indebted to the kindness of Mr. Joseph M. Walsh, importer of
teas, at Philadelphia.

All varieties of the tea plant bear a pure white flower,
averaging, say 1 1/4 inches in diameter, and resembling very
closely our single white wild rose blossom.

Its bunch of bright yellow stamens is so bushy and showy in some
varieties that careless travelers have been led to report the
flower as yellow in color, which is never the case.

In some Chinese plants, and in those of India, tea blossoms are
very fragrant, and they have been used for scenting tea leaves in
India, if not in China, as other flowers are used by the Chinese.
In India a perfume has been distilled from tea blossoms; and a
valuable oil is expressed from the very oily seeds. The long tap
root of the tea plant renders it difficult to transplant.

In China, tea is commonly cultivated in small patches or fields,
large tea fields being the exception. The nature of Chinese
inheritance laws and customs which tend to continual subdivision
of land, may be one of the causes of this state of affairs. The
least area of spare ground is frequently utilized by the small
farmer or the cottager for the cultivation of a dozen or more tea
shrubs, from which they procure tea for their own use, or realize
a small sum by sales of the green leaves to tea traders. Many a
rocky hillside or mountain slope, otherwise waste ground, is
terraced so as to detain the rains and meagre soil within its
inwardly inclined banks and trenches, and made to yield a
valuable crop of tea. Indeed, some of the finest flavored Chinese