The first consideration is how to get the largest quantity of leaf without injuring the trees.

To a certain extent, it is true that the more a Tea bush is pruned and picked the more it will yield. It appears as if Nature were always trying to repair the violence done to the tree by giving new mouths or leaves to breathe with in place of those taken away. I may exemplify my meaning in another way. A Tea bush which has as many leaves on it as it requires will throw out tardily new shoots, and their number will be small. In other words, a plant which is not pruned, and from which the young leaves are not taken, grows gradually large and bushy, and then gives up flushing altogether. It has all the leaves it requires, and it has no necessity to throw out more.

If, however, Nature is too much tried, that is, if too much violence is done to her, she sulks and will exert herself no more. Up to this point, therefore, it is well to urge her. How can we know when we have reached it?

Only general rules can be laid down. Experience is the great desideratum on this and many other subjects connected with Tea.[34]

If the plant can always be kept in such a state that the foliage, without being very much so, is still less than Nature requires, I conceive the object will be attained.

The greatest violence is done to the plant when it is pruned, and reason would seem to argue that when this violence is repairing, that is, when the first shoots in the spring show themselves, and until new mouths (or leaves) in sufficient quantities exist, until then but little leaf should be picked.

Fortunately, moreover, while in the interests of the plant this is the best plan, it also is the mode by which the largest yield of leaf will be secured in the season. I go to show this.

The ordinary size of a good full-grown Tea plant, at the end of the season, is, say, 3½ or 4 feet high, and 5 feet diameter. It is pruned down, say, to a height of 2 feet, with a diameter of 3 feet. It is then little more than wooden stems and branches, and to anyone ignorant of the modus operandi in Tea gardens, it would appear as if a plantation so pruned has been ruined. The tree remains so during all its hybernating period, that is, during the time it is resting and the sap is down (this period is longer or shorter, as the climate is a warm or cold one, and it is always during the coldest season), but on the return of spring new shoots start out from the woody stems and branches in the following way:—At the axis or base of each leaf is a bud, the germ of future branches, these develop little by little, until a new shoot is formed of, say, five or six leaves, with a closed bud at top. Then if it be not picked the said bud at top hardens. At the axis or base of each of the said five or six leaves are other buds, and the next step is for one, two, or three of these to develop in the same way and form new shoots. The original shoot grows thicker and higher until it becomes a wooden branch or stem. The same process, in their turn, is repeated with the new shoots. A diagram (see next page) will make my meaning clear. We here have a shoot fully developed, of six leaves, counting the close leaf a at top as one, viz., the leaves a, b, c, d, e, f. The shoot has started and developed from what was originally a bud at K, at the axis or base of the leaf H. In the same way as formerly at K a bud existed, which has now formed the complete shoot or flush K a, so at the base of the leaves c, d, e, f, exist buds 1, 2, 3, 4, from which later new shoots would spring. These again would all have buds at the base of the leaves, destined to form further shoots, which again would be the parents of others, and so on to the end of the season, or until the tree is pruned.

It will readily be seen the increase is tremendous. It is only limited by the power of the soil to fling out new shoots, and the necessities of the plant, for, as I have explained, when as much foliage exists as the plant requires, but few new shoots are produced.

Now supposing the shoot in the diagram to be (with perhaps another not shown at L) the first on the branch I I in the spring (the said branch having been cut off or pruned at the upper I). It is then evident the said shoot is destined to be the parent and producer of all the very numerous branches and innumerable shoots into which the plant will extend in that direction. It is, in other words, the goose which will lay all the future eggs. If, eager to begin Tea making early, the planter nips it off, the extension on that part of the tree is thrown back many weeks. It may be taken off at 1, 2, or 3 (the back lines drawn show the proper way to pick leaf); the least damage will be done if it is taken off at 1, the most at 3.

The said shoot K a is the first effort of Nature to repair the violence done to the tree by pruning. It is the germ of many other branches and shoots, and it ought never to be taken. I have, I hope, made so much plain.

There is, however, another consideration. Any shoot, left to fully develop and harden, does not throw out new shoots from the existing buds 1, 2, 3, 4 so quickly as one checked in its upward growth by nipping off its head. For instance, supposing the shoot under consideration not to be the first of the season, but on the contrary to be a shoot when the plant has developed sufficiently to make picking safe, if taken off at 2, then the new growth from 2, 3, 4 will be much quicker than it would be had the whole shoot been left intact.

Our object then with first shoots should be to secure this advantage without destroying any buds, and this we can do by taking off simply the closed leaf at the top a. This must be done so as not to injure the bud at the base of the second leaf b (I have not numbered it, for there is no room in the diagram to do so), and we shall thus leave all the buds on the shoot intact.

