With regard to climatic essentials the plant endures a tropical temperature well, at the same time accommodating itself to the cold of winter without injury. But when cultivated for commercial uses in such latitudes the seasons are found too short for its profitable production there, and while it is successfully grown at zero cold in some districts, it is nevertheless most lucratively cultivated in climates where the thermometer rarely falls more than six degrees below the freezing point. The climate varies to a considerable extent in the different districts of China where tea is grown, being excessively warm in the southern, and intensely cold in the northern provinces, snow being on the ground for days together in the latter or green tea producing districts. And though it has been proved by experiment that this variety will bear a greater degree of cold than the black, considerable snow falls annually in the province of Fo-kien, where Black teas are grown. The most important climatic consideration, however, is the amount of rain-fall, a dry climate being altogether unfit for tea cultivation; a hot, moist or damp one being proved the best. The rain-fall in the most profitable tea districts ranges from 80 to 100 inches per annum, the more falling in the spring months the better, and that too must be equally diffused. But where irrigation can be systematically introduced, this is of less importance. PLANTING AND PICKING. Tea is invariably raised from seed, in China, collected in the fall after the last crop has been gathered and placed in sand to keep them fresh during the winter months, and sown the following spring in nurseries. In sowing the seed from six to eight are put in pots about an inch below the surface, usually four feet apart, and covered with rice-husks or parched earth. In growing, many of the seeds prove abortive, scarcely one in five germinating. When the nurslings have attained a height of from four to six inches they are transplanted to the beds of the gardens in which they are to grow four to five feet apart. The plants are never manured in China, nor does it appear to be customary to prepare the ground for their reception, it being claimed by many authorities that manure, while it increases the yield, invariably spoils the flavor of the tea. Chinese growers in general asserting that teas produced without the aid of manure are always the most fragrant and aromatic.