Plantations on moderate slopes need not fail because of the slopes. The evils slight slopes entail are not great, but the sooner the fact is accepted that sloping cannot vie against flat land for the cultivation of Tea the better.
Where only the lower parts of slopes are planted, the plants do very well. The upper part being jungle the wash is not great, and the plants benefit much by the rich vegetable matter the rain brings down from above. I have often seen very fine plants on the lower part of slopes, where the upper has been left in jungle, and I should not hesitate to plant such portions _if_ the slope was moderate.
Where teelah land, in Eastern Bengal, or sloping land in the Himalayas, Chittagong, or elsewhere, has to be adopted, aspect is all-important. A good aspect in one climate is bad in another. In Assam, Cachar, Chittagong, and all warm places, choose the coolest; at high elevations (temperate climes), the warmest.
In the Himalayas, moreover, the warmer aspects are, as a rule, the most fertile; _vice versâ_ in warm localities. Many a garden, which would have done very well on the moderate slopes chosen had _only_ the proper aspects been planted, has been ruined by planting all sides of teelahs or hills indiscriminately. The southern and western slopes of plantations in warm sites are generally very bare of plants. Not strange they should be so, when the power of the reflected rays of the afternoon sun is considered. Again, in cold climates plants cannot thrive on northern aspects, for their great want in such climes is heat and sunshine. Let the above fault, then, be avoided in both cases, for though doubtless a garden is more handy, and looks better in one piece planted all over without any intervening jungle, even patches of jungle look better, and are decidedly cheaper, than bare cultivated hills.
Of flat land, after what I have written, I need not add much. It is of two kinds, table and valley land; the former is very rare in Tea districts, at least of any extent, which makes it worth while to plant it. There are two gardens in Chittagong on such flat table land, and they are both doing very well. Table land cannot be too flat, for the natural drainage is so great no stagnant water can lie.[14]