Thus far, then, by ade quately supply ing the family wants from do mestic gardens and furnishing small samples of approved tea for tasting by experts, the first step in the establishment of a tea industry had been taken successfully. But the question re mained unanswered whether tea as a commercial commodity might be raised profitably in this sec tion, and to its solution have been devoted the activ ities and means of "Pinehurst," greatly assisted and encouraged by the United States Department of Agriculture and the Secretary of Agriculture. Indeed, it may be very properly added that the local work has received the greatest attention and cooperation from the public. The effort will not be relinquished, whether Pinehurst be acknowledged a success or not. Today, as the sole representative of American-grown teas in our markets, it must stand for the new industry; consequently, what follows as relating to Pinehurst should be regarded as of possibly wider application in the future.
The promise of the new industry.
There were many reasons for undertaking the investigation. It was questionable whether suffi cient data supported the official dictum that the commercial cultivation of tea in the United states was impossible. The climate certainly should suit. In Pinehurst and the vicinity are found clumps of Berberis Japonica, Cleyera Japonica, Camellia Japonica, P,yrus Japonica and many other plants (persimmons, plums, walnuts, evergreens,) from Japan. If, therefore, the same flora prospers in Japan and here, there can be no natural difficulty in substituting in our markets American tea for the 40,000,000 pounds annually imported from that insular empire.
It is very evident that great good must follow the introduction into the southern states of a new industry, whereby an easy, outdoor employment may be afforded to women and children unable to bear harder labor and yet needing remunerative occupation, especially as tea -leaf - plucking but slightly infringes on the gathering of the great southern staple, cotton. And there are great tracts of fertile land in the vicinity of Pinehurst, now idle or worse from the lack of drainage, and therefore impregnated with malarial fevers, which tea culti vation might render safe and profitable. The people of the United States are paying the Orient for tea upwards of $15,000,000 annually, which sum might better be kept at home by local production. Indeed, the present small consumption of tea in this country, as compared with other English-speaking peoples, amounting to one and one- third pounds per capita per annum, and of ]ate years diminish ing rather than increasing in quantity, might be greatly enlarged by more confidence in the purity of the home product than now exists in the im ported article, and the quality of the beverage improved by avoiding the deleterious effect of the long ocean voyage.
Varieties of the tea plant.
Whatever may be the opinions as to their origin, i. e., whether, as stoutly maintained by many British writers, all are derived from the indigenous Assam ese stock, and owe their special characteristic to changes of climate and cultivation, as the result of their removal to other countries, there are great and practical differences between the several types of the tea plant. As extremes may be mentioned the tea tree of the Brahmaputra jungles, at taining a height of thirty to forty feet, with light green, silky leaves, frequently nine inches in length by four inches in width, and the stunted bushes of far northern climates, hardly exceeding two feet in height, with narrow, dark green, leathery leaves, two or three inches by one-half inch in size. Be tween them are innumerable variations of size and appearance.
Experience has demonstrated that all the varie ties of the tea plant except those from tropical climates which succumb to the cold of our winters, will flourish in the southern sea - board states. Those that have done best at Pinehurst are : (1) That stock which was introduced into this country fifty years ago, and has thus become thor oughly acclimated, although liable to be cut to the ground by a recurrence of the phenomenal cold of 1899, when the local thermometer fell below zero of Fahrenheit. Nevertheless, very few plants were killed thereby, and today the same gardens are as thrifty as ever. This type, which, from lack of more specific information, we call "Assam-hybrid," as being of an intermediate character, is capable of producing, under favorable conditions, 2,000 pounds of suitable leaf or 500 pounds of dry tea to the acre per annum. The leaf is well adapted to the making of black tea, and possesses most excellent cup qualities.
(2) "Darjeeling," from the slopes of the Hima layan mountains, the source of the best Indian teas, less productive and less hardy than the Assam hybrid, but yielding a delightfully fragrant and delicate tea, either green or black according to the method of curing.