73 



to his notice, and the necessary information request- 

 ed, his report would have been highly valuable. 

 But Mr. Fortune could not have done so, for, from 

 his own statements, it appeared, that he had never 

 visited a black tea factory; had never seen black tea 

 made in China; and that whatever knowledge he had 

 on the subject, was acquired on the Government 

 plantations in the Himalayas. This, however, was his 

 misfortune, and not his fault. The fact, nevertheless, 

 remains, and it is but just to those who have had 

 charge of the experiment in India, to announce it,* 

 that Mr. Fortune had not that practical experience 

 in tea cultivation, and tea manufacture, necessary 

 to render him a competent judge of the operations 

 he attempted to criticize, or a useful instructor in 

 an art he professed to, but certainly did not 

 understand. 



It may be asked then, why I have given such 

 prominence to the opinions and reports of a gentle- 

 man evidently not facile princtps in his subject. But I 

 have done so advisedly. Mr. Fortune's papers, though, 

 the last was written now six years ago, are the only 

 reports, from an independent source, we have on the 

 Himalayan tea districts of India. Though not a 

 practical tea planter, Mr. Fortune was a respecta- 

 ble botanist, a fair agriculturist, aud I believe an 

 excellent horticulturist. He had visited the finest 

 tea districts of China, and was fully competent to 

 [press an opinion on the suitability cf the soil 



