The mountain range, which runs through the centre of the island, is the most productive, because the tea gardens, extending from near the base, high up the mountains, reach an atmosphere tempered by elevation.  The plant escapes the scorching heats of the torrid zone, and finds a climate, by height rather than by latitude, adapted to its nature.  But the plant is not confined to lofty ridges.  In the plains, the hedges and fences, if one may so call them, are all planted with the tea shrub, which flourish in greater or less perfection throughout the island.  But, as has already been intimated, the equatorial latitudes are not the most auspicious for the vigorous growth of a plant that requires a temperature equally removed from the extremes of heat and cold, and the quality of the tea is as much affected by the climate as the growth of the plant.  A considerable quantity of tea is annually shipped from Java to Europe; but the extension of the cultivation is no doubt checked by the exceeding fertility of the soil, and its adaptation to the growth of the rich products of tropical regions.

Mr. Jacobson, inspector of tea culture in Java, has published at Batavia a work in three volumes, upon the mode of cultivating this plant, upon the choice of grounds, and the best processes for the preparation and manipulation of the leaves.  This book, the fruit of many years of experience and care given to the subject, has been well received by the cultivators who devote themselves to this branch of industry.  If, by means of careful experiments and experience, the government succeed in conferring on the island of Java this important branch of commerce, she may hope to obtain brilliant results; at all events, it will open to the country a new source of prosperity and riches.

An interesting account of the tea plants, and the manufacture of tea, will be found in Fortune’s “Wanderings in China,” in Ball’s “Account of the Cultivation and Manufacture of Tea,” Boyle’s “Illustrations of Himalayan Botany,” and his “Productive Resources of India.”

From Fortune’s “Travels” I take the following extract:—­

“There are few subjects connected with the vegetable kingdom which have attracted such a large share of public notice as the tea-plant of China.  Its cultivation on the Chinese hills, the particular species of variety which produces the black and green teas of commerce, and the method of preparing the leaves, have always been objects of peculiar interest.  The jealousy of the Chinese government in former times, prevented foreigners from visiting any of the districts where tea is cultivated; and the information derived from the Chinese merchants, even scanty as it was, was not to be depended upon.  And hence we find our English authors contradicting each other; some asserting that the black and green teas are produced by the same variety, and that the difference in colour is the result of a different mode of preparation;