China proper. The Yang-tse-kiang, in its southward course through the province of Yunnan, twice cuts through this range, leaving a detached portion on its northern bank. Parallel and diagonal chains occupy extensively the belt of the central provinces south of that great river. The province of Kwei-Chau has been called the Switzerland of China, because its surface is almost exclusively mountainous. This mountain range, with its offshoots, embraces all the localities in which the tea plant has been found growing spontaneously. As the home of one of the most important of the world's agricultural industries, it invites special attention, particularly in view of the efforts now making for its domestication upon the soil of the United States. Believing that many localities within the public domain are available for tea culture, the facts in regard to its habitat-its conditions of soil and climate, are here presented, in the hope they will be of use in directing attention to a new investment of American capital and labor, which it is believed will not only be profitable to those immediately interested, but advantageous to the public interest confided to this branch of the service.

The western portion of the mountain range above mentioned lies within the obscure tributary province of Assam. This region was invaded from China in the thirteenth century by the Ahoms, the earliest inhabitants of whom history speaks. This whole region, however, bears traces of an earlier civilization in its numerous and extensive ruins of cities and temples hidden away in forests and jungles, smothered beneath copious vegetation. These ruins indicate an elaborate system of productive industry, with advancement in the arts of civilization. The Mogul Mohammedans, conquerors of Bengal, after three abortive attempts to subdue this people, succeeded, A. D. 1555, in establishing themselves in the southwestern portion of Assam, now called Camroop. From the beginning of the seventeenth century the Brahminic doctrine had made successive inroads upon the ancient faith of the Ahoms, and in 1865 the reigning Rajah became a couvert. From the chair of authority now occupied by the aggressive faith went forth propagandist influences too powerful to be resisted, and not only the religion but also the language of Bengal became general. Such sweeping changes, especially among stereotyped semitic races, could not fail to produce popular convulsions. Seditions, conspiracies, and assassinations utterly destroyed the national spirit, wasted the national resources, and gave the Ahoms an easy prey to their scheming neighbors, the Burmese, who not only conquered the country, but reduced the inhabitants to abject slavery, aggravated by the most barbarous cruelties. But few Ahioms survive these oppressions, cherishing, in obscure localities, the antiquated faith and manners of their race.

Among the few memorials of this nearly extinct people is their singular superstition in rejecting from the throne any prince of the blood mutilated or imperfect in any physical respect. In the frequent rebellions occurring under the old régime, parties having hereditary claims to the throne were often mutilated by their adversaries in order to prevent their accession. Assam came under British rule in 1825, a spoil of the war with the Burmese Empire, in which the Anglo-Indian boundaries received such broad eastern extension. The present population is mostly of Hindoo origin, though Mahommedans are numerous and scattered remnants of the aboriginal Ahoms are found. Assam occupies the valley of the Brahmapootra River for 160 miles, with an average breadth of from 20 to 70 miles. Its extremes of longitude are 910 and 96 east from Greenwich, and its extremes of latitude 26° and 29° north. It is divided into Upper, Central, and Lower Assam, the latter

being also called Camroop. Its present limits embrace an area of about 18,900 square miles, with a population variously stated at from 200,000 to 500,000. Sixty-one rivers and streams, affluents of the Brahmapootra, and generally navigable for light craft, present remarkable natural facilities for transportation and commerce. The soil is very rich, but, under the slip-shod agriculture of the natives, it scarcely meets their limited necessities, presenting no surplus for export. Its principal crops are rice, sugar-cane, cotton, opium, lac, raw silk, coffee, gums, and caoutchouc. The lack of intelligent handling renders the crops inferior to what they might be under other circumstances. Iron, coal, limestone, salt, gold dust, and petroleum are found in quantities sufficient to indicate the presence of valuable mineral deposits. Timber is exported in considerable quantities.

But the chief public interest in this obscure locality centers in its tea culture. McCosh, in his "Topography of Assam," says: "The tea tree, the identical tea tree of China, grows as favorably upon the mountains possessed by the dependent hill tribes, the Kangtis, the Singphos, and the Maatucks, as the adjoining provinces of China itself, it only requir ing the like attention upon its culture and manufacture to secure the same blessing to our country which has for such a series of years so materially added to the revenues of the Celestial Empire." Some writers have been disposed to insinuate that the tea trees of Assam are the result of a former artificial cultivation of trees imported from China. But nothing more than the possibility of the circumstance is urged in favor of such an opinion. The comparatively recent discovery of the wild tea trees in China and the wide range of localities in which they were found growing spontaneously along this entire range of mountains seem to furnish prima facie evidence sufficient for the rejection of this theory. On the other hand it has been maintained that the Assam tree is of a species entirely distinct from the China tree. The general bearing of known facts, however, is against this hypothesis.

