In cultivating the tea shrub, much injury is often done to a plantation by _plucking leaves from very young plants_. In China young plants are never touched until the third or fourth year after they have been planted. If growing under favorable circumstances, they will yield a good crop after that time. All that ought to be done, in the way of plucking or pruning before that time, should be done with a view to _form the plants_, and make them _bushy_ if they do not grow so naturally. If plucking is commenced too early and continued, the energies of the plants are weakened, and they are long in attaining any size, and consequently there is a great loss of produce in a given number of years. To make this more plain, I will suppose a bush that has been properly treated to be eight years of age. It may then be yielding from two to three pounds of tea per annum, while another of the same age, but not a quarter of the size, from over-plucking, is not giving more than as many ounces. The same remarks apply also to plants which become unhealthy from any cause; leaves ought never to be taken from such plants; the gatherers should have strict orders to pass them over until they get again into a _good state_ of health. 2_nd. On climate_.--I have already stated that eastern Gurhwal and Kumaon appear to me to be the most suitable for the cultivation of the tea plant in this part of the Himalayas. My remarks upon climate will therefore refer to this part of the country. From a table of temperature kept at Hawulbaugh from November 28th, 1850, to July 13th, 1851, obligingly furnished me by Dr. Jameson, I observed that the climate here is extremely mild. During the winter months, the thermometer [Fahr.] at sunrise was never lower than 44 deg., and only on two occasions so low, namely on the 15th and 16th of February, 1851. Once it stood so high as 66 deg. on the morning of February 4th, but this is full ten degrees higher than usual. The minimum in February must, however, be several degrees lower than is shown by this table, for ice and snow were not unfrequent; indeed, opposite the 16th of February in the column of remarks, I find written down _a very frosty morning_. This discrepancy no doubt arises either from a bad thermometer being used, or from its being placed in a sheltered verandah. We may, therefore, safely mark the minimum as 32 deg. instead of 44 degrees. The month of June appears to be the hottest in the year. I observe the thermometer on the 5th, 6th and 7th of that month stood at 92 deg. at 3 P.M., and this was the highest degree marked during the year. The lowest, at this hour, during the month was 76 deg., but the general range in the 3 P.M. column of the table is from 80 deg. to 90 degrees.