The exact amounts obtained for the Company’s teas in the five years, ending with 1851, will be seen from the following figures:—­

   Net produce, lbs.  Average price.  L
  1847 144,164 at per lb. ls. 7-1/16d. 11,513
  1848 182,953 " ls. 81/4d. 15,436
  1849 216,000 " ls. 91/2d. 19,350
  1850 253,427 " ls. 6-1/8d. 18,153
  1851 271,427 " ls. 81/2d. 22,152
  1852 esmtd. 280,000

This exhibits a progressive increase in the aggregate value of the Company’s produce, and this has been effected, it is stated, without any sensible increase of the current expenditure.  It exhibits also a rise in the value of the tea (157,942 lbs. having been sold at the high average price of 1s. 111/4d.), a fact strongly indicative of its increasing excellence.  The details of the crop of the season of 1849 showed a net produce of 237,000 lbs. of tea; so that the Company are increasing their cultivation to the extent of nearly ten per cent, per annum, and the increase will doubtless proceed with greater rapidity, whenever the increase of capital enables the directors to extend their operations.

In a report submitted to the Directors, by Mr. Burkinyoung, the managing director in Calcutta last year, he thus speaks of the Company’s field of operations and future prospects:—­

“The box-making is especially worthy of notice for its effective organisation and economical arrangement; the work is performed chiefly by Assamese boys instructed at the factory:  the number of boxes required for the year’s consumption will not be short of four thousand, the whole of which will be made at the factory,—­an achievement that cannot be too highly estimated in a country so destitute of mechanical labor.

Notwithstanding the high standard of quality and strength to which our teas have already attained, I am of opinion that, as experience advances, and our knowledge and system of plucking and manufacturing the crops become improved, and better organised, a higher standard of quality and value may yet be realised; in this opinion the superintendent concurs with me, and the attainment of this object is one to which his attention’s prominently directed.

In the course of my enquiries and trials of different samples of tea in Assam, my attention was directed to one description of black tea, of rough strong flavor, made by a quicker process than that ordinarily used in the manufacture of black tea:  under this mode of manipulation, a quality of tea is produced sufficiently distinctive in its flavor and appearance to render it worthy of attention and trial, and I think, when perfected in the process of manufacture, calculated to come into popular estimation.  Samples of this tea the superintendent will forward to the board for trial.

In conducting the operations in Assam,