Again here the interests of the plant, and profit to the planter, go hand in hand. The closed bud a in this case will be found very valuable. I go to show this.

The value of Tea is increased when it shows “Pekoe tips.” Only the leaves a b make these. They are covered with a fine silky whitish down, and, if manufactured in a particular way, make literally white or very pale yellow Tea,[35] which, mixed with ordinary black Tea, show as “Pekoe tips.” In ordinary leaf-picking these two leaves are taken with all the others, but unfortunately, when manufactured with them, they lose this white or pale yellow colour, and come out as black as all the other Tea.

As the season goes on, this is less and less the case, till towards the end nearly all the a b leaves show orange-coloured in the manufactured Tea. Still they are not white (the best colour) as they can be made when treated separately. No means have yet been devised to separate them before manufacture from the other leaf, and though sometimes picked separate, the plan has serious objections (see next page). In the case, however, of the first two or three flushes the welfare of the plants demands that no more should be taken, and though the quantity obtained will be small, it will, if carefully manufactured so as to make “white Pekoe tips,” add one or two annas a lb. to the value, when mixed with it, of one hundred times its own weight of black Tea!

More will be found under this head in the Tea manufacturing part. I now beg the question that the said downy leaves taken alone are very valuable.

In detailing the mode of picking I advocate, it would be tedious to go minutely into the reasons for each and everything. I have said enough to explain a good deal, but will add anything of importance. Of the latter are the following.

Tea can be made of the young succulent leaves only. The younger and more succulent the leaf the better Tea it makes. Thus a will make more valuable Tea than b, b than c, and so on; e is the lowest leaf to make Tea from, for though a very coarse kind can be made from f, it does not pay to take it. The stalk also makes good Tea, as far as it is really succulent, that is, down to the black line just above 2.

The leaves are named as follows from the Teas it is supposed they would make:—

• a.—Flowery Pekoe.
• b.—Orange Pekoe.
• c.—Pekoe.
• d.—Souchong, 1st.
• e.— „ 2nd.
• f.—Congou.

If there be another leaf below f, and it be taken, it is named, and would make Bohea.

Each of these leaves was at first a flowery Pekoe leaf (a), it then became b, then c, and so on.

That is to say, as the shoot developed, and a new flowery Pekoe leaf was born, each of the leaves below assumed the next lowest grade.

Could the leaves fit to make each kind of Tea it is proposed to make be picked and kept separate, and each be manufactured in the way most suitable to its age, and the Tea to be produced, the very best of every kind could easily be manufactured. But this cannot be; the price of Tea will not allow it, and the labour to do it would moreover fail. It has been attempted again and again to do it, partly to the extent of taking the Pekoe leaves a, b, c separate from the others (for the manufacture best suited to these upper leaves is not suited to the lower), but it has been as often abandoned, and I doubt if it is now practised anywhere. I am sure it will never pay to do it.

Picking leaf is a coarse operation. It is performed by 80 or 100 women and children together, and it is impossible to follow each, and see it is done the best way. They must be taught, checked, and punished if they do wrong, and then it will be done more or less right; but perfection is not attainable.

I advise the following plan in picking. Please refer to the diagram:—

If the garden has been severely pruned (as it ought to be) take only the bud a for two flushes; then for two more nip the stalk above 1, taking the upper part of leaf c, as shown (done with one motion of the fingers). But from the fifth flush take off the shoot at the line above 2, and by a separate motion of the fingers take off the part of leaf e where the black line is drawn. By this plan, when the rains begin, the trees will show a large picking surface, for plenty of buds will have been preserved for new growth. After the month of August you may pick lower if you like, as you cannot hurt the trees. For instance, you may nip the stalk and upper part of leaf e together, and separately the upper part of f.

The principle of picking is to leave the bud at the axis of the leaf down to which you pick intact.

Some planters pick all through the season at the line above 1, and take the d and perhaps the e leaf separately. I do not like the plan, for though it will make strong Teas, the yield will be small. Moreover, the plants will form so much foliage; they will not flush well; and again, they will grow so high that boys who pick will not readily reach the top.

Shortly, the principle I advocate is to prune severely, so that the plant in self-defence must throw out many new shoots; to be sparing and tender with these until the violence done to the tree is in a measure, but not quite, repaired; then, till September, to pick so much that the wants of the plant in foliage are never quite attained; and after September to take all you can get.

I believe this principle (for the detailed directions given may be varied, as for instance when trees have not been heavily pruned) will give the largest yield of leaf, and will certainly not injure the plants.