May 1908.] 



445 



Edible Products, 



ported, and in an article in the American 

 Agriculturist for 1851 Dr. Smith stated 

 that his plants were doing finely, aud 

 had withstood a snow 8 to 9 inches deep 

 on 3rd January of that year, aud he 

 added :— " I cannot help thinking that 

 we have now demonstrated the adapta- 

 tion of the tea plant to the soil aud clim- 

 ate of this country, and succeeded in 

 the permanent establishment within our 

 own borders." Dr. Smith died soon 

 afterwards, in 1852, and his plants, with- 

 out protection, soon disappeared. 



As early as 1858, the United States 

 Government, through the Commissioner 

 of Patents, sent Mr. Robert Fortune to 

 China to obtain seeds to be planted in 

 this country. In less than one year's 

 time tea plants were distributed among 

 private persons in the Southern and 

 Gulf States, who later reported that the 

 plants had been successfully cultivated 

 by them, and in a great many cases that 

 tea had been made at their homes. 



During the year 1880, Hon. William 

 G. Le Due, then Commissioner of Agri- 

 culture, employed Mr. John Jackson, 

 who had been a tea planter for fourteen 

 years in India, to cany on experiments 

 to test the feasibility of growing aud 

 manufacturing tea in this country. The 

 experiments were 'at first conducted in 

 Liberty County, Ga., on a place bought 

 by the Government from Dr. Jones, who 

 planted tea there in 1850. 



Later, 200 additional acres of land near 

 Summerville, S.C. were leased for twenty 

 years from Mr. Henry A. Middleton to 

 carry on experiments there. Seed was 

 imported from Japan, India, and China, 

 and was also collected from the few 

 plants then surviving in the United 

 States that had been previously sent out 

 by the Patent Office. Prom these seeds 

 a small area was plauted in tea, but 

 before the plants had a chance to make 

 very much growth Commissioner Le Due 

 was succeeded by Commissioner George 

 B. Loring, who thought it best, because of 

 the illness of Mr. Jackson and for other 

 reasons, to abandon these experiments. 



Since then the cultivation and manu- 

 facture of tea on a commercial scale lias 

 been practically demonstrated, in co- 

 operation with the bureau of Plant 

 Industry, by Dr. Charles U. Shepard, at 

 his "Pinehurst" tea gardens, near 

 Summerville, S.C, where about 100 acres 

 are planted in tea, of which the area in 

 bearing yields about 12,000 lb. of dry tea 

 each year. One of the gardens has 

 yielded as much as 535 lb. of dried tea to 

 the acre during a single season. 



Although the distribution of the many 

 plants and the establishment of the 

 many home tea gardens in the South 



were steps towards encouraging the 

 people to manufacture their own tea, 

 these gardens soon died through lack of 

 interest, because the importaut point of 

 teaching the growers how to pluck and 

 make the leaves into tea had been 

 neglected. 



Experiments were conducted during 

 the summer of 1905, with a view to develop- 

 ing a simple process by which both the 

 green and the black teas can be made 

 successfully by any intelligent person 

 with only such utensils as are found in 

 every kitchen. These experiments indi- 

 cate very strongly that the result sought 

 can be accomplished, and that farmers 

 and others who have enough garden 

 space to grow the plants for use or for 

 ornamental purposes can with very 

 slight expense and trouble make enough 

 tea for their home consumption. It is 

 significant that much of the tea grown 

 in China is planted in the corners and 

 waste places of farms. 



Climate required by the Tea Plant. 



The climate of the southern and Gulf 

 States is in general admirably adapted 

 to the cultivation of the tea plant. Al- 

 though the rainfall is much less than in 

 a great many tea-producing countries, 

 the average annual temperature is 

 lower, causing less evaporation and 

 consequently requiring less rainfall. 

 The cultivation of the tea plant can 

 safely be risked where the temperature 

 seldom falls below 24 degs. Fahr. and 

 never goes below zero, and where the 

 annual rainfall exceeds 50 inches, 30 

 inches or more of this precipitation 

 occuring during the cropping season. 



Selection of Soil. 

 A well-drained, friable, and easily 

 penetrable clay loam or sandy loam 

 containing a large amouut of organic 

 matter is best adapted to the cultivation 

 of the tea plant. Very tenacious uu- 

 drained soils or very sandy soils that 

 lack water-retaining properties are nob 

 adapted to the growth of tea ; neither 

 will the plants tolerate stagnant water 

 in the subsoil. The plants being of sub- 

 tropical origin need as much protection 

 from the cold as possible ; therefore, 

 much better results can be obtained 

 where a southern exposure with an 

 abundance of sunshine is selected. 



Planting.* 

 The seed should be planted in the 

 autumn or winter, just before a rain. 



• For _ information concerning the vegetative 

 propagation, veener grafting, and herbaceous 

 grafting of tea, see Bulletin No. 4G of the Bureau 

 of Plant Industry, entitled "The Propagation of 

 Tropical Fruit Trees and other Plants," 1903, pp, 

 19-23, and Pis. VI aodVU. 



