Of course in the wet season on such land the water must be allowed to resume its natural course. Narrow valleys are not worth planting. No narrow tracts of land, with jungle on both sides, are worth the expense of cultivation, for the continual encroachment of the jungle gives much extra work. The plants, moreover, in very narrow valleys get half-buried with soil washed down from the adjacent slopes. Narrow valleys are therefore, in any case, better avoided. To conclude shortly, flat lands can be highly cultivated, steep slopes cannot. Tea pays best (perhaps not at all otherwise) with high cultivation--_ergo_, flat lands are preferable. FOOTNOTE: [14] I am now commencing a second garden in the Western Dooars on flat table land, and the site is an exceptionally favourable one. CHAPTER VIII. LAYING OUT A GARDEN. By this I mean, so dividing it when first made into parts, that later the said parts shall be easily recognised, and separately or differently treated, as they may require it. The usual custom is to begin at one end of a plantation, and dig it right through to the other. In the same way with the pruning and plucking, and I believe the system is a very bad one. Different portions of gardens require different treatment, inasmuch as they differ in soil, and otherwise. One part of a plantation is much more prolific of weeds than another--how absurd that it should be cleaned no oftener! This is only one exemplification of difference of treatment, but in many ways it is necessary, most of all in plucking leaf. All parts of a plantation, owing in some places to the different ages of the plants, in others to the variety in the soil and its productive powers, in others to slopes or to aspect, do not yield leaf equally, that is, flush does not follow flush with equal rapidity. In some places (supposing each part to be picked when the flush is ready) seven days’ interval will exist between the flushes, in others nine, ten, or twelve; but no attention, as a rule, is paid to this. The pickers have finished the garden at the west end, the east end is again ready, and when done, the middle part will be taken in hand, be it ready or be it not! It may be that the middle part flushes quicker than any other; in this case the flush will be more than mature when it is taken, in fact it will have begun to harden; or it may be the middle part does _not_ flush as quickly as the others; in this case it will be picked before it is ready, that is, when the flush is too young, and the yield will consequently be smaller.