90 JOUENAL OF THE ROYAL HOETICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Yield. — The object of the tea grower is to get (as Dr. Mann very truly 

 observes) the maximum number of young shoots on the bushes in each 

 year, since it is only the two, three, or at most four youngest leaves on 

 any shoot which can be made into tea. A very small crop may be taken 

 from the plants when two years old ; in the third year about 150 lb. an 

 acre may be gathered ; by the fifth or sixth year (in the plains gardens) 

 the plants will be in full bearing, and yielding from 4001b. to 1,000 lb. per 

 acre a year. Any crop above 700 lb. to 800 lb. an acre is, however, very 

 abnormal, and is due to special conditions. The average of 500 lb. for 

 Assam gardens would be a safe estimate. 



Manufacture. — The tea leaf when plucked may be made up into various 

 classes of teas, such as (a) black tea, the bulk of the Indian manufacture ; 

 (b) green tea, made by special machinery recently invented, and by native 

 planters in Kangra; (c) Oolong tea, made in Formosa and quite recently 

 attempted in India; (d) brick tea, made by a few estates in Darjeehng and 

 Kumaon for the Tibet and Bhutan markets ; lastly (e) letpet or pickled tea, 

 produced in Burma. Of each of these classes of teas there are grades or qualities 

 that depend on the soil on which it is grown, the system pursued in manufac- 

 ture, or the care bestowed in every stage of production, far more than on the plant. 

 In fact the degree to which flavour and quality depend upon the plant has not as 

 yet been established. The value of the stock, according to our present knowledge, 

 depends more on yield, convenience of manufacture, freedom from disease, and 

 the like, than on any ascertained influence on quality. This can be most em- 

 phatically affirmed : green and black teas are not produced by different plants, 

 and the qualities of black tea are purely and simply a matter of assortment or 

 sifting. Leaf of one size and age forms one grade, leaf of another a second, and 

 so on. There are no separate plants grown for " Flowery Pekoe " more than for 

 " Souchong." While that is so, different localities and even individual gardens 

 have undoubtedh' reputations for quality that turn very largely on the plant 

 as well as the soil and methods of production and manufacture. 



Dr. Mann writes me, on the subject of manufacture, that " the methods 

 pursued have undergone a complete change in practice, if not in principle, 

 by the introduction of machinery. Previous to 1860 and almost entirely 

 previous to 1870 hand labour w^as exclusively employed to prepare the 

 leaf for market ; now the whole work is done by machinery, much of 

 which is largely automatic. The machines used for the several processes 

 in black-tea preparation have been produced by three or four inventors, 

 and the names of Kinmond, Jackson, and Davidson almost entirely cover 

 the field." 



I do not propose to discuss fully the old methods of manufacture. 

 Their chief characteristics might be said to be their clumsiness and 

 untidiness. By hand labour it is almost impossible to produce pure tea, 

 so that machinery has not only cheapened but purified our teas. Anyone 

 who has witnessed tea made by hand labour would, I venture to think, 

 resolve never to drink tea again. 



Mr. C. A, Bruce, in his " Account of the Manufacture of Black Tea in Assam " 

 in 1838, gives the appliances then in use, and since his little book is not ver^- 

 readily procurable I reproduce his illustrations (See figs. 15 and 16). Stands were 

 prepared (fig. 15, 2) upon which large flat baskets (fig. 15, 1) might expose the tea 

 to the blaze of the sun. This was called the '• drying " stage. The illustration 



