In northern India the plucking season begins in April.
He threw one long leg across the other and glanced around, absently plucking a package of cigarettes from his shirt pocket.
The plucking is done by women and children, and is now practically the only part of the work where the tea is touched by hand.
The herb rue is potent against them, as in British folk-lore, and a man long captive among the Jan escaped from them by observing their avoidance of rue, and by plucking two handfuls thereof.
To take more than this would he considered coarse and less would be fine plucking.