dispose of their crops at a certain stipulated price. Thus the men who grow that tea which is a source of so much wealth to China, very rarely possess any capital at all themselves ; and like millions of their labouring fellow-countrymen, they can earn but a hard- won sustenance out of the luxury which they thus produce. At the proper season — that is usually in the beginning of April — the first picking of the leaves takes place. These leaves, when gathered, are partially dried in the sun, and then offered for sale in baskets, at a kind of fair, at which all the neighbourhood attends. The native buyers from the foreign ports — usually Cantonese — here enter upon a keen competition, and buy up as much as they can of the leaves. In the end the lots bought from a variety of these small farms are mixed together by the purchaser, and then subjected to the firing already described, up-country, in houses hired specially for that purpose.
Thousands of poor women and children are next employed in picking out stems and stalks; after which the leaves are winnowed, the cured portion is carried away, and the uncured left behind to be subjected again to the fire. When the firing process is completed, the tea is sifted, and separated into two or three different parcels, or "chops" as they are called, the quality of each parcel varying with the quantity prepared at a time. Thus the first and highest *' chops" consist of the small- est and best-twisted leaves; the second is somewhat inferior; while the third is made of the stalks, dust and siftings. This last, which is perfectly innocuous and wholesome, is used in this country to mix with better sorts of teas and thus to produce the cheap good teas of commerce.
These parcels or chops are next packed into chests of about 90 lbs., half-chests of 40 or 45 lbs., and boxes of 21 lbs.,
