But though Tea prices may, and we think will, improve, it is not likely we shall ever again see the rates obtainable formerly. This being so, it is probable that only those plantations in the future will pay that produce Tea cheaply. How is this to be done? Those gardens that are heavily weighted by unsuitable climates, by a bad class of plant, by slopes which are too steep, by inordinately expensive labour, or other causes, will have a hard time of it, but plantations with natural advantages need in no way despair. Though, as we said above, we cannot, in the matter of cheap labour, vie with China, we have a great advantage over the Flowery Land as regards economy of production in another respect. We allude to the use of machinery, which does much now, and will do more and more as each year passes, to reduce the cost of production. Machinery in the manufacture of Tea is, we believe, almost unknown in China. There each and every operation is performed by hand; here in India many now do, and eventually all will, wither, roll, fire, and sort by the help of machines. It says not a little for the enterprise and the inventive genius of the Anglo-Saxon race that, while in China the manufacture of Tea dates back many centuries, and yet all the Tea is still made by hand, we in India, who have only planted Tea some forty years, have invented machines and use them to-day for each and every operation in manufacture. It is but as yesterday that we imported Chinamen to teach us the _modus operandi_. We now know far more than they do on the subject, and verily the pupil has beaten his master.