Chap. XV. 
TEA-CULTIVATION. 
245 
countries of Fokien and Hwuy-chow, where the finest 
teas are produced ; for, while the tea-shrub may have 
improved in the course of reproduction in these districts, 
it may have become deteriorated in others. For this 
reason seeds and plants ought always to be procured 
from these districts for transmission to other parts of the 
world where it is desirable to grow tea. 
Of late years some attempts have been made to culti- 
vate the tea-shrub in the United States of America, and 
also in our own Australian colonies.* I believe all such 
attempts will end in failure and disappointment. The 
tea-plant will grow wherever the climate and soil are 
suitable, and, were it merely intended as an ornamental 
shrub, there could be no objections to its introduction 
into those countries. But if it is introduced to be culti- 
vated as an object of commercial speculation, we must 
not only inquire into the suitableness of climate and soil, 
but also into the price of labour. Labour is cheap in 
China. The labourers in the tea-countries do not receive 
more than twopence or threepence a day. Can workmen 
be procured for this small sum either in the United 
States or in Australia ? And if they cannot be hired for 
this sum, nor for anything near it, how will the manu- 
facturers in such places be able to compete with the 
Chinese in the market ? 
The tea-plants of China are common enough in this 
country. In the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew they 
have been growing in the open air for some years. They 
* I shall have to speak of tea-cultivatiou in India in a future 
chapter. 
