Just before sending the third edition to press, I saw in the _Indian Tea Gazette_ some details of “new transplanting and transporting tools,” patented by Mr. Jeben. I hope these will prove a success, for such are much wanted, and if they will do all it is said they can do, a great boon will have been conferred by Mr. Jeben on the Tea industry. Mr. J. W. Mountjoy, of Pandawbrang, Arracan, writes as follows regarding these tools:-- “The Transplanter has, in working, proved to be a complete success. Almost all the remaining seedlings have been transplanted by the aid of your instrument, without the slightest injury to their roots or check to their growth. The fact is, the young plants do not know that they have been transplanted, and now that sunshine has succeeded the late very heavy rains, new and vigorous growth is ‘bursting out’ from all the seedlings that were transplanted by means of your Transplanter. No manager of a Tea or Coffee plantation, who had once seen this instrument at work, would ever again be likely to recur to transplanting by hand, and not a single seedling should die when removed from the nursery and carried to its place of ultimate growth by means of your Transplanter. Your transplanting apparatus is better than baskets, and has moreover the great recommendation of being very economical. Your Transplanter will, with moderate care, last for many years, and combines thorough economy with thorough efficiency.” I am glad to give the above extract, for I look on the invention, if successful, as a most important one. CHAPTER XVIII. CULTIVATION OF MADE GARDENS. As manuring, which is part of this, is treated separately, we have here only to consider the best means of stirring the soil to give air to the roots of the plants, and to keep down weeds, which, if allowed, injure the yield vastly. Unless when plants are full blown and in full bearing (and not even then unless they are planted close) it is not only not necessary, but a waste of labour and money, to open the soil all over the garden with a view of stimulating or cultivating the plants. Much money has been wasted in this way: for instance, in a garden planted 6 by 6 or 6 by 5, and the plants but two years old, I have seen the whole dug many times in the year. The roots of the said plants did not protrude at that age more than 1 foot or so, what good could they possibly derive from the extra space dug? The soil _over_ the rootlets of Tea plants cannot be stirred too often. The oftener it is done the oftener the trees flush, and when young the more vigorously will they grow. What is the best way to do it? I believe simply by digging _round_ each plant. I go to show why this is, I believe, the best.