ing district
of the United States, as well as in any part of China.

The slowness of its growth requires patience. But when once
established, the tea-nuts will supply the means of extending
cultivation, and the duration of the plant for twenty years
diminishes the expense of labor. To illustrate the hardihood of the
plant, I may observe, that notwithstanding the zero severity of
February frost destroyed the leaves and branches of most of the
plants, and those now blooming in great beauty and strength are from
roots the growth of this summer, I have one green tea-plant the stem
and branches of which withstood the frost of February without the
slightest protection, and is now a splendid plant, covered with
branches and evergreen leaves, affording undeniable evidence not
only of its capability of resisting frost, but of its adaptation to
just such a degree of temperature.

I have often remarked that the tea-plant requires for its perfection
the influence of two separate and distinct climates, the heat of
summer and the cold of winter. The thermometer in this vicinity
during the heat of summer generally ranges from 74 at 6 o'clock a.m.
to 82 at 3 o'clock p.m., only one day during the summer so high as
86.

This is a most agreeable temperature, nights always cool, which the
tea-plant enjoys, and the days hot and fanned with the mountain
breeze.

The drought I found the most difficult point to contend with, owing
to the want of adequate means for irrigation. I lost 20 or 30 plants
through this, and learned that no tea plantation should he
established without irrigation. After two or three years there will
be little necessity for it, because the depth of the roots will
generally then protect the plant.

My plantation at Golden Grove is well supplied with water, or I
should not have purchased it at any price.

It is the first and most important point to secure a southern or
western aspect, a gentle declivity the second, salubrious air and
suitable soil the third.

Our country is filled with natural tea plantations, which are only
waiting the hand of the husbandman to be covered with this luxuriant
and productive plant.

I know the public is naturally impatient of delay. Like corn, it is
expected that the tea-nuts will be planted in the spring, and the
crop gat