7

TEA CULTURE

The fact that the Pinehurst Tea Gardens at Summerville are the only commercial producing tea gardens in all of America has attracted widespread attention. It is only within the last few years that the growing of high-grade teas for market purposes at home and abroad has been demonstrated beyond question, and to Dr. Chas. U. Shepard is due the credit of establishing the industry. Without his persistency failure would have undoubtedly resulted. As it is, his experiments have led to the launching of another tea-growing enterprise in this State and one in Texas.

It was over a century ago that the first tea plant was introduced into this country, being planted at Middleton Barony, on the Ashley River, about fifteen miles from Charleston. The bringing of the first plants is credited to the French botanist, Michaux. It was in 1848 that Junius Smith, a retired London business

man, who was seeking the quiet of the country, came to his estate near Greenville and began what Dr. Shepard terms his "path-breaking" experiments in tea culture. "The plants and the seeds with which Dr. Smith experimented were imported, and an article," says Mr. Geo. F. Mitchell, of the United States Bureau of Plant Industry, "appearing in The American Agriculturist in 1851, Dr. Smith tells of the excellent condition of his plants, adding that they had withstood a snow of eight or nine inches on January 3d of that year. Dr. Smith died in 1852, having previously made this announcement, 'I cannot help thinking that we have now demonstrated the adaptation of the tea plant to the soil and climate of this country, and succeeded in the permanent establishment within our own borders.'" Dr. Smith's plants being bereft of their guardian, died from lack of attention. About the year 1858 the Federal Government sent Robert

Fortune to Asia to select and obtain seeds suitable for planting in this country. He went to China, and in less than twelve months the Patent Office had distributed seed generally in the Southern and Gulf States. In many cases the tea plants did well, and home-made tea was being used in homes. There was no general development of the industry, however, notwithstanding the general adaptability of the plant to the climate had been demonstrated, because the important point of teaching the growers how to pluck and make the leaves into tea had been neglected. This obstacle has recently been overcome by the publication by the United States Department of Agriculture of Bulletin No. 30i on "Home Grown Tea," by Geo. F. Mitchell.

It was not until 1880 that Commissioner of Agriculture W. G. Le Duc employed John Jackson, who had fourteen years' experience as a tea planter in India, to conduct a series of experiments, designed to demonstrate the practicability of growing and manufacturing tea in the United States. The first experiments were conducted in Liberty County, Georgia, on a place where tea had been planted in 1850. This seemingly did not prove successful, however, and in the early eighties some 200 acres of land, near Summerville, belonging to Henry A Middleton, were leased for the purpose of prosecuting practical experiments, the Government placing a station there. The seed were imported from China, India and Japan, and was also collected from the few plants then surviving in

the United States that had been previously sent out by the Patent Office. At this station a small area was planted in tea, but before the plants had had a fair opportunity to gain headway Commissioner Le Duc was succeeded by Commissioner Loring, and the latter, because of the illness of Mr. Jackson and for other reasons, caused the station to be abandoned.

Shortly afterwards, the father of successful tea culture in the United States, Dr. Chas. U. Shepard, appeared upon the scene. In the spring of 1887 Dr. Shepard bought his "Pinehurst" estate near Summerville, S. C., and also obtained the right to experiment with the plants then surviving on the old Government Tea Farm. The nursery on this abandoned Government farm was full of plants, but no record of any description had been kept. Small quantities of tea were made in a very crude way from leaves picked from these plants and were pronounced by experts in New York and Baltimore as comparing favorably, if not

better than the best Chinese teas. The first big freeze, as Dr. Shepard expressed it, "I found had almost ruined me," as it killed all the plants to the ground, by splitting the bark on the main stem, but this proved to be a "blessing in disguise," because after the plants were "collar pruned" to the ground, they put forth numerous shoots from the roots that gave a much larger "bearing surface," and thus increased the yield of leaf. Dr. Shepard says that he went on with the work little by little, studying the plant carefully and working improvements all the time.

