April i, 1884.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



763 



be taken into account, and this is perhaps the more import- 

 ant of the two, as upon the depth principally depends the 

 cost of the operation, because every extra foot m depth means 

 a very considerable extra expense, far more than if six in- 

 termediate extra shallow drains were required to be put 

 down. The subject of draining has been brought to a great 

 piteh of perfection in the lugh style of farming that lias lately 

 been the rage at home in order to get the best resiUts from 

 a soil which was carrying a heavy rental with it. So far 

 in India the subject has had but little attention given to it 

 until the last few years, principally from the fact of abund- 

 ance of tea land existing, which could be brought under 

 cultivation without drainage. Now-a-days concentration has 

 become necessary and hence the need for taking up those 

 patches that divided the different teelahs or plateaux of the 

 old cultivation, and the draining of which was considered 

 too expensive, besides it was doubtfid whether they would 

 grow tea or not. It has now been satisfactorily proved that 

 tea if properly tlrained will grow in any soil down to the 

 stiffust clay, although, of course, the yield is not so great 

 m stiff soils as in hght loams. Jlany parts planted ten or 

 twelve years ago and abandoned as unfit tor tea, are now 

 beuig taken up and replanted with "Indigenous plant" 

 This, as well as careful draining, is perhaps part of the secret 

 of the succes-i. The China variety abhors anything approach- 

 ing a stiff soil, and is useless for leaf production, although 

 it may exist for a time in such soil. Where the sub-soil 

 is stiff clay the general rule now observed is light shallow 

 drains, say 2 to 3 feet deep, and 12 feet apart; and as the 

 soil approaches a loam or little better than a peaty sub- 

 stance the distanct; apart can be increased, but the drains 

 requu'e to be deeper, say 4 to 5 feet deep. It would, how- 

 ever, be difhcult to lay down any hard and fast rule on the 

 subject, because everything depends upou the existing fall, 

 and in many instances if a planter were to stick to what we 

 have given above, many good patches of tea now yielding 

 well would not be in existence. That tea subject to occa- 

 sional inimdation, for say a few hours, will floiu*ish and 

 yield in a way is undoubted, yet we are far from advising 

 any such experiments as planting lowland of this sort, 

 and we imagine that last year's floods taught many a lesson. 

 AVe heard of one firm of Calcutta agents who, we think 

 wisely had flood marks put up for future reference. How- 

 ever, if a fall sufficient to meet the requirements we have 

 given is not to be had, this must be remedied by having the 

 drams brought closer together; and in draining a great deal 

 of fall can be gained by the i^lacing of the drains. The first 

 and most important point to be considered is the situation 

 of the leailer, and when this is right, a great assistance can 

 be given to draining by the proper placing of the diagonal 

 or side drains. We have often seen a piece of draining 

 pretty to the eye utterly bad in reality, and the great point 

 to be avoided in running in diagonal drains is their meeting, 

 that is to say, the diagonal drain of the right side shoidd 

 run iuto the leader intermediate to its neighbomr of the 

 left baud side. Should the diagonal drains run mto the 

 leader opposite one another, the result is invariably a bar 

 at the mouth, and the assistance one diagonal lends to 

 another is nullified. In writing as we have done on the 

 subjtict of draining lowlands for tea cultivation, we shoidd 

 not altogether ignore the utility of drains on slopes in stop- 

 ping waste and in retarding the quick running off of water 

 in the rains on sloping lands. In cases of this sort we can 

 only say that it is almost impossible to have them too close. 

 To prevent wash, bold rainfall terracing is a favourite method, 

 and this is only a very high style of draining. Another 

 style of stopping waste, by virtually draining is what is 

 known as pit terracing. All these methods or " dodges " 

 of saving soil, although called by different names, are really 

 different ways and means of drainage, and are all more 

 or less essential to getting the best results out of the soil. 

 — Indiffo and Tea Planters' Gazette. 



■ ♦ 



THE SEAWEED HARVEST IN JERSEY. 

 The whole of the island of Jersey is encircled by a con- 

 tinuous chain of granitic rock, more or less exposed at 

 low-water, and more or less distant from the shore. These 

 rocks, the bugbear of the local navigator, rendering, as 

 they do, his harbours so difficult to approach and so un- 

 safe to move in, are to the locnl agriculturist " ports and 

 happy havens," so to speak, for upon them grow perpetu- 

 ally and luxuriantly the seaweeds with which year after year 



he fertilises his lands, and which, under the old Norman- 

 French name of vraic, he so generally and freely uses. 



