Tea garden

“ The garden sloped in the double hollow of a shell-shaped valley, and the rich white bloom on the trees surged [116] up it as the thick drifting mists surge up a mountain pass. Standing out from the cloud-sea of blossoms, like peaks from out the mists, were two or three tea-houses, white papered and inhabited by gaily-decked maidens, and men who admired the plums, in grey silk. ”

“ Another remarkable garden, though not the equal of Magnolia, is at Middleton Place, not many miles away, and still another is at the pleasant winter resort town of Summerville, something more than twenty miles above Charleston. The latter, called the Pinehurst Tea Garden, is said to be the only tea garden in the United States. It is asserted that the teas produced here are better than those of China and Japan, and are equal to those of India. The Government is coöperating with the owners of this garden with a view to introducing tea planting in the country in a large way. ”

“ A really good Tea garden plough has yet to be invented. All that is necessary is to give some agricultural machinists here at home the conditions necessary for success, and I predict what we want would be soon forthcoming. ”

“ Here the bonzes loved to muse [Pg 251] and meditate, and anon merry picnic parties spread their mats, looped their canvas screens, and feasted out of nests of lacquered boxes, drinking the amber saké from cups no larger nor thicker than an egg-shell, while the sound of guitar and drum kept time to dance and song.
The garden of the tea-house was as lovely a piece of art as the florist's cunning could produce. Those who emerged from the deep woods of the lofty hill called the Dragon's Claw, could see in the tea-house garden a living copy of the landscape before them. ”

“ Tea thrives best in light friable soils of good depth, through which water percolates freely, the plant being specially impatient of marshy situations and stagnant water Undulating well-watered tracts, where the rain escapes freely, yet without washing away the soil, are the most valuable for tea gardens. As a matter of fact, many of the Indian plantations are established on hill-sides, after the example of known districts in China, where hill slopes and odd corners are commonly occupied with tea-plants. ”

“ All garden refuse should be regarded as manure and buried between the plants. I allude to the prunings of the bushes and the weeds at all times from the land. To carry these off the ground, as I have sometimes seen done, is simply taking off so much strength from the soil. The greener, too, all this is buried the better.
When it is considered how much is taken from the Tea plant, it is evident the soil will be exhausted, sooner or later, if no means are adopted to repair the waste. ”

“ Water is a necessity for seedlings, and a plentiful adjacent supply of it is a great desideratum for the comfort and health of every soul on the garden. We all know how dependent the natives are on water, and it is evident facilities in this respect will conduce much (whether the labour be local or imported) both to get and keep coolies. Norton’s tube wells—a cheap and most efficient mode of procuring water—will, I doubt not, be eventually much used on Tea plantations.
It has been observed that, as a rule, a good Tea climate is not a healthy one. ”

“ In one garden, the largest I have seen devoted to the growth of tea, but which is not particularly well kept, I saw that the spaces between the shrubs were planted with maize, and the bordering of the squares which intersect this vast plantation, and the whole of which is inclosed with valleys of Araucaria Brasiliensis, is formed of little dwarf tea-plants, which are kept low by cutting their main shoots down to the level of the soil. ”

“ There have been many theories about pruning Tea bushes, but none, I think, worth much practically, for the simple reason that it is impossible to prune 250,000 plants (the number in a 100-acre garden, at 2,500 to the acre) [25] with the care and system a gardener prunes a favourite fruit tree. The operation must be a coarse one, done by ignorant men, in large numbers at one time, who can in a measure be more or less taught, and the nearer they do right the better: still, really careful and scientific pruning can never be carried out on a Tea plantation. ”

“ The older gardeners of the fifties would look in amaze on our glorious beds of Tea roses, flowering in some cases up to Christmas, and beginning again as happily as ever the next June. While to us of the present day, a rose garden without Tea roses would be no garden at all. [81]
It is not that the modern Tea rose is hardier than its ancestors; for some of the old ones, such as Souvenir d'un Ami, grow as cheerfully in the garden as a Hybrid Perpetual. ”

