1870.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
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Under Broadway. 
You of course all know that Broadway is the principal 
street of New York, and some of you have heard of num¬ 
ber 245 Broadway. I said, last month, something of the 
sights to he seen on the street. Indeed, I think that a 
walk up or down Breadway, on a pleasant day, is more 
interesting than any show I ever saw. It now appears 
that, to see all the sights of Broadway one must go down 
underground. In a very quiet way, there has been a com¬ 
pany of men at work making a large tunnel or bore di¬ 
rectly under the street. It went by the office of the Agri¬ 
culturist, before our friends there, who think they are 
pretty wide-awake, knew anything about it. Well, I 
don't wonder, as all the work was done 25 feet under the 
surface, and the earth loosened in digging was all taken 
out at the basement of a large marble building, in so 
quiet a manner that only those in the secret knew any¬ 
thing about it. There the men are at work like moles or 
gophers, slowly digging a hole 8 feet in diameter. You 
will wonder what they are doing it for. They are making 
a big blew gun! I suppose that every boy has blown 
peas through a tube. This underground channel, which 
by the way, is all walled with brick or iron, is the tube, 
and an immense fan driven by a steam engine does the 
blowing_ “ The peas!" _Oh, they are cars that are 
blown from one end to the other. The affair is called the 
Pneumatic Transit. Pneumatic is pronounced new- 
malic. , and is from a Greek word meaning air. The com¬ 
pany proposes to send parcels, and people, too, I believe, 
from one point to another, more rapidly than can now be 
done. A similar thing is successfully at work in London. 
It is, in fact, a sort of sailing by land with the breeze 
quite under control. Will Warrex. 
Bees are such remarkable insects that their habits 
have interested the intelligent and scientific, and it is 
not strange that they should have given rise to supersti¬ 
tions in the minds of ignorant people. Quite a volume 
might be filled with the curious legends in various 
countries about bees. In some parts of England, bees 
must always be sold; if given away, neither the giver 
nor the receiver will have luck. Elsewhere it is be¬ 
lieved that bees celebrate Christmas Eve by making 
agreeable music at twelve o’clock at night. If a man 
and wife quarrel, it is said that bees will leave. In some 
European countries it is thought necessary to tell the 
bees if a death occurs in the house ; elsewhere the hives 
are hung with crape when there is a death, and with red 
if there is a marriage. It is believed that if these things 
and many others are not observed, the bees will desert 
their hives. Common schools and general intelligence 
do away with all such notions as these. 
W2aati wiH IFitfSitai lobe a 3T:n-iEi«“r? 
A boy 15 years old, who is at school, asks us what 
books we would recommend him to read, to fit him to be 
a farmer. If our young friend is at a common school we 
advise him to give his attention in the first place to thor¬ 
oughly mastering all the studies that are taught there. Do 
not, in a haste to build your house, forget, to lay a good 
foundation. The great trouble with many men of excel¬ 
lent talents is, that they had not the opportunities for a 
good elementary education—the foundation—or if they 
had them, they neglected them for something more at¬ 
tractive. Do not let the desire to be a good farmer, or 
any thing else, turn your attention from the common 
school studies. No accomplishments, or picked up hits 
of science can answer in their place. These being at¬ 
tended to, then we would advise such reading as will 
teach the laws that govern the common operations of the 
farm. One of the best books for an intelligent boy is 
Thomas’ Farm Implements, which is full of interest, if 
he would know the why and wherefore of things. The 
first principles of Mechanics, or Natural Philosophy, 
as it is often called, are given, and their application to 
various kinds of farm work shown. We hope that there 
are many boys who propose to be farmers and we advise 
them, and indeed other boys, and the girls too, to learn 
the laws of motion and gravitation, the properties of air, 
water, and steam, etc., as they will not only be of great 
use to them in all mechanical operations, but make them 
more intelligent men and women. 
“ Professor,” said a student in pursuit of knowledge 
concerning the habits of animals, “ why does a cat, while 
eating, turn her head first one way and then the other ?” 
“ For the reason,” replied the Professor, “that she can¬ 
not turn it both ways at once.” 
Do you know any word that contains all the vowels ? 
Unquestionably. 
A young man of limited intelligence, who was recover¬ 
ing from a long fit of sickness, being told by his physi¬ 
cian that he “might now venture on a little animal 
food,” exclaimed: “ No, you don’t, doctor; I’ve suffer¬ 
ed enough on your gruel and slops, and you don’t get me 
to touch any of your hay and oats.” 
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No. 375. A Word Puzzle. —This is said to be an epitaph 
found in an old English church-yard. It is easy enough 
when you get fairly started. 
No. 376. Arithmetical Puzzle.'- Suppose the 9 digits 
(figures 1 to 9), were placed in the form of a square, in 
what order must they stand so that any three figures 
in a direct line when added together will make just 15 ? 
No. 377. Illustrated Pebus. —The rebus makers should be 
if they follow all the maxims they illustrate. Here are nior 
No. 378. Arithmetical Problem. —S. Baird sends us this 
and No. 376, taken from an arithmetic printed early in 
the present century. A man driving his geese to market 
was met by another who said, “ Good morrow, with your 
hundred geese.” He replied, “ I have not a hundred, 
but if I had half as many more as I now have, and two 
geese and a half, I should have a hundred.”—now many 
had he ? 
