Main Importations


Dr. Jones in Liberty County, Georgia, on which neglected
tea plants were growing from shrubs set out by Jones about 1850.
 From a dense mass of plants growing there, Jackson set out a tea
garden of 160,000 plants occupying forty acres of ground. Samples
of tea were sent to tea distributors in the United States and
England. Jackson's experience therefore made him the logical
choice for the superintendency of the tea farm at Summerville.
As Le Duc explained:

 Acting under authority of Congress, I have selected, after a careful examination,
with the aid of Mr. Jackson's experience, a tract of land suitable for an experi-
mental farm on which the raising of tea on an extended scale will be carefully
and thoroughly tried. Of the result there can be no reasonable doubt. American
tea, grown and manufactured on our own soil by ourselves, is destined at no late
day to supply the demand of our own people and to enter the world's market in
favorable competition with that produced by any other country.

 New seeds were obtained by importations from Japan, India,
and China, but the shifting fortunes of individuals and programs
incident to American presidential elections brought a sudden
end to this venture.
 Commissioner Loring, the Massachusetts conservative, did not
share Le Duc's enthusiasm for tea. Believing that climatic con-
ditions were not favorable for tea growing, he directed William
Saunders to examine the Department's tea plantation at Summer-
ville. Saunders found that only fifteen acres of poor land had been
cleared for cultivation. The tea plants were not thrifty, and he
advised cutting the appropriation. Saunders concluded that good
quality teas could not be produced in the South. He pointed out
that a warm climate with much summer rainfall is needed to
produce a strong, well-flavored tea. Jackson's own plantation in
Georgia had not produced teas of sufficient strength. Work
was curtailed at Summerville. The Department distributed fewer
plants than in previous years and these were only to encourage
production for the growers' consumption at home. The tea farm
in South Carolina was closed in 1887. About the only results
were that some hundreds of households had come to grow their
own tea.
 RUSK RENEWS INTEREST IN TEA
 In spite of past results, the new Commissioner, Jeremiah M.
Rusk, revived the tea researches in 1889. Rusk believed the pre-
vious experiments with tea culture had been arrested before