In 1896 Secretary of Agriculture Wilson interested himself in Dr. Shepard's experiments and paid a visit to Pinehurst. It was on this trip that Secretary Wilson made the remark quoted in the opening chapter of this volume. Secretary Wilson at once proceeded to help Dr. Shepard to get a supply of the Dragon's Pool seed, a variety of tea too costly for exportation from China. The Secretary of Agriculture sent Mr. Saunders to Pinehurst to carefully inspect the property and report whether the Government could consistently lend Dr. Shepard any aid. Mr. Sanders had previously made an adverse report on the tea experiments that had been abandoned by the Government, and, strange to say, they had been carried on on the adjoining farm. However, after seeing what Dr. Shepard was doing, he expressed himself as delighted, and made such a report that Secretary Wilson determined to coöperate with Dr. Shepard. Pine

hurst has been operated in this way for the last few years, at least one scientific assistant being detailed to the station. All rainfall and temperature records are kept regularly at the station, and Dr. Shepard has, after long experimentation, evolved valuable machinery for making the tea ready for the market. There are now 100 acres in tea at Pinehurst on lands that have been thoroughly underdrained. Dr. Shepard planted pecan-nut trees 40 feet apart in about 18 acres of his tea fields, with the idea of realizing a greater profit with the same amount of cultivation, but it reduced the yield of his tea to such an extent that the scheme had to be abandoned. The tea gardens at "Pinehurst" are planted in seedlings grown from seed imported from the best gardens in Japan, India, China and Ceylon; there are also a few plants grown from seed imported from the Island of Formosa; this variety is used to make the Formosa Oolong teas

that are so popular with the American people. In Formosa the piants are propagated from cuttings and layers, and the Federal Government is busy at present trying to secure layers to be planted in this country.

The production has now reached some 12,000 pounds of commercial tea annually, which is about one-half the capacity of the curing factory now in operation. Dr. Shepard says that he has been experimenting throughout for knowledge, and has not been so much after the making of money returns. He says that thousands of dollars have been expended in the effort to establish the Ceylonese type. The Japanese types have also proven costly. Dr. Shepard says that the thoroughly up-to-date tea garden gives equally as much trouble as a sugar beet plantation, it being necessary to have expert pickers, tea tasters, chemists, etc. He asserts that it is not advisable for anyone to go into tea culture for commercial purposes with less than $50,000 capital and several hundred acres of land well cleared and flat, fertile and so drained that there shall be no stagnant water. He says that if rice land is once made "sweet" there will be no necessity for the use of fertilizers. He says that the tea planter must be a man of good education and discrimination. It is necessary to reject many leaves that are picked. The Pinehurst tea retails from 80 cents to $1.00 per pound, and is sold direct to the retailers. There is a ready market for the entire output of the gardens, this market extending from Maine to Florida in the South, and to California in the West, where the purchasers paid 81⁄2 cents per pound freight on green tea in preference to paying 21⁄2 cents on imported Japanese. Shipments are now made regularly to Bremen and to Liverpool, and some shipments have been made to France. The Pinehurst teas are sold through regularly established agencies in Georgia, Virginia, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, Grand Rapids, and many other leading points in the country, and a number of the leading hotels in New York City keep it-particularly "American Breakfast Tea" on their menu cards.

One of the greatest difficulties that the development of the market has encountered has been in transportation, it being cheaper to ship tea from China to Chicago than from Summerville to Chicago.

Dr. Shepard has invented several machines for the manipulation and manufacture of tea, the two most important being a green tea "Sterilizer" and a machine for polishing the green teas without the use of chemicals, as are used in the East. This machine turns the dark, uncolored green tea to a beautiful greenish-gray, simply by the principle of attrition. This greenish-gray color is produced in the East by the addition of Prussian blue, turmine and soapstone. The "Pinehurst" teas are also compressed into small tablets by a machine that furnishes about 2,000 pounds of pressure. These tablets are made from dust ground from pure tea and are made without the addition of any glutinous substances, as are tea bricks in the Orient. They do not absorb atmospheric moisture or lose their strength or deteriorate by keeping. They are packed in boxes, twenty tablets to the box, and each tablet capable of making one cup of tea. Three boxes are sold for 25 cents, and the tablets are made in three varieties: the Oolong, "American Breakfast" and green.

