The Chinese procure the dwarf orange trees, laden with fruit, by selecting a branch of a larger tree upon which there may be a good supply of fruit: the cuticle being detached from one part of the branch, is plastered over with a mixture of clay and straw, until roots are given out, when the branch is cut off, planted in a pot, and thus forms a dwarf tree laden with fruit. Other means are adopted to give the trunk and bark an appearance of age, and these, with the dwarf bamboos and other trees, must certainly be regarded as the principal Chinese vegetable curiosities. As far as gardening, or laying out a garden is concerned, these people possess any thing but the idea of beauty or true taste, neither being in the least degree attended to in the arrangement of their gardens; every thing bears the semblance of being stiff, awkward, and perfectly unnatural. To distort nature a Chinese seems to consider the attainment of perfection. At these gardens the different species and varieties of the tea shrub, both in seeds and young plants, can be procured. According to Chinese botany there exist many varieties as well as species of the tea shrub. The quality of the tea does not only depend upon the mode in which it is prepared, but also upon the soil where it is cultivated. They make a very minute distinction about the hills where the tea is grown, in the same manner as we do in regard to the vine. The Kwang Keun, fang pao, a work on Chinese botany, in forty volumes, treats largely upon the subject, and mentions every hill where good tea grows. Fokien province is the richest tea territory; but it grows more or less in all the provinces, except the northern ones. There are many species mentioned, which had never come under the notice of Europeans, and their flavour is highly extolled. The writer of this work largely expatiates upon the wonderful qualities possessed by some trees, with all the vanity of a Chinese. He treats upon the modes in which the tea shrub is cultivated, and the crop gathered; but he possesses too much learning to be a good botanist, and quotes continually verses and the sayings of the ancients to embellish the subject. There is certainly, in the whole, more learning than good sense. He also treats upon how the seed is to be sown, how the leaves of the tea shrub ought to be prepared, and in what manner the shrub is to be pruned in order that it should produce luxuriant foliage. He also enters upon minute details, how the tea leaf is to be plucked, and afterwards dried and packed. Though the subject is trivial, it would require some study to make this work intelligible to Europeans. The Rev. C. Gutzlaff, having looked over this botanical work in the Chinese language, favoured me with the above brief opinion on it.