article of commerce.

In the interim, the month of December proving excessively hot and
rainy, so as to forbid any distant excursions, I turned my attention
to the important object of procuring _tea plants_ in number and
state fit for exportation; and, observing that almost all the shrubs
I saw were too large for this purpose, I applied to M. de Brandao
for his help and advice. This gentleman, in the most courteous
manner, offered me either seeds or slips from his own tea shrubs.
The striking of the latter was, he owned, a hazardous and uncertain
affair, though it had the probable advantage of securing a finer
kind of plant than could with certainty be raised from seed. I,
however, began by asking him for newly gathered seeds, in order to
set them in my little nursery garden at Santa Theresa, and he
obligingly gave me a thousand of the seeds, perfectly ripe and
sound, which is easily known by the purplish-brown color of their
integument. M. Houlet immediately set about preparing the soil in
which to plant these seeds, and the earth being excessively
argillaceous and hard, much digging, manuring, and dressing were
needful; in a word, we neglected no precautions which could
contribute to the growth of our seeds. In the interim I allowed not
a single dry day to elapse without visiting the country house near
Rio, in all of which I saw something more or less interesting,
either in the culture of tea, or other vegetable productions of
commercial value.

* * * * *

I detected, growing not unfrequently in the environs of Rio, the
_Ilex Paraguayensis_ of M. Auguste de St. Hilaire, perfectly
identical with the tree which the Jesuits planted in the missions of
Paraguay, and whose foliage is an article of great importance
throughout Spanish America, and vended under the name of _Paraguay
Tea_. A living plant of this shrub was brought home by me, and
placed in the Royal Garden at Paris, as well as a species of
Vanilla, and many other rare and interesting plants. I also made a
valuable collection of woods employed for dyeing, building, and
cabinet work, with samples of their flowers, fruits, and leaves, to
facilitate botanical determination.

Early in January, 1839, M. Houlet began anew sowing tea, not only in
the open ground in our little garden, but