mportance, are, as regards extent and quality of soil,
equally eligible as bases of extension.

The prospects of the future, I entertain no doubt, will keep pace
with the satisfactory results that have hitherto been realised,
looking to the sound organisation that now exists in our
establishment at Assam, an organisation that has already taken
healthy root, and must in its growth gain strength and permanence. I
think we may safely calculate, after the current year, upon an
annual increase in our production of 40,000 lbs. of tea, until a
larger system of operations can be matured, of which the basis is
already laid down, in the new lands cleared and sown during the past
cold season, averaging 225 to 250 poorahs; and this extended basis
will be doubtless followed up by annual extensions of similar, if
not larger, area. The concern is now taking a position which will
place it on a scale of working commensurate with the objects
entertained upon the first incorporation of the company, the profits
now likely to be realised being adequate to all the outlay
necessary."

The prices in the last two years in London have been fully maintained
at 1s. 3d. to 4s. 4d., according to sorts. Of Assam tea, the sales in
the London market in 1851 amounted to 2,200 packages, against 1,900
packages in 1850, and all were freely taken (on account of their great
strength) at very full prices. Seventy-six packages of Kumaon tea,
both black and green, grown by the East India Company, in the
Himalayas, as an experiment, were also brought to sale. They were teas
of high quality; but being of the light flavored class, and not duly
esteemed in this market, they realised only about their relative value
as compared with China teas of similar grade. The Souchong and
Pouchong sold at 1s. 11/4d. to 1s. 31/2d.; the Hyson, Imperial, and
Gunpowder realised 1s. 73/4d. to 2s. 61/2d.

Mr. Robert Fortune, who, in the service of the Horticultural Society
of London, gave such satisfaction by his botanical researches in
China, was, on his return to England, in 1848, engaged by the
Directors of the East India Company to proceed again to the Celestial
Empire, and procure and transmit to India such a quantity and variety
of the tea plant, that its cultivation in the north-western provinces
would be a matter of mere manual labor. Having penetrated about 300
miles into the interior, he left Hong Kong i