nally abandoned
them. The culture was again tried in 1817. The plantations lie between
the equator and 10 deg. south latitude, nearly parallel with Java, and
of course are exposed to the same intemperate climate, and suffer in a
similar manner. In addition to these physical disabilities, the
enterprise has had to contend with the natural indolence of the
natives, the universal repugnance to labor, the crushing effect of
committing so important a work to the superintendence of slaves and
overseers, the amazing fertility of the soil, the extent of
unappropriated land, the ease with which subsistence can be obtained
and the low degree of personal enterprise. These are frowning
features, and would rather seem to indicate a failure, before the
attempt at cultivation was made. But, nevertheless, the plant does
nourish to some extent, even in Brazil, under all the disparaging
circumstances which surround it. From the Brazilian Consul General, I
learn that although the plant for some years after its introduction
received but little attention and was almost abandoned, yet within the
last few years the cultivation has revived and is now prosecuted with
energy and with a corresponding success. Some of the large and wealthy
land proprietors of Brazil have directed their attention to tea
culture, and one gentleman has given up his coffee plantation and
directed his attention exclusively to the cultivation of the tea
plant. The market of Rio Janeiro is said to be largely and almost
entirely supplied with tea of domestic growth, and the public mind is
awakened to the prominent fact, that no plant cultivated in Brazil is
more profitable and none is deserving more decided attention.

_Experimental cultivation of the tea plant in Brazil_.--I now proceed
to notice the report of M. Guillemin, presented in 1839 to the French
Minister of agriculture and commerce, on the culture and preparation
of the tea plant in Brazil--in a climate of the southern hemisphere
just equivalent to that of Cuba in the northern. The report enters
very minutely into the incidents of temperature and cultivation, and
cannot fail to strike the attention when disclosing the important
fact, that the tea plant grows luxuriantly with the coffee and other
valuable plants of the equatorial regions, and even on low-lying
lands, on a level with the sea, and exposed to the full rays of a
burning sun.

"As the tea shrub," says M. Guillemin, "is grown in several
pla