"Considering the enormous labor of preparing tea, it is surprising that even the poorest kind can be afforded to the foreign purchaser at Canton, more than a thousand miles from the place of its growth, for 9d. and less a pound; and in their ability to furnish it at this rate, the Chinese have a security of retaining the trade in their hands, notwithstanding the efforts to grow the plant elsewhere. Comparatively little adulteration is practised, if the amount used at home and abroad be considered, though the temptation is great, as the infusion of other plants is drunk instead of the true tea. The poorer natives substitute the leaves of a species of Rhamnus or Fallopia, which they dry; Camellia leaves are perhaps mixed up with it, but probably to no great extent. The refuse of packing-houses is sold to the poor at a low rate, under the name of tea endings and tea bones; and if a few of the rarest sorts do not go abroad, neither do the poorest. It is a necessary of life to all classes of Chinese, and that its use is not injurious is abundantly evident from its general acceptance and extending adoption; and the prejudice against it among some out of China may be attributed chiefly to the use of strong green tea, which is no doubt prejudicial. If those who have given it up on this account will adopt a weaker infusion of black tea, general experience is proof that it will do them no great harm, and they may be sure that they will not be deceived by a colored article; Neither the Chinese nor Japanese use milk or sugar in their tea, and the peculiar taste and aroma of the infusion is much better perceived without those additions; nor can it be drunk so strong without tasting an unpleasant bitterness, which the milk partly hides. The Japanese sometimes reduce the leaves to a powder, and pour boiling water through them in a cullender, in the same way that coffee is often made." The following valuable details as to the cultivation and manufacture of tea in British India, are from interesting reports by Dr. Jameson, Superintendent of the Company's Botanical Gardens in the North West Provinces, published in 1847 in the Journal of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of Calcutta;--and from Mr. Robert Fortune's report to the Hon. East India Company:-- _The quantity manufactured_.--The quantity of tea manufactured from five plantations, of 89 acres in all, amounted in 1845 to 610 lb. 2 oz., and in 1846, on 115 acres, to l,023 lb. ll oz. The small nursery of Lutchmisser, consisting of three acres of land, gave a return in 1845 of 216 lb., or 2 maunds and 56 pounds; in 1846 the return was 272 lbs., or 3 maunds and 32 pounds.