 in straight lines, as for corn, and it is ready to 

 receive the tea plants, which plant at the intersections of the scoring. 

 Or, if it be determined to grow the tea with some other crop — for 

 instance, onions, turnips, tomatoes, melons, cucumbers, pea-nuts, low- 

 growing pease, celery, or almost any crop which will not shade the 

 plants— then the latter may be planted either as subdividing hedges 

 at any distance apart to suit the taste, or they may be planted within 

 the fences. This plan is very extensively practiced by the Chinese, 

 and is a great economy of labour, since then the tea needs scarcely 

 any special cultivation other than that given to well-kept hedges 

 generally. The plants may be almost any distance apart in the rows, 

 between 1 foot and 4 feet. The hedges may be clipped, but a flat top 

 is the most productive form as regards yield of leaf. I am supposing 

 that from one hundred to five hundred or more plants are to be planted 

 for family use. When fully started the plantation of tea merely re- 



