71 



ment of the plantations, and the future prospects 

 of tea cultivation in the Himalayas. 



Dr. Jameson replied to Mr. Fortune's strictures in 

 an able and very comprehensive paper in which he 

 very satisfactorily disposed of the objections raised.* 

 ' In the report under consideration ' said he, s a series ' 

 of suggestions have been made for the benefit of Over- 

 seers and Tea cultivators generally ; not one of which 

 is original, and had such suggestions been at all 

 called for they would have proved that I, as super- 

 intendent, was highly negligent of the duties in- 

 trusted to my charge.' And this position Dr. 

 Jameson most completely established, by simply 

 appending a transcript of the rules furnished by 

 him, some years before, for the guidance of his 

 Overseers, in which these very suggestions are 

 embodied, and which had been translated into the 

 vernaculars, and e extensively distributed, especially 

 in the Kangra Valley/ ' True it is' he continued 

 'that several of the Overseer* belonging to the 

 plantations have little or no experience, men who 

 formerly belonged, or still belong to the ranks of 

 the army; and as I cannot be present every where 

 over a tract of some twelve hundred miles in which 

 the different plantations are located, mistakes in 

 planting and gathering leaves do occasionally occur. 

 But I think, that with the raw materials I possess, 



* Selections from the Records of the Government of India 

 No. XXIII. 



