(5) A system should be laid down for the future pruning and 

 treatment of every plot on a garden, only to be 

 departed from for very trenchant reasons 



In the consideration of the subject which follows one can only 

 be said to have just opened the matter. We are ludicrously ignorant 

 on almost every point on which I have touched, and were it not 

 for the results obtained by Mr. Bamber both here in India and also 

 more recently in Ceylon, it would almost be impossible to obtain 

 any independent testimony on any question relating to tea soils 

 which could be discussed. I have undoubtedly drawn illustrations, 

 especially in that part devoted to the physical properties of tea 

 soils, from results obtained both in England and America, but 

 this is entirely because such data are non-existent for India and 

 Indian conditions. The questions of the relation of soil to quality 

 are still practically untouched except for Mr. Bamber's Ceylon 

 results, and my view here reported, but altogether they form a 

 most inadequate commencement to the study of the most difficult 

 part of tea culture. Not until one can settle in the tea districts 

 in a position where one can daily watch the influence of various 

 conditions on the plants, conduct, experiments perhaps utterly 

 unpractical in appearance on the growth of the bushes under vary- 

 ing conditions, study the relationship of various conditions not 

 to quality as a whole, for this is a complex property, but to the 

 relative amount of various constituents in the leaf; not till then 

 will one be able to give out anything but more or less general 

 platitudes as to the relationship of cultural, soil, or manurial condi- 

 tions to quality of tea. 



Such an investigation or series of investigations is for the future. 

 In this report I have tried to indicate the present state of the ques- 

 tion ; the methods by which certain difficulties can be removed ; some 

 warnings against the probable results of continuing the use of 

 methods now in vogue ; some suggestions for making greater use of 

 materials at hand than is now done ; a discussion on the basis of Mr. 

 Bamber's results and my own of the relationship of the con- 

 stituents of soil to quality of tea and luxuriance of the tea 

 bush ; and finally a series of notes on the special needs, manurial 

 or otherwise, of each district, so far as I know it, in the 

 Brahmaputra Valley. A great* many of the results may be 



