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328 not readily tilled, but there are also many tea plantations of considerable size, presenting the appearance seen in Fig. 193. After each picking of the leaves the bushes are trimmed back with pruning shears, giving the rows the appearance of carefully trimmed hedges.

Fig. 195.—Weighing the freshly picked tea leaves in Japan.

The tea leaves are hand picked, generally by women and girls, after the manner seen in Fig. 194, where they are gathering the tender, newly-formed leaves into baskets to be weighed fresh, as seen in Fig. 195. Three crops of leaves are usually gathered each season, the first yielding in Japan one hundred kan per tan, the