. We asked why it was
that some districts in China produced only green teas, while others were
reputed to make none but black; and he told us it was because the
workmen in those districts had been accustomed to follow only one form
of manipulation.

"It takes three years to get a plantation in condition to produce tea.
The seeds are sown in a nursery bed, and the young plants are not ready
to be set out till they are a year old. They are then about nine inches
high, and covered with leaves, and the first crop is taken when they
have been growing two years in the field. The leaves are the lungs of
the plant, and it would die if all of them were stripped off.
Consequently only a part of them are removed at a picking; and if a
plant is sickly, it is not disturbed at all. The plants will last from
ten to twelve years, and are then renewed; and on all the large
plantations it is the custom to make nursery beds every year, so that
there will be a constant succession of new plants for setting out in
place of the old ones.

"At the first gathering the half-opened buds are taken, and from them
the finest teas are made. Then they have another gathering when the
leaves are fully opened, and then another and another, till they have
five or six gatherings in the course of the year. Each time the leaves
are coarser than those of the previous gathering, and consequently the
tea is not of so fine a quality. A well-managed plantation produces all
kinds of tea; and it was a wise requirement of the Dutch government,
when they started the tea-culture in Java, that the planters should
produce proportionate quantities of both black and green, and not less
than four qualities of each."

[Illustration: GATHERING TEA-LEAVES.]

"The gathering takes place only in clear weather; and for the best teas
the picking is confined to the afternoon, when the leaves are thoroughly
dry, and have been warmed by the sun. Only the thumb and forefinger are
used in plucking the leaves from the bush; the pickers are generally
women and children, who can gather on the average about forty pounds of
leaves in a day. It takes nearly four pounds of leaves to make one pound
of dry tea; and the usual estimate is that a plantation of one hundred
thousand plants can send ten thousand pounds of tea to market in the
course of a year."

[Illustration: DRYING TEA IN THE SUN.]

"Different kinds of tea require different treatment, as we have already
seen. For green tea