is proof that it will do them no great harm, and they may be sure that they will not be deceived by a colored article; Neither the Chinese nor Japanese use milk or sugar in their tea, and the peculiar taste and aroma of the infusion is much better perceived without those additions; nor can it be drunk so strong without tasting an unpleasant bitterness, which the milk partly hides.  The Japanese sometimes reduce the leaves to a powder, and pour boiling water through them in a cullender, in the same way that coffee is often made.”

The following valuable details as to the cultivation and manufacture of tea in British India, are from interesting reports by Dr. Jameson, Superintendent of the Company’s Botanical Gardens in the North West Provinces, published in 1847 in the Journal of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of Calcutta;—­and from Mr. Robert Fortune’s report to the Hon. East India Company:—­

The quantity manufactured.—­The quantity of tea manufactured from five plantations, of 89 acres in all, amounted in 1845 to 610 lb. 2 oz., and in 1846, on 115 acres, to l,023 lb. ll oz.  The small nursery of Lutchmisser, consisting of three acres of land, gave a return in 1845 of 216 lb., or 2 maunds and 56 pounds; in 1846 the return was 272 lbs., or 3 maunds and 32 pounds.

The small plantation of Kuppeena, established in 1841-2, and then consisting of three acres (but increased in 1844 to four), yielded in 1845, 1 maund and 56 pounds, and in 1846, 2 maunds and 56 pounds.  Thus we have received from a plantation of only five years’ formation, and of four acres (one of these recently added), upwards of 21/2 maunds of tea, and from another, Lutchmisser, of three acres, which was established in 1835-6, 3 maunds and 30 pounds, equal to 272 pounds.  I have, in a former report, asserted that the minimum return of tea for an acre of land may be estimated at 1 pucka maund, or 80 lb.  The only plantations that I can as yet bring forward in favour of my assertion, are the two above-mentioned:  Kuppeena has not yielded the proportion mentioned, but it was only established in 1841-42, and the tea-plants do not come into full bearing until the eighth year; on the other hand, Lutchmisser has given more than the average return.  I think, therefore, that the returns already yielded are highly favorable, and that though the data are small, they are very satisfactory.

Soil best adapted for the tea-plant.—­The soil in which the tea-plant is now thriving in the Himalayas and in the valley of Deyrah Dhoon, varies exceedingly.  At Bhurtpoor and Russiah it is of a light silico-aluminous nature, and abounding with small pieces of clay slate, which is the subjacent rock, and trap (green-stone), which occurs in large dykes, cutting through and altering the strata of clay slate; mixed with the stony soil, there is a small quantity of vegetable matter.  The clay slate is metamorphic, being almost entirely