ks are usually from 15 to 20 feet
above the level of the stream itself, not unlike those of the Ganges
below Benares. In fact, it has all the advantages of hilly land such
as the tea plant delights in. In extending the Himalaya plantation
this important fact ought to be kept in view.

There is no scarcity of such land in these mountains, more
particularly in Eastern Gurhwal and Kumaon. It abounds in the
districts of Paorie, Kunour, Lohba, Almorah, Kutoor, and Bheemtal,
and I was informed by Mr. Batten, that there are large tracts about
Gungoli and various other places equally suitable. Much of this land
is out of cultivation, as I have already stated, while the
cultivated portions yield on an average only two or three annas per
acre of revenue.

Such lands are of less value to the zemindars than low rice land,
where they can command a good supply of water for irrigation. But I
must not be understood to recommend poor worn out hill lands for tea
cultivation,--land on which nothing else will grow. Nothing is
further from my meaning. Tea in order to be profitable requires a
good sound soil,--a light loam, well mixed with sand and vegetable
matter, moderately moist, and yet not stagnant or sour. Such a soil,
for example, as on these hill sides produces good crops of mundooa,
wheat or millet, is well adapted for tea. It is such lands which I
have alluded to as abounding in the Himalayas, and which are, at
present, of so little value either to the Government, or to the
natives themselves.

_The system of Irrigation_ applied to tea in India is never
practised in China. I did not observe it practised in any of the
great tea countries which I visited. On asking the Chinese
manufacturers whom I brought round, and who had been born and
brought up in these districts, whether they had seen such a
practice, they all replied, "_no, that is the way we grow rice: we
never irrigate tea_." Indeed, I have no hesitation in saying that,
in nine cases out of ten, the effects of irrigation are most
injurious. When tea will not grow without irrigation, it is a sure
sign that the land employed is not suitable for such a crop. It is
no doubt an excellent thing to have a command of water in case of a
long drought, when its agency might be useful in saving a crop which
would otherwise fail, but irrig