82 



TEA- CULTURE IN THE CAROLINAS. 



growths, and the whole thing is now a dense thicket 

 where no one would suspect a tea-plant to be growing. 

 But pushing our way through the brambles, we found 

 the tea-plants, or rather trees, holding their own bravely 

 with the rest of the bushes, and demonstrating their 

 right and ability to live. 



The widow of the man who planted them still lives 

 on the place, and still makes tea from the plants, and 

 tea, too, of a quality and flavor seldom found in the tea 

 from the stores. She kindly gave me a large package 

 for trial. On reaching Greensboro' I had some of this 

 tea drawn and tested by a New York dealer who 

 happened to be at the hotel. His unhesitating decision 

 was, " That tea is worth $i per pound by the cargo." 



Root of Dioscorea Japonica — Yama-no-imo. (Yam.) 

 Section at left is natural size. (See page 80.) 



A few days after this engagements brought me to the 

 neighborhood of Charleston, and hearing that efforts 

 were being made to rehabilitate the old government tea 

 garden at Summerville, by Dr. Charles U. Shepard, I 

 determined to look further into the matter, with a view 

 to inauguratingsome work in this line at our own station 

 in Raleigh. On driving out to Dr. Shepard's pretty 

 country-seat, "Pinehurst, " to my surprise I found six 

 tea gardens of recent planting, averagmg an acre in each. 

 All were in admirable order, clean and well cultivated, 

 and the rich green foliage testified to the health of the 

 plants. They have been raised from seed from various 



quarters, but most of them are the Assam hybrid, a 

 variety raised in India by crossing the native tea upon 

 the Chinese. Dr. Shepard told me that having bought 

 a part of the great Nuvington plantation on which the 

 tea experiment first started, he thus became interested 

 in the matter. The part he bought did not include the tea- 

 plantation itself, but he has since leased it with the right 

 to remove the trees if he chooses. Many young plants 

 have sprung up from seed at the old place, and many 

 more were in a nursery there. These he transplanted 

 near to his house, and afterwards procured seed from 

 the Gulf states and from China and Japan, and increased 

 his plantations on various soils and exposures. He is 

 still raising young plants, and has quite a nursery under 

 latticed screens made of laths. He also has 

 orders abroad for seed from the Himalayas, 

 China, Ceylon and Japan, and proposes to in- 

 crease to fully ten acres. He has as yet made 

 no tea from his young plants, but has made 

 some from the old government plants. This tea 

 was of such a high quality that a large tea-dealer 

 in Washington, whose trade demands tea of extra 

 quality, offers to take all he can make, literally 

 at his own price. 



Dr. Shepard's opinion, based on his experience, 

 is, that the leaf grown here is better for black 

 than for green tea. He says that the cost of pick- 

 ing is about 25 cents per pound of cured tea. 

 Just what the cost of curing will be when done on 

 a large scale, with the best apparatus, he is as yet 

 unable to say, but feels well assured that the 

 business may be made profitable by making only 

 high-grade teas and not attempting to compete 

 with the mass of trash now imported. So soon as 

 his plants are of the proper age, he proposes to 

 put in the best apparatus and enter into the 

 manufacture as a commercial venture. 



Once under way, there is no doubt that Amer- 

 ican ingenuity will be able to simplify and im- 

 prove the manufacture, and a new and important 

 money-crop be introduced in the South. Mr. 

 Jackson, an expert tea-grower from Assam, who 

 had charge of the Summerville plantation under 

 General LeDuc, stated that with the negro labor 

 of the South he could make tea more cheaply than with 

 coolie labor in India, because of its greater reliability. 

 In regard to the hardiness of the tea-plant, I think 

 there is little prospect of its successful culture much 

 north of 35° in this country. At Old Point Comfort, 

 Virginia, hard winters cut the plants badly, and on the 

 upper part of the Delaware and Maryland peninsula, 

 mine were killed. But in all the piny woods country, 

 from Raleigh to the Gulf, they will thrive. 



W. F. Massey. 

 N. C. Agricitlttiral Experiment Station. 

 [We take special pleasure in corroborating Professor Massey's 

 observations, having spent a considerable time in investigating the 

 question of American tea-growing and of the labors devoted to the 

 attempted industry during Commissioner Le Due's administration. 

 It deserves attention. — Eds.] 



