The weekly Union times. [volume] (Union C.H., South Carolina) 1871-1894, 1878-01-18
THE TEA PLANT,

THE TEA PLANT. /,
The United States Commissioner of Acs
riculture, General LIE Due, is alive to the
fact that farmers are not careful, thought.
lul and methodical enough, and RELY too
much upon habits and manners that
rhavc come down perhaps from long line
OF ancestors. lie knows they'too frequent
ly fail to calculate the cost Of growing a
crop, and perhaps never know till the end
OF the year whether crop has or has not
any net money in it. lie is therefore par
ticularly anxious to test variety Of vegc-
tables and plants in different atitudcs, and
learn whether or not they would not be
more profitable as crops than those now cul-
Introduce the tea plant into South ssSf NJ! H.
and thinks that if our people rtireally as
poor as they say they are, the tea plant
might supplant many of the roses and ever
greens seen in the front of most of our
dwellings; for while these latter simply
please the eye or refresh the olfactorics,
the former, if cultivated properly, would be
made to help the pocket.
No one receives material payment for cul-
tivating flowers, and it is quite an expense
and labor; and hence all over South Caro-
lima those grand and beautiful old flower
gardens, which were so handsome in ante
deUum times, are now frequently given up
to weeds and briars.
1t would not be so with the tea plant for
after a year or two, it would become a
source of profit, and this profit would in
crease annually.
At present the United States are import
If,r r Ii
worth of Chinese teas, and they are ALL
more or less, so medicated that, tits said,
the original grower could scarcely recog-
nizc the beverage if he were to quaff it in
America If South Carolina were half as
devoted to tea culture as she is to the cul-
ture and improvement of cotton, there
could be millions of dollars worth of tea
grown and sold in this State annually; and
that, too, by the intelligent, Industrious,
lovely South Carolina women. Only think
what we arc losing by our ignorance.
General LIE DUG has received valuable
information upon this subject from Mr..
James Edward Calhoun, of Abbcville coun-
ty, S. c., who for years has grown the tea
plant, and drunk it pure and unadultcrated
MIR. Calhoun writes him the fruit Of the
tea plant is capsule, the hull of which
This is another valuable discovery and
should make us more anxious all over the
South to introduce the culture of the tea
plant.
About two thousand plants have this fall
been sent into South Carolina by the Com
missioner, and it is about all he had. He
is preparing to have million plants ready
by next fall, and if the parties to whom he
has sent these plants in South Carolina will
aid him in his efforts, and report, as prom
ised, their success with the plants given
them, he anticipates that in few years he
will be able to have the tea prepared for
market, with much profit, in several por-
tions of the State, His idea is to induce
tho cultivation OF the plant at many points
and when the area becomes large enough,
then to establish in some central point, per-
haps Columbia, the manufacture of the ner-
chantable article. ~
We sincerely hope the parties to whom
these plants have been sent will bestow
more than ordinary care upon them, and at
the proper time report their success to the
department.
General Lc Due is also very anxious to
subject the sweet potato (yam) to chemical
analysis, with view to test whether or not
it would be Il profitable business to engage
in the manufacture Of sugar from the yam
Millions of dollars worth of sugar arc made
annually by the French and by the Cana
dams on this side of the Atlantic, from the
beet, and if the palate is qualified to judge
it can bear testimony to the superior sweet
ness of the yam over the beet. We have
written to friend to send few yams to
the department, and we will watch with
much interest the result of this analysis,
and repor it,
and every lump "a hs.% so% o% a%e~ the parent
more than it S. n, rc;apSce the necessi-
ty and advisability Of just such experiments
as arc proposed to be made at the depart
ment. The object is to learn if VIC cannot
manufacture sugar to export, and prevent
the necessity Of any importation. Let us
hold up the Commissioner hand in his cf-
forts.
NEURALGIA AND RHEUMATISM A
very simple relief for neuralgia is to boil Il
| small handful of lobplin in half n mint nj