Cultivation of the Tea Plant [pp. 461-462]

DEPARTMIENT OF AGRICULTURE.
the evening, and removed at sunrise the next morning. After this has
been repeated for three days, the tree is allowed to rest until the seventh
day, when another incision is made and the juice again flows. This process goes on at similar intervals until about the middle of February, when
the increasing heat of the weather causes the juice to ferment and become
useless:
"Daily at sunrise, throughout the season, the industrious ryot may be
seen climbing his trees, and collecting at a convenient spot beneath them the
earthen pots containing the juice yielded during the past night. Under a
rude shled, covered with the leaves of the date tree itself, and erected under
the shade of the plantation, is prepared the boiling apparatus to serve for
the goor season. It consists of a hole of about three feet in diameter sunk
about two feet in the ground, over which are supported by mud arches four
thin earthen pans, of a semi-globular shape, and eighteen inches in diameter;
the hole itself is the furnace, and has two apertures on opposite sides for
feeding in the fuel, and for the escape of the smoke. The fire is lit as soon
as the juice is collected, and poured into the four pans, which are kept constantly supplied with fresh juice as the water evaporates, until the whole
produce of the morning is boiled down to the required density. As the contents of each pan become sufficiently boiled, they are ladled out into other
earthen pots or jars of various sizes, from five to twenty seers, of contents,
according to local custom, and in these the boiled extract cools, crystallizes
into a hard compound of granulated sugar, and molasses, and is brought to
to market for sale as goor."
Here the connection of the original cultivator with the product ceases.
The goor is sold to a distinct class of operators, in whose hands it undergoes
the necessary treatment for the separation of the molasses. In some cases
the mixture is placed in coarse sacks and pressed between bamboos lashed together, until the molasses is effectually forced out. This process may be
repeated two or three times, each application of pressure further reducing
the original weight of goor, and leaving the residue dryer and lighter colored.
A better kind of sugar is obtained by a process similar to claying, the goor
being placed in conical baskets over the base of which wet grass is laid.
The natives also display considerable skill in sugar refining by very simple
means, the raw sugar being melted in water brought to boiling-point in an
earthen pan over an open fire, filtered through a cotton cloth, and then boiled
briskly until the water has sufficiently evaporated to allow the formation of
crystals. Of the third principal kind of sugar-that derived from beet-rootwe know but little ill England, although in France and Belgium "it is a
very important and increasing article of commerce." The actual sugar is in
all respects identical with that made from cane-juice, the only difference
being in the greater variety and more persistent character of the impure
matters with which it is originally united. This fact has necessitated some
modifications of the manufacturing processes, but the principal on which
they are conducted is substantially the same as what has been here described.
2.-CULTIVATION OF THE TEA PLANT.
Many years ago successful efforts were made to introduce the cultivation
of the tea plant in South Carolina, and we published at the time the results
of those experiments. WVe find the subject revived in many of our South ern exchanges, and from one of them we take the following:
Mr. Jones, in giving his experience to the Southern Cultivator, published
at Athens, Ga., states that he has no doubt that the tea plant will grow and
flourish as well or even better (although an exotic) through the whole of the
States bordering the Atlantic and Gulf, from North Carolina to Texas, than it
does in China. We have soil of every variety-alluvial near the rivers and
sea-coast, with gradual ascending steppes to the mountains. All the lands
of Middle Georgia and the Carolinas which are now considered of little
value for corn or cotton, can be made available, and grow tea to great ad
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