Foo-chow-foo was not a very great distance from the Bohea hills, and I had good reasons for believing that the Bohea plant was the same as the Foo-chow one: but still I had no positive proof. Now, however, having been on Woo-e-shan itself, and over a great deal of the surrounding country, and having dried specimens of all these plants before me, I am better able to give an opinion upon this long-disputed subject.
I believe that the Woo-e-shan plant is closely allied to the Thea viridis, and originally identical with that species, but slightly altered by climate. On the closest examination I was only able to detect very slight differences, not sufficient to constitute a distinct variety, far less a species, and in many of the plants these differences were not even visible. The differences alluded to were these—the Woo-e plant showed less inclination to throw out branches than the Hwuy-chow one, and its leaves were sometimes rather darker and more finely serrated.
But it is possible to go into a tea-plantation in any part of China, and to find more marked distinctions amongst its plants than these I have noticed. The reason of this is obvious. The tea-plant is multiplied by seed, like our hawthorns, and it is perfectly impossible that the produce can be identical in every respect with the parent. Instead, therefore, of having one or two varieties of tea-plant in China, we have, in fact, many kinds, although the difference between them may be slight. Add to this, that the seeds of this plant are raised year after year in different climates, and we shall no longer wonder that in the course of time the plants in one district appear slightly different from those of another, although they may have been originally produced from the same stock.
For these reasons I am of opinion that the plants of Hwuy-chow and Woo-e are the same species, and that the slight differences observed are the results of reproduction and difference of climate.
With regard to the Canton plant—that called Thea bohea by botanists—different as it appears to be, both in constitution and habit, it too may have originally sprung from one and the same species.
These changes, however, do not alter the commercial value of those plants found cultivated in the great tea-countries of Fokien and Hwuy-chow, where the finest teas are produced; for, while the tea-shrub may have improved in the course of reproduction in these districts, it may have become deteriorated in others. For this reason seeds and plants ought always to be procured from these districts for transmission to other parts of the world, where it is desirable to grow tea.
Of late years some attempts have been made to cultivate the tea-shrub in the United States of America, and also in our own Australian colonics. I believe all such attempts will end in failure and disappointment. The tea-plant will grow wherever the climate and soil are suitable, and, were it merely intended as an ornamental shrub, there could be no objections to its introduction into those countries. But if it is introduced to be cultivated as an object of commercial speculation, we must not only inquire into the suitableness of climate and soil, but also into the price of labour. Labour is cheap in China. The labourers in the tea-countries do not receive more than twopence or threepence a day. Can workmen be procured for this small sum either in the United States or in Australia? And if they cannot be hired for this sum, nor for anything near it, how will the manufacturers in such places be able to compete with the Chinese in the market?
China, it will appear from these remarks, is likely to remain the "Tea Country" par excellence. To every country its own gifts and its own natural produce. At the same time, Mr. Fortune's researches and discoveries will gradually effect a great revolution in the nomenclature and use or abuse of teas, and, it is to be hoped, will explode the coloured, adulterated, and poisonous compound, sold at such high prices to the luxurious uninitiated.
