Morning journal and courier., 1880-03-05
LOCAL NEWS.
shefaeld Scientific School.

The Annual Course to NTechanics--
 Prof. s. Wells Williams, ID. D., on
 ssThe Culture and Preparation of
 Tea,,--A Forty Yoars' Residence iD the
 Celestial Empire-.Interesting Glimp-
 wes of Life on the Tea PlantatfOm--A
 Tea BalEad.-Tea and Our Irate ROs- tom FOrefRGherNs
 Rev. Dr. s. Wells Williams, professor of the Chinese language and literature at Yale, lectured in the annual course to mechanics at the Sheffield Scientific School last evening on ''The Culture and Preparation of Tea" The lecture has special interest, owing to the lec- turers scholarly reputation and his very valu- able knowledge of life, manners and customs in the celestial empire, from which he favored his audience, imparting special flavor to the subject. With the lecture is given Tea Bal lad, translated from the Chinese by the speak CT. The lecture is published entire.
 The subject of tea culture, and the prspa- ration of it's leaf, have engaged the attention of writers among the Chinese and Japanese while it's effects on the human system As a beverage have been discussed most care fully by eminent Western chemists and pa- biologists. Its virtue in restoring the ener- gies of the body, and furnishing drink of the gentlest and most salubrious nature, has been fully tested in it's native land for many centu- ries, and is rapidly becoming known the world over. My object at this time is to give the leading facts relating to the plant and the preparation and nature of the leaf, derived from personal observation in the country or from the writings of competent observers.
 In this part of the United States, tea has at tained peculiar historic position, which it will always hold in our national literature, from having been the pivot on which the de- termined resistance of the Boston patriots to the illegal and oppressive acts of the British Govt turned, and thereby showing more than words what was intended by their remonstran- ces. The history of the Boston Tea-party is familiar to all of us everything known about it is condensed in the proceedings of the Mass achusetts Historical Society at the centennial meeting held in Boston in Dec. 1873. have always had particular interest in it, as my grandfather Thomas Williams and his brother in-law Thomas Dana were participators in the destruction of the tea. Ignorance of their comrades was part of the original design, and the family legend is that few of the persons engaged in it met at his fathers house in par tial disguise where they completed their equipment as Mohawk Indians, and went from Dorchester to the rendezvous in Boston. This precaution of being disguised from each other was taken in view of future contingencies so that recognition would not involve accusa- ton and implication in any judicial proceed ings afterwards. At this date the use of tea was apparently limited to a small portion of the community, and its healthiness probably was still topic for tea-table discussion. John Hancock rejoices over it's destruction by the disguised Indians, not only as indicating their patriotism, "but that it may issue in the total disuse of tea in this country, which will con tinualIy be the saving of the lives and the es tates of thousands"
 Among all the great articles of commerce now known, tea is peculiar in it's origin, man ufacture, and history. Unlike some other vegetable products, as cotton, hemp, linen, sugar, and wine, tea needs no other manu- facture than to perfectly cure it's fresh leaves and keep them dry till used. The purer they are from all mixture with other leaves, the more refreshing is the infusion and the long CT it is used the more attached do the drink CTS become to the cup which cheers but does not inebriate. It's progress in the good opin- ion of mankind has been something like the progress of truth. Suspected at first though very palatable to those who had the courage to taste it. resisted as it incroached; abused as it's popularity seemed to spread; and es- tablishipg it's triumph at last in cheering the whole land from the palace to the cottage, only by the slow and resistless effects of time and it's own virtues. Chocolate and coffee are its chief competitors in the good opinion of man. kind, and one or other of them is now con- stunned by all Christian nations. Chemistry has shown us that one essential principle occurs in each of them and explains their acceptability and fitness for food. In each case centuries passed away before the people among whom they grew found out their virtues and made them known to others.
 Tea does not grow in the northern provinces of China and Japan; its range lies between the 23d and 35th degs. of latitude and reaching in longitude from Yedo to Assam. No accounts have come to us of the tea shrub being cultivated for it's infusion till A. D. $50. The people in different parts of China gave different names to the.successive pickings of the leaves, which have now be- come disused. Our word tea is derived from the common sound of the character for the plant at the city of Annoy where it is tay at Canton and Pekin it is cha, at Shanghai dzo, Fuhchau ta The Russian and Portuguese have retained the word cha, the Spanish is te or tay, and the Italians have both te and cha Tea is so nearly akin to the various species of Camellia that the Chinese have only one name for all. The principle difference to the common observer is in the thin leaf of the tea and the leathery glsbvous leaf of the beau tiful Camellia JapoDica. When allowed to grow, they both become high trees. The tea flower is small, single and white, has no sme ell, and soon falls, its petals are less erect than the camellia. The seeds are three small nuts, like filberts in color, inclosed in a triangular shell which splits open when ripe, with valves between the seeds. It's taste is oily and bitter. Two species of camellia are cultivated for their oily seeds and the oil is known as tea oil among the natives, and is used for lamps and cooking. There is proba- ably only one species of the tea plant, and all the varieties have resulted from culture but the Thea viridis is most cultivated The nuts are ripe in October. They are put in a mix ture of sand and earth dampened to keep them fresh till spring they generate heat and spoil if not thus separated. In March they are sown in nursery, and the thrifty shoots transplanted the next year in rows about four feet apart. Leaves are collected when the plant is three years old, and this process is continued annually to greater or less extent according to the demand and strength, until the whole bush becomes so weak and diseased that it is pulled up for fire wood to give place to 8 new shoot. On the av- craze this is about the eighth year. The plants seldom exceed three feet. Most of those have seen were half that height, strag- gling and full of twigs, often covered with ichens, but well hood and clean around their roots All tea plantations are merely patches of the shrubs cared for by small farmers who cultivate the plants and sell the leaves to mid dle-men, or more often pick the crop them selves if they can afford to do so. The great plantation or farm with it's landlord, and the needy laborer, each class trying to get as much as possible out of the other, are unknown in China the farmer has not there learned to employ skill, machinery and capital all for his own advantage, but each farmstead is worked by the family, who rather emulate each other in the reputation of their tea. Tea is cultivated on the slopes bases of hills, where the drainage is quick and the moisture unfaiGng. This is of more consequence than the Ingredients of the soil, but plants 80 con- tinualy depauperated and stripped, require rich manure to supply their waste. In Japan, 25 years ago, saw the tea shrubs grown as hedge around garden lot, but such plants were not then stripped in this way. In gath eriDg the earliest leaves, the pickers are care ful to leave enough foliage at the end of the twigs; and the spring rains are depended on to stimulate the second and full crop of leaves. When these are scant or fail, the tea harvest diminishes, and the regularity of the rains is so essential to a profitable cultivation that it will be one of the causes of failure where everything else in soil, climate, manuring, and manufacturemay be favorable
 The first gathering is the most carefully done. for it all goes to make the best sorts of black and green tea; and as the greatest part of the leaves are still undeveloped, the price must necessarily be very much higher. Such tea has whitish down, like that on young birch leaves and is called pecco or white hair, and is most of it sent to England and Russia. In the last century, the green tea known as Young Hyson was made of these half opened leaves picked in April and named from two l. LoRA