According to Mr. Jameson, the season for picking the leaves commences in April and continues until October, the number of gatherings varying, according to the nature of the season, from four to seven. So soon as the new and young leaves have appeared in April, the first plucking takes place. “A certain division of the plantation is marked off, and to each man a small basket is given, with instructions to proceed to a certain point, so that no plant may be passed over. On the small basket being filled, the leaves are emptied into another large one, which is put in some shady place, and in which, when filled, they are conveyed to the manufactory. The leaves are generally plucked with the thumb and forefinger. Sometimes the terminal part, of a branch having four or five young leaves attached, is plucked off.” The old leaves, being too hard to curl, are rejected as of no use; but all new and fresh leaves are indiscriminately collected. The _manufacture_ of the different varieties of tea has been the subject of much difference of opinion. It has been supposed by some writers, as we have already mentioned, that _green_ tea was solely obtained from the Thea viridis, and _black_ tea from the Thea bohea, while others have asserted, that the different kinds of the manufactured article are equally produced by both plants. Facts seem now to be quite in favor of the latter opinion, and, indeed, Mr. Fortune, while on his first botanical mission on account of the Horticultural Society of London, ascertained, by visiting the different parts of the coast of China, that the _Bohea_ plant was converted into both black and green tea in the south of China, but that in all the northern provinces he found only _Thea viridis_ grown, and equally converted into both kinds of tea. Mr. Ball (the late inspector of teas to the East India Company in China), in a work entitled “An Account of the Cultivation and Manufacture of Tea in China,” fully confirms the fact that both the green and black teas are prepared from the same plant, and that the differences depend entirely on the processes of manufacture. It is, of course, possible that particular varieties of the same plant, grown in certain soils and situations, may be preferred by the Chinese manufacturers for the preparation of the black and green teas, and the various kinds of both known in commerce. It has been stated by some that the _young leaves_ are taken for green tea, and the older ones for the black varieties; this is the popular notion on the subject, but probably it has no foundation.