[CHAPTER X.]
TEA SEED.
Though there is a great difference in Tea plants (see last chapter) the seed of all is the same, and it is therefore impossible to say from what class of plants it has been gathered.
When Tea seed was very valuable (it has sold in the Tea-fever days as high as Rs. 200 and Rs. 300 per maund) it was the object of planters to grow as much as possible.
High class plants do not give much seed, a plantation therefore with much on it should be avoided in purchasing seed.
The Tea flower (the germ of next year’s seed) appears in the autumn, and the seed is ripe at the end of the following October or early November.
It takes thus one year to form.
Seed is ripe when the capsule becomes brown, and when breaking the latter the inner brown covering of the seed adheres to the seed and not to the capsule.
One capsule contains 1, 2, 3, and sometimes even 4 seeds.
Though the mass ripens at the end of October, some ripen earlier; the capsule splits and the seed falls on the ground. If, therefore, all the seed from a garden is required, it is well to send round boys all October to pick up such seeds.
When the seed is picked at the end of October or early November the mass is still in capsules. It should be laid in the sun for half an hour daily for two or three days until most of the capsules have split. It is then shelled, and the clean seed laid on the floor of any building where it will remain dry. Sunning it after shelling is objectionable.