High class plants do not give much seed, a plantation therefore with much on it should be avoided in purchasing seed.
The Tea flower (the germ of next year’s seed) appears in the autumn, and the seed is ripe at the end of the following October or early November.
Seed is ripe when the capsule becomes brown, and when breaking the latter the inner brown covering of the seed adheres to the seed and _not_ to the capsule.
One capsule contains 1, 2, 3, and sometimes even 4 seeds.
Though the mass ripens at the end of October, some ripen earlier; the capsule splits and the seed falls on the ground. If, therefore, all the seed from a garden is required, it is well to send round boys all October to pick up such seeds.
When the seed is picked at the end of October or early November the mass is still in capsules. It should be laid in the sun for half an hour daily for two or three days until most of the capsules have split. It is then shelled, and the clean seed laid on the floor of any building where it will remain dry. Sunning it _after_ shelling is objectionable.
The sooner it is sown after it is shelled the better.
If for any reason it is necessary to keep it, say a fortnight or three weeks before sowing, it is best kept _towards_ germinating in layers covered with dry mould. But if to be kept longer leave it on the dry floor as above, taking care it is thinly spread (not more than one seed thick if you have space) and collected together, and re-spread every day to turn it.
For transport to a distance it should be placed in coarse gunny bags only one-third filled. If these are shaken and turned daily during transit a journey of a week will not very materially injure the seed.
For any long journey it is best placed in layers in boxes with thoroughly dry and fine charcoal between the layers, and sheets of paper here and there to prevent the charcoal running to the bottom.
It is scarcely necessary to consider how Tea seed can be utilized when not saleable, for seed prevents leaf, and therefore it should not be grown if there is no market for it. It will, however, make oil, but the price it would fetch for this purpose would not compensate for the diminished yield of leaf it had caused. It is also valuable as manure mixed with cattle-dung, but it would not pay to grow it for this purpose either.