over the hills towards Nainee Tal, with J.H.  Batten, Esq., Commissioner of Kumaon, I pointed out many tracts admirably adapted for tea cultivation, and of no great value to the natives; generally, those lands on which the mundoca is cultivated are the most suitable.

I have thus described all the Government plantations in Gurhwal and Kumaon.  Dr. Jameson, the superintendent, deserves the highest praise for the energy and perseverance with which he has conducted his operations.  I shall now notice the plantations of the zemindars, under the superintendence of the commissioner and assistant-commissioner of Kumaon and Gurhwal.

    ZEMINDAREE TEA PLANTATIONS.

1_st, at Lohba_.—­This place is situated in eastern Gurhwal, about 50 miles to the westward of Almorah, and is at an elevation of 5,000 feet above the level of the sea.  It is one of the most beautiful spots in this part of the Himalayas.  The surrounding mountains are high, and in some parts precipitous, while in others they are found consisting of gentle slopes and undulations.  On these undulating slopes, there is a great deal of excellent land suitable for tea cultivation.  A few tea bushes have been growing vigorously for some years in the commissioner’s garden, and they are now fully ten feet in height.  These plants having succeeded so well, naturally induced the authorities of the province to try this cultivation upon a more extensive scale.  It appears that in 1844, about 4,000 young plants were obtained from the Government plantations, and planted on a tract of excellent land, which the natives wished to abandon.  Instead of allowing the people to throw up their land, they were promised it rent-free upon the condition that they attended to the cultivation of the tea, which had been planted on a small portion of the ground attached to the village.

This arrangement seems to have failed either from want of knowledge, or from design, or perhaps partly from both of these causes.  More lately, a larger number of plants have been planted, but I regret to say with nearly the same results.

But results of this discouraging kind are what any one, acquainted with the nature of the tea plant, could have easily foretold, had the treatment, intended to be given it, been explained to him.  Upon enquiry, I found the villagers had been managing the tea lands just as they had been doing their rice fields, that is, a regular system of irrigation was practised.  As water was plentiful, a great number, indeed nearly all, the plants seem to have perished from this cause.  The last planting alluded to had been done late in the spring, and just at the commencement of the dry weather, and to these plants little or no water seems to have been given; so that, in fact, it was going from one extreme to another equally bad, and the result was of course nearly the same.

I have no hesitation in saying that