TEA AND THE TEA PLANT. 



87 



mechanical difficulties in collecting and mamifacturing leaf of mixed size, age, 

 and thickness. Moreover differences of jat involve a further difficulty in the 

 season of 'flushing' and the time necessary to mature each successive 'flush.' 

 If a plot of land be, therefore, plucked when the one jat is ready, the others 

 may be too old or too young, and a loss that may be appalling may thereby be 

 sustained." Blending cannot be accomplished at the garden; it would 

 accordingly be infinitely preferable for each garden to grow but one plant, or if 

 early and late " flushings " be desired the necessary plants had better be grown 

 on perfectly distinct plots and worked separately. 



Another point that should be borne clearly in mind is the necessity for each 

 distinct locality producing and perfecting its own stock. In the Upper portion 

 of the Assam Valley infinitely the best plant is the " Assam indigenous." 

 Below Gauhati, on the one bank, and Bishnath, on the other, however, there 

 seems no doubt that the " Manipur plant " would prove the best stock. So 

 also in Chittagong, the "Assam indigenous" has not been a success. In 

 Darjeeling and other hilly districts the " China plant," or some of its hybrids, 

 have proved the most desirable stock. 



The subject of seed selection and development in direct adaptation to each 

 locality should therefore receive the careful consideration of all interested in 

 tea-planting. 



Cultivation. — In India the tea plant is invariably grown from seed, 

 and it is generally believed that propagation by cuttings and layerings 

 has never been a success. In fact, transplanting even is considered 

 nowadays a task that requires great care, and special appliances have been 

 invented for that purpose. Curiously enough, however, Bruce, the first 

 Indian tea planter, held quite the opposite opinion. To show how very 

 hardy the tea plants are, he mentions that many hundred seedlings, 

 plucked out by the root, had been brought from their native jungles in 

 baskets, with only a little moist earth at their roots, and carried from 

 seven to twenty days before being replanted. He also observes that he 

 had cut off branches of the tea plant and laid them horizontally in the 

 ground with an inch or two of earth over them, and they had thrown up 

 numerous shoots the whole length of the branch, while other branches 

 simply pushed into the ground had grown. In passing it may be added 

 that Bruce refers to the success that had attended his cutting the plants 

 down level to the ground and afterwards firing the plantation. 



But to revert to the system of cultivation that prevails at present. 

 In the seed plantations the plants flower in September and the seeds take 

 a year to come to maturity. The seed is therefore procurable in November 

 and is packed and despatched in dry soil. A box containing 40 lb. of 

 shelled seed will usually weigh from 120 lb. to 180 lb. The seed is sown 

 (sometimes already germinated), as soon after it is received as possible, in 

 nurseries, the seeds being placed 4 to 6 inches apart and an inch deep. 

 Forty pounds of seed may be expected to give about 10,000 plants, or 

 sufficient to plant two and a half acres of land. The seedlings, as soon as 

 they show above ground, have to be shaded. Seed sown in November to 

 December will be ready for planting out the following May to June (six- 

 month-old plants) or w^hen they are a year old the following November to 

 December. 



Planting out. — The distance apart at which the garden should be laid out 

 depends upon many considerations, such as the race of the plant used; richjiess 



