150 
TEA TREE. 
Cultivation of Tea. 
With respect to the cultivation of tea in Japan, 
we learn, from K,aempfer, that no particular gardens 
or fields are allotted fop this plant, but that it is 
raised about the hedges and borders of their fields, 
without any regard to the quality of the soil. The 
seeds are sown, together with their capsules, in holes 
dug at equal distances from each other, and about 
four or five inches deep; into each of these they put 
a number of seeds, usually not less than six or more 
than twelve. It is necessary to put several into the 
earth at a time, because they are apt to turn rancid, 
and perhaps not more than one in five of them wijl 
succeed. 
As soon as the young shoots appear above the sur- 
face of the earth, it is common with some to mix 
manure with the mould, and carefully weed the 
plants, while others suffer them to grow up without 
paying any particular attention to them. In about 
seven years after the seed has been sown, the plants 
will have arrived at the height of a man : but as at 
that time they grow slowly, and produce but few 
leaves, it is customary to cut them down ; which oc- 
casions such an exuberance of fresh shoots and leaves 
the succeeding summer, as abundantly repays the 
owners for their former loss and trouble. Some cul- 
tivators delay this cutting till the tenth year. 
The cultivation of this shrub in China is similar 
to that in Japan, except that, instead of suffering 
it to grow promiscuously, they plant whole fields 