No. 365. Arithmetical Problem. —A farmer with $100 
wants to buy 100 head of stock, i3 offered cattle at $10, 
hogs at $3, and sheep at 50 cents. How many will he get 
of each? 
How tine Cluijiese Cultivate and 
Msslie Tea. 
BT “CARLETON.” 
I dare say that two-thirds of the many hundreds of 
thousands of persons who read the Agriculturist drink tea 
at least once a day. They know that it comes from China 
and Japan, and I donbt not that all will be interested in 
hearing a short story about the cultivation of the plant, 
and the preparation of the tea leaves, for that which we 
call tea is the leaf of an evergreen shrub. We can make 
tea from any plant. In my boyhood I had to drink cat¬ 
nip and thoroughwort tea when I was sick, and it was so 
bitter that I had to hold my nose and swallow with all 
my might; but the teas of China are of another sort. 
One kind is from the plant called Thea bohea. and another, 
from the The.a viridis. There are many varieties. Some 
thrive best on gravelly soils—while others need a light, 
loamy soil. Those planted on the hills and among the 
rocks are generally more mildly flavored than those 
grown in the meadows. 
Think of yourselves as being in China among the tea 
gardens. Yon see the full grown shrubs are about seven 
feet high. If you would know the exact shape of the 
leaves, examine the grounds in the tea-pot, some evening 
after supper, and you will find that they are oblong. A 
full-grown leaf is an inch and a half or two inches in 
length, but most of the leaves are picked before they are 
fully matured. 
The southern slopes of the hills in the interior of China 
are covered with tea gardens. You see Chinese meu and 
women wearing blue cotton frocks, and queer bamboo 
hats, taking young plants from a nursery bed where they 
have been started, just as we start young apple trees, and 
transplanting them in rows. They have hoed the ground 
well over with great clumsy hoes. They thrust a long- 
bladed knife into the ground with one hand, and thrust 
the plant into the hole and press the earth around 
it. They will set out many thousand plants in a day. 
They give them close attention, watering them and 
Keeping down all the weeds. You never see tea gardens 
overrun with pig-weeds, or with witch grass, and chick- 
weed. They are too good farmers for that. They say 
that the plant wants all the nourishment it can get 
from the soil to make it vigorous and the leaves tender, 
for the tender leaves have a mild flavor; and those 
which are of mild flavor command the highest price. 
We Americans, may take lessons of the Chinese in 
garden culture and agriculture. They beat us all out in 
raising vegetables. Everything that can increase the 
fertility of the soil is preserved, and so their tea gardens 
and orchards are always in superb condition. 
You notice that the plant may be propagated either by 
sowing the seed or by cuttings or slips. Some of the tea 
growers sow seeds in a mellow garden bed and when the 
shrubs are about six inches high, transplant them, cut¬ 
ting off some of the sprouts and using them as slips. 
It is a hardy plant and is grown with great ease. In 
the climate of Central China, which is about like that 
of Alabama and Mississippi, the blossoms appear 
in winter, and the flower is very 
much like that of a wild rose. A tea 
garden in bloom is a beautiful sight. 
If you were to sail up the Yangtse 
river iu February or March, to the great 
Poyang Lake, and then glide along 
its verdant shores, you would behold 
a charming scene—sunny hill-sides 
covered with blooming tea gardens,— 
towns and villages nestled in the 
corners—white pagodas crowning the 
hills, hundreds of junks afloat npon the 
calm waters, and thousands of men, 
women, and children, at work in the 
gardens, hoeing the ground, setting out 
young plants, or picking the leaves. 
The first crop is the best.. It 
is gathered with great care — each 
j!F leaf being carefully picked between the 
thumb and finger. Only the tender- 
est leaves growing on the youngest 
twigs are gathered at the first picking. 
A week or two later the next crop is 
gathered, then the third, and sometimes 
the fourth. The last pickings make 
up the poor qualities of tea. A pound of the first pick¬ 
ing is worth fifteen or twenty of the last. We never see 
any of the first quality in our grocery stores. It is nearly 
all consumed in China by the wealthy classes—the man¬ 
darins and rich merchants. A mandarin invited me to 
dine with him one day, and I drank such tea as I never 
expect to taste again, unless I visit China once more. 
It was so mild, pleasant, and delicious, and had such 
a charming flavor that I did not much wonder that a 
mandarin could drink sixty cups of it during the day. 
Common tea was not much better than catnip, after 
that dinner in the palace of the Governor. 
To see the preparation of the tea for market we must 
step into the building where the leaves are dried. The 
engraving on the next page shows one of them. You 
notice a large number of sheet-iron or copper pans, with 
charcoal fires beneath them. Coolies come trooping in 
from the gardens with a bamboo pole over their shoulders 
from which hang baskets filled with tea leaves. 
They pour these into the pans; other coolies are stir¬ 
ring the leaves and rolling them in their hands. The 
fire in the first set of pans is not very hot. They want 
to get all the moisture out of the leaf, and if they were to 
dry it too rapidly, it would become brittle. After drying 
awhile in the first set, they are put into another set, and 
then into a third, and dried until every particle of mois¬ 
ture is evaporated. If this were not done, the leaves 
wonld soon mould in the tea chest. When the drying is 
completed, the tea is taken out into a basket, poured into 
the chest and pressed in by a cooly who tramples it be¬ 
neath his bare feet!_“ Ugh.' the nasty beast!".... 
very excellent men, 
c words of wisdom. 
