I have concluded a contract for ten thousand pots and five thousand baskets at half an anna each for both kinds. Two pice, to ensure the filling up of a vacancy, is not a large outlay.
Since writing the above I have had experience of both the above plans. The pot system is far the better, and answers very well.[31] I am now trying to improve this still further by making the pots a little larger, and placing a thin inner lining of tin inside each about half an inch from the sides. This space is first filled with sand, then the pot is filled with mould, and the tin pulled out. The same tin will therefore do for any number of pots. The seed is then put in.
I think by this plan if, when about to plant, the mould in the pot is well wetted, that it, with the seedling, can be turned out whole in one piece, and then put in the hole without the pot.
The same pots would then answer year after year, and the expense would be quite nominal.
If well done, the seedling in this, as in the former case, would not even know it had been transplanted.[32]
[CHAPTER XXII.]
FLUSHING AND NUMBER OF FLUSHES.
The Tea plant is said to flush when it throws out new shoots and leaves. The young leaves thus produced are the only ones fit to make Tea, and the yield of a plantation depends therefore entirely on the frequency and abundance of the flushes.
The way a flush is formed is fully explained under the head of “leaf picking” (pages [103], [104], and [107]).
The number of flushes in different plantations varies enormously, owing, first, to climate; secondly, to soil; thirdly, to the pruning adopted; fourthly, to the degree of cultivation given; and fifthly, though not least, to the presence or absence of manure.