It is confidently expected that the next year's production will reach 20,000 pounds. As a result of what Dr. Shepard has been successful in accomplishing, the American Tea Company has begun the establishment of a large tea garden in Colleton County, and elsewhere in the State tea plants are being grown for the purpose of home consumption. There are a few valuable plants of considerable age to be found at Columbia and at Gaffney. The cultivation of the tea plant could safely be risked where the temperature seldom falls below 24° F., and never goes below zero, and where the annual rainfall exceeds fifty inches, thirty inches or more of this precipitation occurring during the cropping season. The plants being of subtropical origin, need as much protection from the cold as possible; therefore, much better results can be obtained where the southern exposure, with an abundance of sunshine, is obtained. A well drained, friable and easily penetrable clay loam or sandy loam containing a large amount of organic matter is best adapted to the cultivation of the tea plant. In the fall this beautiful evergreen plant is covered with handsome, fragrant white flowers having a yellow center, making it a decidedly ornamental plant.

The crop of an average tea plant is about three ounces of the cured tea during the picking season, so that 100 plants will yield about eighteen pounds a year. As a pound makes from 350 to 400 cups of tea, fifty plants should furnish a cup of tea apiece to a family of nine every day in the year.

Nearly one acre of tea is grown under "shelter." This tea is very rich in theine, the stimulating principle, and very low in tounin, the deleterious constituent, and is the kind used by the Mikado of Japan and his Imperial Court. It is very high in sugar and is known in Japan as "sugar tea."

It is almost needless to attempt to give a sketch of the history of tobacco in South Carolina, for tobacco was here with the Indians when the country was discovered, and it has always been an item to be reckoned with in South Carolina agriculture. It was never during the early days, however, as in Maryland and Virginia, a legal tender. Tobacco culture in South Carolina has always been confined to the 62°-64° isothermic zone, in any portion of which the plant grows well, but it is at its best in this zone in the counties in which the annual rainfall is about 50 inches. In other words, what is commonly known as the Pee Dee section of the State is the home of tobacco. The figures herewith only deal with the crop of today and of recent years, because as a crop of real value it is recent. The industry has had a varied experience, the causes of which need not be discussed. It suffices to say that the crop of 1907 is the record crop, and that it is selling at a record price. The figures given tell their own story, the acreage being increased whenever the market warrants it.

In Florence, Darlington, Mullins, Marion and Timmonsville there are tobacco warehouses and manufacturing plants, and the industry means much to the Pee Dee country.

In ante-bellum days, and farther back, tobacco was rather extensively cultivated in South Carolina. In Mills's Statistics and in Ramsay's History important details are given concerning this industry. During the past 25 years new impetus has been given to the crop, which is now one of the most important factors in the industrial development of South Carolina.

The present principal tobacco growing counties are Florence, Darlington, Marion, Williamsburg, Sumter, Horry and Clarendon. Florence, Timmonsville, Mullins and Darlington are the leading home tobacco markets in South Carolina. Each of these markets sells annually leaf tobacco by the million pounds, and with three or four leaf warehouses each, they constitute the acknowledged center of the South Carolina home leaf tobacco markets. Since the establishment of these home markets the greatest changes have been wrought in the towns referred to, changes of the utmost importance and which involve the upbuilding of towns and communities.

The four towns referred to-Timmonsville, Florence, Mullins and Darlingtonare the leading home markets which have done most in establishing the record South Carolina has made in tobacco culture. In these centers were the first efforts made; here was where the great preliminary difficulties were successively met and mastered. The business men and planters spent time, money, work and persistent efforts in the endeavor to permanently establish this industry.

The South Carolina tobacco crop is now of such permanent and recognized value that official action in furtherance of its development has been taken by the United States Department of Agriculture. In the appropriation of 1902, Congress made provision for extensive experiments in tobacco culture and curing in South Carolina. Two experts were sent to examine the soil, and a farm was selected at Hartsville in Darlington County as the site for official experiments to be made by the Department of Agriculture. An abstract from the report made to Secre