Perhaps as good a rule as any is that half the twisted leaves inside shall be a rusty red, half of them green. Practice alone, however, will enable you to pronounce when the balls are properly fermented. There is no time to be fixed for it. The process is quicker in warm than cool weather. The fermentation should be stopped in _each_ ball just at the right time. Great exactitude in this is all-important, and therefore, as I say, the balls should be taken in rotation as they were laid down. The fermentation is stopped by breaking up the ball. The roll is spread out _very_ thin, and at the same time any remaining coarse leaves are picked out. This concludes the fermenting process. _Sunning._--The roll is then without _any_ delay put out in the sun, spread _very_ thin on dhallas or mats. When it has become blackish in colour it is collected and re-spread, so that the whole of it shall be affected by the sun. With bright sunshine, an hour or even less suns it sufficiently. It is then at once placed in the dholes, which must be all ready to receive it. If the weather is wet, it must, _directly_ the balls are broken up, and the coarse leaf is picked out, be sent to the dholes. This is the only plan in wet weather, but the best Tea is made in fine weather. _Firing or Dholing._--In the case of wet weather, unless you have very many dholes, fresh roll will come in long before the first is finished. The only plan in this case is to half do it. Half-fired the roll does not injure with _any_ delay, but even half an hour’s delay, between breaking up the balls and commencing to drive off the moisture, is hurtful. In any but wet weather necessitating it the roll can be fired at one time, that is, not removed from the drawer until it has become Tea. The roll in each drawer must be shaken up and re-spread two or three times, in the process of firing. The drawer must be taken off the fire to do this, or some of the roll would fall through into the fire, and the smoke thus engendered would be hurtful. If the lowest drawer is made to slide in and out a framework covered with zinc should be made to run into a groove below it, and this zinc protector should be always run in before the lower drawer is moved. This is part of Mr. McMeekin’s invention, and is very necessary to prevent roll from the lowest drawer falling into the fire when it (the lower drawer) is moved. The roll remains in the drawers, subject to the heat of the charcoal below, until it is quite dry and crisp. Any piece then taken between the fingers should break with the slightest attempt to bend it. The manufacture is now completed. The roll has become Tea. All the above operations should be carefully conducted, but I believe the secret of good Tea consists simply in, _first_, stopping the fermentation at the right moment; and, _secondly_, in commencing to drive off the moisture immediately after.