Our country is filled with natural tea plantations, which are only waiting the hand of the husbandman to be covered with this luxuriant and productive plant.
I know the public is naturally impatient of delay. Like corn, it is expected that the tea-nuts will be planted in the spring, and the crop gathered in the autumn. But they forget that the tea-plant does not interfere with any other crop, and when once planted it does not soon require a renewal.
I have sometimes felt this impatience myself, and longed for a cup of tea of my own growing, but I have never had one. As a husbandman, I must wait some time longer, and let patience have her perfect work."
Again, under date May 1, 1850, he states that he has succeeded admirably in the culture. The plants bear the winter well, and their physiology and general characteristics remain unchanged by the change of climate and soil. The leaf puts out at the same period of the year that it does in China.
On the 27th of May, 1850, Dr. Smith received a further batch of trees, fresh, green and healthful, as if still growing in the plantations of China; after a passage of little more than five months. These plants, together with the seedlings and nuts, were of the green tea species, and obtained from a quarter situated about 700 miles from Canton.
In a letter, dated Grenville, S.C., June 17th, 1850, with which I have been favored, he adds:—
"I never heard of the failure of the tea-crop. All vegetation may be retarded, or lessened, or augmented, in its production, in a slight degree, by excessive rains, or drought, or cold, or heat, or atmospheric action; but the tea-plant is sure to produce its leaf. From all I have observed, a decided drought is the most detrimental to the health of the tea plant. The almost continued rains which marked the advance of the past spring, seemed perfectly agreeable to the tea-plant, and facilitated the germination of the tea-nuts. Where any vitality remained in the nut, it was sure to germinate. Curiosity, on this point should be restrained, and no picking and pawing up of the nuts permitted. I have seedlings with tap roots four inches in length, where no appearance of germination is visible upon the surface of the ground. The chances are ten to one that the seedling would be destroyed by the tamperings of idle curiosity. Let nature have her own most perfect work, and see that the enemy, the drought, is vanquished by an abundant supply of water.
From experience, I notice that nothing is more congenial to the germination of the tea-nut than a good stiff blue, clayed soil. The marly colour of the soil is undoubtedly the result of a rich loam, combined with the clay of a lighter hue. The adhesive nature of the clay retains moisture in an eminent degree, and the fertilising qualities of the loam are well known to every bottom land farmer.
Plants put out three weeks ago, after a long voyage from China, are now taking root, and look fresh and vigorous, notwithstanding the recent heat and dryness of the atmosphere. But I have taken unwearied pains in the cultivation. Every plant is sheltered from the scorching influence of the sun, now from 70 deg. to 86 deg. of temperature. Although the soil is naturally moist and clayey, and half bottom land, from the work of gentle acclivities, rising on either hand, yet I have given the plants a liberal watering in the evening. By last summer's drought of fifty-seven days, I was taught the absolute necessity of deep digging and deep planting. None of my plants, of this season's planting, are more than two or three inches above the surface of the ground.
If any of the plants have leaves, as most of them have, below that height, they are planted with the leaves retained; none are removed. Some of the older plants have no leaves remaining, and looked like dry sticks. Many of these are now beginning to break, and put forth fresh leaves."