“ We leave the temple court by a different outlet to that by which we entered, and come out on a charmingly laid out garden and fish ponds, where are seats and tea houses for the accommodation of visitors. Each tea house has its bevy of dark-eyed houris, who use every wile and charm known to the sex, to induce you to patronise their several houses. ”

“ I feel sure, therefore, if Ceylon planters rush into Tea, as they did in India in times past, they will regret it. But I [184] hear that made Tea gardens can be bought there cheap, and under these circumstances Tea will probably pay the purchasers well.
Johore.
H.H. the Maharajah there has started a small Tea garden, but as there are in it only two acres of Tea, the whole thing is quite an experiment yet. The climate is said to be favourable, and land easily acquired. Cheap labour is the difficulty. May it long continue so! There is too much Tea already ”

“ The hedges between the compartments are of a shrub which I should have taken for myrtle, but that the leaves though firm are not fragrant. This garden was destined by the King for the cultivation of the oriental spices and fruits, and above all, of the tea plant, which he obtained, together with several families accustomed to its culture, from China. Nothing can be more thriving than the whole of the plants. ”

“ I am beginning to think that the tenderness of tea-roses is much exaggerated, and am certainly very glad I had the courage to try them in this northern garden. But I must not fly too boldly in the face of Providence, and have ordered those in the boxes to be taken into the greenhouse for the winter, and hope the Bouquet d’Or, in a sunny place near the glass, may be induced to open some of those buds. The greenhouse is only used as a refuge, and kept at a temperature just above freezing, and is reserved entirely for such plants as cannot stand the very coldest part of the winter out of doors. ”

“ The gentle breeze that drifted in from the north had ice in its touch and I do not know how the roses that held up pink petals bravely and tossed their soft, tea scent over the garden fences stood it without wilting. Most of them are planted near shelter, which may account for it. But the tea roses are essentially the ladies of their kind. They seem to have the feminine trait of exposing pink and white beauty to the inclement winds without growing goose flesh upon it. They stand brave and unconcerned in an atmosphere where mere{87} men and vegetables wilt, frostbitten. ”

“ Much money has been wasted in this way: for instance, in a garden planted 6 by 6 or 6 by 5, and the plants but two years old, I have seen the whole dug many times in the year. The roots of the said plants did not protrude at that age more than 1 foot or so, what good could they possibly derive from the extra space dug?
The soil over the rootlets of Tea plants cannot be stirred too often. The oftener it is done the oftener the trees flush, and when young the more vigorously will they grow. ”

“ We have been very busy till now getting the permanent beds into order and planting the new tea-roses, and I am looking forward to next summer with more hope than ever in spite of my many failures. I wish the years would pass quickly that will bring my garden to perfection! The Persian Yellows have gone into their new quarters, and their place is occupied by the tea-rose Safrano; all the rose beds are carpeted with pansies sown in July and transplanted in October, each bed having a separate colour. ”

“ Flat land for Tea gardens is a great desideratum. Steep lands are difficult to cultivate; the soil is continually washing away from the roots of the plants; it is impossible to manure them successfully, and the consequence of all this is that the Tea bushes do not thrive.
The Chinese plant gives a small and inferior produce, the indigenous and hybrid kind a larger and very superior one ”

“ No artificial colouring of the leaves is ever resorted to. Qualities vary, of course, according to the localities in which the tea is grown, just as is the case with wine. The best tea is that grown on a tree which grows in the garden of a monastery which is situated on the Ou-I mountain, in the interior of the province of Fou-Kien. The priests do not sell [188] it, but keep it for the use of distinguished visitors. They give you about ten leaves in a cup not much bigger than an egg-cup, and pour on it water taken from an excellent spring which is situated near the monastery. ”

“ Two years after the young seedling has been transplanted to the formal garden rows its leaves may be gathered; and there are new leaves every day, so that picking, curing, firing, and packing continue the year round. The tea-pickers, mostly women, gather the leaves only when the plants are free from dew or rain. ”