Etymologists trace the root of the word to the Arabic 

 word warak, meaning the leaf of a tree ; from varak they 

 derive the old Latin nouns varescum, or variscum, signify- 

 ing shipwreck; to either of these bases they go for the 

 French word varech, which stands in that tongue for sea- 

 weeds, or for wrecking at sea ; vraic is but another and 

 more modern spelling for varech^ and therefore implies, 

 say these experts, '* leaves torn from the rocks and cast 

 up Dn the shores," as it also denotes ships subject to the 

 same calamities. The argument is ingenious if nothing 

 more. Need it be said that our own once common name 

 wrack, for wi'eck, and the still used one wrack, for maruie 

 alg», have the same parentage as vraic? 



This vraic, then, consists chiefly of plants of the genera 

 Fucus and Laminaria, with a few others sparsely mixed 

 with them. The Fucacere are composed of F. vesiculosus, 

 F. serratus, and F. nodosus. The Laminarias are L. digi- 

 tata and L. saccharina, and the other much less abundant 

 kinds are certain sorts of Sphacelariai and Ulwa. Tlie Fuci 

 grow upou the rocks, from which at certain seasons and 

 under certain restrictions, which we shall presently hint 

 at, they are cut forming what is techuic ally called vraic 

 scie ; the Laminariaj, vrith moreover some Fuci and other 

 algnd, are drifted on shore from outlying reefs in the Chan- 

 nel, or even from the Atlantic Ocean, aud for this reason 

 go by the name of vraic venant or venu. Upon this flot- 

 sam and jetsam we shall also touch. Rich in many of the 

 salts of potassium aud sodium are most of these seaweeds; 

 the Laminaria saccharina has been found to contain in 

 every hundred parts of its soluble ash no less than 60 

 per cent of various compounds of these bases, and the 

 Fucus vesiculosus has yielded 51-49 of similar ones from 

 an equal quantity of its ash. Free sulphuric acid, iodine, 

 calcium, and potassium also exist minutely in almost all 

 of them, and in the simply dried weeds the percentage 

 of organic matter is from 70 to 83 per cent. But we may 

 add, that it has been found by a local experimentalist that 

 at different seasons of the year the quantities of organic 

 and inorganic matter materially differ, and that certainly 

 in the Fuci used in Jersey for manure the summer cut- 

 tings are more abundant in mineral fertilisers than are 

 those of the spring. 



Now, as it so happens, tho soil of Jersey, and indeed of 

 the Channel Islands generally, is singularly deficient in lime 

 and other earthy salts, and this want was recognised even 

 in those bygone times when agricultural chemistry was 

 in its infancy. Then by a sort of happy-go-lucky " "nd " 

 the worthy islander discovered that the seaweeds sf ing- 

 ing up so thickly about him, and thrown upon his beach 

 by stormy winds, were the very things he needed to suji- 

 ply the default in his laud. So he set to work to cut 

 and to gather, and what he did centuries ago he continues 

 to do in the present day. Quaint Mr. Falle, chaplain to 

 William III., and the historian imr excellence of Jersey 

 (1094), alluding to this want of " chalk-hme and marie " 

 in the island, says, " but Nature has supphed us with what 

 fully answers the end in husbandry. It is a weed, but a 

 weed more valuable than the choicest plant cultivated in 

 om' gardens, and the vast and amazing chain of rocks that 

 environs our island is the grand garden of the vraic." 

 Nearly 200 years have slipped away since this divine said 

 his say; the "chalk-lime and marie," to repeat his words, 

 are still non intenti in the ground, and the vraic is still 

 its staple fertiliser; but its fertilising properties are now- 

 added to by phosphoric and ammoniacal composts ; and 

 where the Jersey farmer wants lime he will not trust to 

 his Fuci or Laminarite to get it from. 



The vraic venu consists mainly of the Laminarije. Storm- 

 waves have torn them forcibly from their beds, and brought 

 them shorewards, where they become any one's legitiniati- 

 property and right of capture at any time or at any sea- 

 son. So, after the godsend of a heavy gale, the fisherie.s 

 for vraic veiin, armed with large wooden rakes, are many 

 and eager. But with the vraic scie — the cut weeds— it is 

 quite another matter. This must be cut with a sickle 

 from the gardens of the wrack, as Mr. Falle words it, cut 

 imder certain legal permissions, emauatii^g twice a year — 

 in spring aud in summer— from the Kojal Court, and then 

 only for a definite number of tides, cut between certain 

 hours, and cut under certain agricultuial couditious. All 



