Identifier: romanceofplantli1907elli (find matches)
Title: The romance of plant life, interesting descriptions of the strange and curious in the plant world
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Elliot, George Francis Scott
Subjects: Plants
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott
Contributing Library: The LuEsther T Mertz Library, the New York Botanical Garden
Digitizing Sponsor: The LuEsther T Mertz Library, the New York Botanical Garden

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ors and tobacco—Could we grow tobacco?—Story of a Sumatra cigar—Danger of young people smoking tobacco. ON every day throughout the year English peopledrink about 600,0001b. of tea. That is about 270tons, which would form, when made into the bever-age, a lake quite large enough to float a man-of-war! Noother civilized nation takes its tea in the reckless way thatwe do. Yet our fellow-subjects in Australia drink evenmore than ourselves. Almost the whole of this tea is grown in British coloniesOT possessions, manufactured by British subjects, and im-ported in British ships. The coolies who work in the tea-gardens of Assam andCeylon, the Englishman who manages them, the engineers inGlasgow and Newcastle who made the machinery, the ship-builders, shipowners, and crews, are all fellow-countrymen ofthose who drink the cup that cheers. Every sixpence in the£8,000,000, which is our yearly account for tea, finds itsway into the pockets of our fellow-subjects either at home orabroad. 120
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TEA Every one would suppose that a trade like this, whichbenefits everybody, would be very carefully fostered byGovernment. Far from it, for this is one of those articles that arealways being attacked by Chancellors of the Exchequer, whoseem to have a special ill will against tea. Indeed, it is so heavily taxed that it is extremely difficultto make a profit on tea-gardens. Elsewhere in this chaptersome other v^y curious facts will be found illustrating theextraordinary habits and methods of the British Govern-ment. The author does not try to explain these facts, but onlypoints them out; a nation that can manage to exist at allwhen such things are done by its Government is a nation towhich one is proud to belong. The Tea-plant is a native of China and Assam. It is avery handsome shrub resembling a camellia, with dark,glossy, green leaves and beautiful flowers. It is said to havebeen used in China about 2700 b.c, and the first plantationsin India were made with Chinese seed. But a Mr. B

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