16 



logical, and other details, considered necessary a 

 preliminary to the successful commencement of 

 operations. 



Now it is undeniable that, at first, there was a 

 very strong prejudice against Assam, as a tea grow- 

 ing country, a prejudice arising, as very many 

 other prejudices have done before, entirely, from 

 defective information. One error, for example, which 

 almost proved fatal to the success of tea in Assam, 

 was the supposition that tea was a cold loving plant, 

 or to use the words of the Tea Committee in their 

 instructions to those appointed to select sites for 

 nurseries, ' that a decided winter climate of six 

 weeks or two months ' duration, with frost as well 

 as snow, is essential to ensure final success with 

 really good sorts of tea.' I do not know on what 

 grounds this idea was originally based, but it was, 

 no doubt extensively propagated by the reports of 

 Dr. Abel, the botanist who accompanied Lord 

 Ahmerst's expedition to Chinn. It so happened, 

 unfortunately, that Dr. Abel was so ill almost the 

 whole time he was in China, as hardly to be able 

 to leave his boats ; and his reports were based, 

 mainly, on the information he received from those 

 who were with him. He could not then be said 

 to be an eye witness of what he described, and 

 his conclusions were not properly deserving of the 

 confidence that, under other circumstances, they 

 would have been entitled to* But the public, are 



