Page:An account of the manufacture of the bla.pdf/22

 more Tea this season, than twelve times the same space of ground in the jungles would have done. I found that as the plants that had been cut down grew up again, the leaves acquired a yellowish tinge from their exposure to the sun, and were much thicker than those in the jungles; but this yellow tinge has worn off, and the leaves are now as green as those in the shade. As this tract answered so well by being cut down and set ﬁre to, I tried the same experiment upon another tract close by, and it has come up to what I expected of it, eight to twelve new shoots having risen from the old stumps in the place of one. It is now a very ﬁne Tea tract. Not knowing how this plan of cutting down might answer eventually, and how it might effect the plants, I took another tract in hand, allowed all the Tea plants to remain, but cut down all the other trees, large and small, that gave them shade, piled them up, and what I could not set ﬁre to, I threw into the water courses. These Tea plants are doing well, but still each plant remains single, consequently has not many leaves, and is much in the same condition as when under shade. We have not had sufficient time to show what effect the sun may have on the leaves, and the Tea made from them. This tract has a curious appearance, the plants appearing hardly strong enough to support themselves now they are deprived of their friendly shade. I have some other tracts under experiment; some where I have permitted the jungle trees to grow, and only cleared away the brush-wood and other small trees to admit the rays of the sun; others with very little shade. I have cut off branches of the Tea plants and laid them horizontally in the ground, with an inch or two of earth on them, and they have thrown out numerous shoots the whole length of