As our knowledge of the tea culture in Assam is limited by the very imperfect and meager reports from that region, it is proposed here to dispatch this part of the subject prior to entering upon the fuller material furnished by the tea culture of China.

The existence of the plant in Assam was made known to the civilized world through the agency of two brothers, Robert Bruce and C. A. Bruce. The former went to Assam in 1823, with a stock of goods. The latter, an officer in the navy of the British East India Company, after the conquest of this territory by the British, went with the Rajah, who showed the naval officer a written contract, formally agreed upon between the Rajah and Robert Bruce, for the collection and delivery of a stock of tea plants for the benefit of the Anglo-Indian government. The British authorities made considerable efforts to organize the tea culture in Assam, but finally abandoned it to private enterprise. C. A. Bruce was for many years the superintendent of the government plantations, which, however, seem to have been carried on upon a scale and with a purpose purely experimental.

The following comparison of the tea soils of Assam and the Bohea Hills, though made a third of a century ago, may now be of interest. It is to be observed that the Chinese jealousy of foreigners, prevailing at that early day, compelled the East Indian authorities to procure the specimens through Chinese hands, and that, consequently, there were no means of verifying their identity.

It is remarkable that these soils contain no carbonates of lime, and only traces of its phosphates and sulphates. The combinations of iron embrace only the carbonates, the chemical influence of which differs widely from the oxides. Elsewhere these soils would probably be designated as poor yellow loam, and cultivators of cotton, tobacco, sugarcane, would most probably reject them. They seem, however, to meet the wants of the tea plant. It would appear, also, that the vegetable elements of these soils are more valuable in proportion as their action is mechanical, rather than chemical, when they furnish a porous medium for the ready transmission of moisture. The soil must be dry, and yet possess a sufficient capillary attraction, and a convenient access to water to secure the requisite humidity.

On the plains the tea soil must be underlaid by a porous stratum, capable of transmitting promptly the abundant precipitation of the rainy season, and of drawing upon the stores of subterranean moisture during the dry season. On the hill-sides the natural drainage, secured by the slope, supersedes, to some extent, the necessity of this underlying porous stratum. The requisite qualities of soil for tea culture in Assam are found only in detached areas, not giving rise to a uniform extent of tea vegetation. It should be observed that the above analysis of tea soils from the Bohea Hills varies from later analyses. The climate of Assam presents something of the general features of that of China, depending, to a great extent, upon the alternations of the monsoons, but it is accompanied by a more copious rain-fall. From April to October, the rainy season, the lower portions of the valleys are almost constantly inundated. But as the tea plant in Assam develops a greater avidity for water than in China, this copious supply of fresh water seems to be beneficial; but, in order to escape the evils resulting from excess of moisture, the plantations on the plains are generally placed beyond the reach of inundation by selecting the higher lands.

Among the drawbacks to the tea culture in the country is the difficulty of clearing away the forests and jungles.. The thickness of these around the tea plantations gives a hot-house closeness to the air, greatly stimulating the growth of the plants, which here attain a size double the average of the China plants. The labor available for tea culture in Assam is not near so effective as that of the Chinese, and the difficulties are enhanced by the greater size of the trees. The bodily effort in gathering the leaves is of such a character as to strain the muscles and to produce swellings. The low stature of the Chinese plants enables the laborer to gather the leaves in a squatting position. Transplantation

and cultivation tend to check this high growth, to which, it is thought, a thorough clearing of the country of its superfluous timber will greatly contribute. The free access of sunlight and air-currents has already had genial influence in thickening the foliage, and giving it finer color.

The more closely the leaves are plucked the more copious the subsequent crop, while failure to gather a first crop precludes the growth of a second.

Tea leaves grown in the full sunlight start earlier in the season and give out less moisture when rolled, but more glutinous matter. The juiciness of the leaves decreases as the season advances. Some kinds of tea cannot be made on a rainy day, as the Pouchong and the Mingehew. The former can be made only from the first crop of leaves. These should be collected after ten o'clock a. m. on a sunny morning, after the evaporation of the dew. The Mingehew can be made from any crop of leaves. The preparation of these teas differs from the Chinese methods only in minor and unimportant particulars. Leaves for the manufaeture of both green and black tea are plucked from the same plant, and the color of the manufactured article, as in the case of the teas of China, depends entirely upon the process of preparation for market. For green tea, however, a more choice selection of leaves is made than for black tea, which latter may be made from any of the leaves gathered.

The trade of Assam is growing in value and importance. The British Government has manifested much anxiety for its development, and it is probable that ultimately it will become one of the important centers of tea production, when some of the economical difficulties now crippling the enterprise are removed. The growth and culture of tea in Assam are of late origin, as shown by the fact that there is no word for it in the Sanscrit language.

