Not that it could be maintained that one class of soil and one 

 alone is satisfactory. Far from it. The tea plant has a marvellous 

 faculty of adapting itself to conditions within certain limits. Rut 

 even in these limits great care has to be taken to adapt the type or 

 ja"t of plant, and the culture of the crop to the soil conditions. 

 For instance it would only be to court failure to attempt to plant 

 one of the delicate jats of Upper Assam on a Cachar or Sylhet 

 bheel or even on the heavier and more difficult soils of some of 

 the lower districts of the Brahmaputra Valley itself. Then again 

 the amount and kind of culture given in the extremely sandy soils 

 of some parts of Jorhat magnificently suitable as they are for 

 tea would be totally inadequate if applied to the stiffer soils 

 of Nowgong or even of the Tezpur bank ; and would again be 

 far too great under the peculiar root conformation found in tea 

 grown in peat land. 



MY INVESTIGATIONS. 



My own investigations into the subject of this report have 

 been conducted during two tours in the Assam Valley, one of 

 which lasted from May 28 to July 3, 1900, and the second from 

 November 3 ; 1900 to January 19, 1901, the latter being especially 

 devoted to the investigation of the soils. From the end of January 

 to the end of July 1901 (excluding June when my time was other- 

 wise engaged in Assam), I have been occupied with an attempt to 

 work up some of the large amount of material collected during 

 this tour, but after all the results here presented only give the 

 more obvious part of an extremely, complicated and difficult sub- 

 ject. For reference purposes it will be well to put on record the 

 course of my second tour, which was as follows : 



(1) Mangaldai District November 4 and 5, Hhutia Chang; 

 November 6, Orangajuli ; November 7, Hattigor ; November 8, 

 Singramari. 



(2) Tezpuv District November 10 and n, Bindukuri and 

 surrounding gardens ; November 12, Hathibari and Nahor Rani; 

 November 13, Addabari ; November 14 and 15, Sonajuli. 



(3) Bishnath District November 17 and 18, Majulighur ; Nov- 

 ember 19, Pertabgurh and Dikorai ; November 20, Mijikajhan. 