“ The third division of the London gardens consists of those that were mainly tea-gardens. Many of these though small and unpretending possessed a distinctly rural charm. Such were Highbury Barn, and the Canonbury House tea-gardens, Hornsey with its romantic wood, and Copenhagen House standing alone in the hay-fields. Bagnigge Wells and White Conduit House, the classic tea-gardens of London, were prettily laid out and pleasantly situated, but in their later days became decidedly cockneyfied. The great day at these gardens was Sunday, especially between five and nine o’clock. ”

“ The most productive tea gardens are at an elevation of about one thousand feet, the land at this altitude being generally of an undulating character, well watered, and the climate sufficiently humid to encourage leaf-production. ”

“ One needs the roof of a tea house to keep off the evening dews or occasional shower. It cannot be made a large feature of the grounds like a garden. It is not important enough. It will not, without trees and high shrubs behind it, make any background as will a garden wall or lattice. It is no barrier along a street or of any use as a fence or division line. ”

“ Over one hundred native gardeners tend and care for this great botanic museum of more than nine thousand living specimens, all working under the direction of a white head-gardener. The Tjiliwong River separates the botanic garden from a culture-garden of forty acres, where seventy more gardeners look to the economic plants—the various cinchonas, sugar-canes, rubber, tea, coffee, gums, spices, hemp, and other growths, whose introduction to the colony has so benefited the planters. ”

“ The hybridizing of fruit trees and grains is conducted in the search for varieties adapted to exacting conditions. The introduction of tea gardens into the Southern States promises to provide employment for idle hands, as well as to supply the home market with tea. ”

“ Where new gardens are made on rich virgin soil, to manure them at all for the first few years is, I think, unnecessary. But the richest soils on Tea gardens get exhausted in time, and manure should be applied before this point is arrived at. ”

“ Shepard's tea gardens the deficiency in rain fall is made good by deep pulverization of the soil and artificial irrigation; the natural shade of jungle or forest under which the seed germinates and grows where the plant is indigenous, is supplied by artificial shade; and the expensive process of picking the leaves is cheapened by employing children, who are paid in money, and also by being taught to read and write in a school maintained on the premises by Dr. Shepard. Machinery has supplanted some of the tedious hand-manipulation of tea in Dr. ”

“ They are mostly annuals now, and there are fig trees and lemon trees, which supply the lemon for our tea! The brook comes out in all sorts of beautiful and unexpected places, and makes pools. There is a lovely fountain which goes all the time, and which we can hear from our bedroom. The tennis court is hidden by trees and vines, and had just been put in shape so that Rootie and Mlle. la Forgue played this morning. Across the road is the path that leads through a tunnel under the railroad to the fruit garden and vineyards. ”

“ In the district of this little town, is a pleasant mountain of the same name, which is thought to possess the most favourable soil and climate for the culture of Tea, on which account it is inclosed with hedges, and likewise surrounded with a broad ditch for farther security. The trees are planted upon this mountain in such a manner as to form regular rows, with intervening walks. Persons are appointed to superintend the place, and preserve the leaves from injury or dirt. ”

“ To particularize further, and yet generalize at the same time, we will say here that the Tea plant or tree is greatly modified in hardiness, in height, in size of leaf, and in the quality of the leaf for a beverage, by soil, by moisture, tillage, and climate. Some soils and some climates develop a tea plant decidedly more suitable for a green tea than for a black tea, and vice-versa. The Formosa Oolong, with its natural flowery fragrance is a product of a peculiar soil, said to be a clay topped with rich humus. ”

“ If young plants could be procured in China, they might be sent over in a growing state in some of these boxes.
The young Tea-plants in the gardens about London thrive very well in the green-houses in winter, and some bear the open air in summer. The leaves of many of them are from one to three inches long, not without a fine deep verdure; and the young shoots are succulent. It is therefore probable, that in a few years many layers may be procured from them, and the number of plants considerably increased thereby. ”