The central and eastern portions of the Himalaya Range, before mentioned as the original home of the tea plant, are contained in China, the oldest nation now subsisting upon the globe. It embraces a magnificent area of fertile country, endowed with superior mineral resources, and extending through a great variety of climate. It is penetrated by noble rivers, and intersected by a network of canals, thus presenting admirable natural and artificial means of internal transportation. Its extensive line of sea-coast places it in contact with the civilized world at a multitude of points, thus inviting extensive foreign trade. Its social system, productive and economical, is one of the remarkable phenomena of social science. Isolated from the conquering west by immense desert barriers, and by the unskillful navigation of the earlier ages of the world, the peculiar civilization of the Chinese race has grown with remarkable vitality. National prejudice, of the most inveterate character, has reënforced these geographical elements of isolation, and not until the power of progressive occidental civilization overshadowed the whole world did those prejudices yield to the admission of foreigners. The enormous fecundity of the Chinese race gave them such a mass of material for the composition of armies, that at an early day the scattered populations of the broad, outlying desert zone were brought into political subjection, a prestige which, in the declining military spirit of the Celestial Empire, has been perpetuated by imposing frauds. The extent of country outside the limits of China proper, and subjected to her sway, once amounted to ten times her own area, but the populations of the same were but one-fortieth of the governing people. The conservative character of the Chinese is nowhere more strongly manifested than in their voluminous literature. Possessed with the idea of their immeasurable superiority to the rest of mankind, politic

ally, socially, and geographically, they represent China as the "Middle Middle Kingdom" of the world, surrounded by sporadic fragments of territory, upon which the residue of mankind are compelled to pass an inferior and inglorious existence beneath the shadow of the Celestial Empire. Spurning the barbarous dogma of the rotundity of the earth, and treating it as a flat plain, they utterly ignore latitude and longitude. This renders futile an immense amount of their laborious geographical research; but in local topography it presents an abundance of reliable material. Gutzlaff estimates that a library of 3,000 volumes, by Chinese authors, on Chinese geography, might be collected with very inconsiderable effort.

China proper embraces eighteen provinces, occupying an area of 1,800,000 square miles, equal to nearly one-half of Europe, extending from longitude 96° to 123° east from Greenwich, and from 18° to 430 north latitude, with a population variously estimated at from 360,000,000 to 410,000,000, or between 200 and 300 to the square mile.

In cereal, esculent, fruital, and fibrous productions, it embraces a wide range of provision for the wants of its massive population. Rice, cotton, silk, grain, fruit, flax, and all other elements of domestic comfort and support, here exist in rich abundance; but the great distinguishing product, that now crowds the markets of the entire world, is tea.

The origin of the culture and use of tea in China, like all other elements of Chinese civilization, is uniformly assigned to a period of very great antiquity. Making reasonable allowance for this tendency, and comparing Chinese and other authorities, Mr. Ball, in his account of the cultivation and manufacture of tea in China, concludes that it was prob ably known so early as the fourth century of the Christian era, being then used only as a medicine. As a beverage it was probably used in the sixth century, but did not become general till the eighth or ninth century.

Chinese history and tradition seem to unite in designating the hill of Sung-lo, or Sung-lo-shan, longitude 118° 56′ east, and latitude 29° 56′ north, at the extreme east of Mong-shan, in the province of Se-chuen, as the locality in which the tea plant was first discovered, growing spontaneously. At other points in the provinces of Fo-kien, Chekiang, Kiangnan, Kiang-see, and Hoo-quang, "everywhere among the mountains," the plant was subsequently discovered. These localities are all found within the limits of the mountain range before spoken of. The identity of this range with the Himalaya system in Assam is attested by Dr. Royle, a well-informed writer on geographical science. From this range, as a nucleus, this Asiatic tea culture has extended over 28 degrees of latitude and 30 degrees of longitude. It is not to be supposed, however, that the culture is profitable over the whole of this surface. At Peking, latitude 40°, and at Canton, on the verge of the tropics, the conditions of vegetation become either stunted or rank, and hence, in the intermediate zone, embracing the central provinces, we find the great mass of tea production, while the more valuable kinds are the product of the Himalaya Mountains skirting the southern border of the valley of the Yang-tse-kiang. It is probable that most of the Chinese provinces raise tea enough to supply their home market, but its cultivation for export is confined to the zone between the twentythird and thirty-first parallels.

In China there are two kinds of tea plants, designated by botanists, respectively, as thea bohea and thea viridis, constituting a separate genus of the natural family of the Ternstromiaceae. A controversy has been raised as to whether these should be considered as different species of