National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1881-04-21
THE CULTIVATION OF TEA.
How 1t Can he Made Profitable Ina fh'
Unffed SEafea.

How II Can he Made Profitable ia thc
United States.
For number of years past the people
Of the United States have been paying foreign
countries more than twenty million dollars annu-
ally for Chinese and Indian teas, although it is
known fact that teas of equal if not better, quality
can bc produced ia this country for less money
than We arc now paying foreign merchants for
them In the effort TO stop this annual drain of
twenty millions, the expenditure of few Paitry
Thousands by the General Government has proved
q GOOD investment. The Chinese Tea plant has
been cultivated in many widely separated POI
lions of the Union, and shows vigorous and
healthy growth over wideIy-extended territory.
The efforts in acclimatng the plant having proved
quite successful, il was feared the
QUESTION OF LABOR
might still prevent the development of the tea in
dustry on conmeTcial scale; but in this case, as
lit every other where labor saving machinery has
been found necessary to compete successfully with
foreign pauper labor, our inventive genius, which
l. only another name for independence. has
promptly supplied the want In the present case
the improved methods Of horticulturists and
Yankee ingenuity in machinery combined give
present promise of the development of another
great industry to add its millions TO the annual
wealth of the country. Openings have been found
from the moment the Young plant appears above
the ground through all the stages of growth to the
final packing and shipment of the cured tea to
market all Of which have been fully taken adj
ysatage Of
IN 4 COMMERCIAL WAY
important contributions have been made by Major
Hester well known Pennsylvania hOrtieulturist,
and inventor of the electric teller for the Houses of
Congress BY the combination OF simple, we'll
Known principles of horticulture and mechanics
he has worked out a system of cultivation and
curing under which the tea is gathered from the
plants, passed through all the stages of picking,
curing and packing, until 1t makes its final ap
peafance III the market as firS-clasS tea without
ever being touched by the hands at all. To bring
the plants into such shape that they may be
operated on by machinery, he has adopted a COM
biuaton Of the Hedge and Gordon systems, de
vice well know to horticulturistS.
he TRAINS HIS PLANES
insuch a way that the vertical crOss-section of the
hedge shows the ordinary triangle reversed; that
* with the apex next the ground and the fat base
on ton. Grown in this way the buds burst, and the
first three or four leaves appear on ordinary level
ground with absolute uniformity. He has con-
triVcd for securing the tea modification of the
ordinary sliding cut lawn- mower. 1t is mounted
on four large wheels, by a simple eOntriYance can
be set at any desired height and for cutting within
the smallest fraction of an inch of the desired
point fitting motion of the handle secures the
desired object. An air-blast from q tube in front
of the cutter drives the tea fast it is cut
of into light basket al the back part of the ma
chine, 50 arranged that it can be removed and an
Is III
With this
MACHINE PROPELLED BY HAND.
two men in day will gather more tea of equally
good quality than a hundred men can in any
other way. From the cutter it goes to the auto
matte drier, from there to the rollers, and through
the latter stages, making its final appearance as
inst class tea, to which some of the burnt teas we
receive from abroad bear about the same relation
that the black, tastelesS substances used to call
dried fruits do to the best evaporaed fruits of the
present day II is an old saying, but true, that
only drink good tea in tea growing countries.
The reason is simple enough: Much of the work,
and most expensive work, put on foreign teas is
not for the purpose of improving the quality
which, on the contrary, is decidedly injured
thcreby-but is necessary to enable the tea TO
STAND AN OCEAN VOYAGE
without being utterly ruined, just as our best light
wines that used to get from Europe were "a for
titled with brandy for the same purpose. II may
be thought strange that capital does not enter so
promising field; but it should be remembered
that much of the work heretofore has been expert
mental, and as the whole country would be the
gamer of the twenty millions saved in imported
teas, il was only fair the General Government
should be at the cost of these experiments. Again,
that they do not know anything about. At the
best it would have been three or four years before
they received any returns from their investment
which made them still sly and it really looks
Is II the present satisfactory condition OF affairs
could only have been reached, as it has been by
fhe General Government taking the matter III hand
ana thoroughly testing it through series of years,
mt only in an experimental, but in a commercial,
way