Half century ago, Mr. Fortune estimated that in China the small grower realized for a common Congo tea, about four cents a pound, but that boxing, transportation to the coast, export duty, etc., brought the cost in Canton to about ten cents a pound. Fine teas then paid the grower, say, eight cents a pound, but the English merchants in Shanghai paid thirty cents for the same teas. Dr. Charles U. Shepard of the Pinehurst tea plantation at Summerville, S.C., recently stated that Chinese bushes are said to produce 2 ounces of dried tea per bush; those of Japan, 1 ounce per bush or less; those of India and Ceylon averaging 3 to 4 ounces, and on high ground, 2 to 3 ounces; while Dr. Shepard has gathered from his own plantation, from acclimatized Assam crosses, 3 ounces per bush, and from Chinese plants, 4 to 5 ounces. His Japan plants yielded but 1/2 ounce of tea. Picking tea on the level lands of India and Ceylon is very light work, and women and children are almost exclusively employed. Mr. David Crole, writing in the serious and practical vein of a scientific expert, is moved to a poetic sense of the scene when he speaks of the return of Indian tea pickers from their work at evening:-- "A long line of women with their gay clothes of various hues, lit up by the expiring gleams of the setting sum, winding their way along the garden paths, like some monster snake, with scales of many colors; their gait perfect, undulating, and undisturbed by the baskets poised gracefully on their heads; singing some quaint refrain in the usual minor key, or making the air gay with their chatter and laughter; which, if far distant, strikes the ear pleasantly as a faint and indistinct hum." The tea plant undoubtedly reaches its highest perfection as a member of the vegetable kingdom, in India and Ceylon, in a climate of extreme heat and extreme rainfall and moisture, and in a very rich soil; and the remark is often heard from Indian planters that "tea and malarious fevers flourish together." Experience has shown however that the tea plant possesses a wonderful power of accomodation to adverse conditions. In China and in the United states, it has been taught to put up with a comparatively sterile soil, dry mountain air, at heights in China reaching 6,000 feet above sea level, and occasional temperatures as low as 12 to 10 degrees Fahr., in the midst of recurrent ice and snow. The story of tea in Japan alone calls for more space than this entire book could furnish, and there is an ample field for a treatise upon the cultivation, preparation, and social importance of tea in that strikingly interesting land. Nearly one half of the tea consumed in the United states comes from Japan, our imports of Japan tea being about 44,000 pounds during last year. Although tea has been grown in that country for more than siz centuries only about forty years.