866 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[June 2, 1884. 



U(^ging by the growth of the padcl}', of any two adjoining 

 plots is never tlie same. Tlie remark that it is hotter to 

 grow paddy early than late in the season, though not new, 

 is truo: but delay is not generally so much a matter ot 

 choice as a result of delay in rain and other tmavoidable 

 causes. That the tui-niug up of the soil with mamoties 

 gives better results and is better work than using the apology 

 for ploughs in use amongst natives, is likewise my ex- 

 perience. That the extermination of weeds and grasses 

 in fields is of vital importance no one will deny, but how 

 to do it at a reasonable cost is the question. Mr. "W'cerackody 

 suggests rooting them out and exposing them to the sun 

 to be killed, and then turning water on the beds to rot 

 them. I*crhaps Mr. "Weerackody iu his next paper to the 

 Association will give the cost of this interesting experi- 

 ment, and leave his readers to judge whether the game 

 is worth the caudle. The worst and most diflicult- to-be- 

 killed weed is gi'ass. After weeks of drying, one wetting 

 seems to give it vitality. The usaal method is to get it 

 well mider the soil in treating the soil and in the final pre- 

 paration of the beds, and trust to fermentiition to kill the 

 roots. But thuy have a trick of growing with the paddy, 

 and to a great extent choking it. I must confess it is news 

 to mv that to sow paddy without sj^routing gives better 

 results than after sprouting. I always thought that the 

 former was adopted where sprouted paddy ran short. Why, 

 may I ask, if sowing unsprouted paddy gave better i-esults 

 than sprouted paddy, the former is not generally adopted? 

 Possibly owing to birds carrying away all the paddy before 

 it sprouts and gets hold of the ground. The reason given 

 by the Goiya iu answer to BIr. AVeerackody, if not convincing 

 has the merit of novelty — the roots of the ungerminated 

 paddy goes deeper in search of food. Transplanting is said 

 to be preferable to broadcasting. It is a mistake to say that 

 iu the Kandyau country transplanting is to not systematic- 

 ally carried out, and is only resorted to to fill up vacant 

 patches. All round Kandy, transplanting \vith very encourag- 

 ing results can bo seen. It is also a mistake to say tliat 

 the seed bed should be sparsely sown. This will necessitate 

 the seed bed being about half the size of your field. No 

 evil results will follow if the seed bed is sown thickly, not 

 very thickly, and the plants transplanted early. I have for 

 my authority a imper on Bice cultivation in Japan. That 

 manuring will increase crop does not need repeating, but 

 the statement that stimulating artificial manm'es e.xhaust 

 the .soil is open to question. As far as my knowledge goes, 

 ouly lime, wdiich is not jn-operly a manure, exhausts the 

 soil by frequent api)Hcations, as it renders available inert 

 gases, and these being constantly taken up by growing plants, 

 the soil after a while becomes exhausted, till these con- 

 stituents are again formed by different agencies. The manure 

 ajjplied was said to be fish; the result treble the quantity 

 of crop gathered from the unmanured plot; the reason for 

 this, the stimulating properties of Thosphoric Acid con- 

 tained in the fish. 



In placing cattle manure on the top of the list of manures, 

 Mr. AVuerackoily will be glad to know that Liebig and all 

 living cliemists, with the exception jx-rhjips of A'ille, agree 

 with him. But I believe in fields with i ich soil, it will be 

 found that cattle manure will have the elfect of sending 

 all the paddy plants into ''leaf." 



Now for Mr. "Weerackody *s figures. In spite of his find- 

 ing his new purchase iu a neglected state, nnd necessitating 

 the putting up of ridges, and experiencing a great deal of 

 trouble in digging up the f-oil, which was hard, it took him 

 only II men to do the work. Tnere sm-ely must be some 

 mistake, or the work must have been most carelessly done. 

 Now, I pride myself on being able, owing to the training 

 I had as a cottee planter, to exact from coolies a full day's 

 work for a full day's wage. Under my personal supervision, 

 and \\ith my being at their backs for the betti r part ot 

 the day, it took me '25 coolies to turn up the M)il of a 

 field of 'S bushels sowing extent fln<l composed mainly of 

 hand. I will not ijuestion the correctness of the number 

 of men employed in the same work tlie second time, as the 

 digging, once done, the second round would not have been 

 very diflicult. J5ut 21 men for the final operation of draining, 

 dividing into beds and sowing seems excessive. It took 

 me S mt:n to mud the field twice over with buffaloes, and 

 7 men for the final operation which cost Mr, A\'eerackody 

 21 nn n. It strikes me Blr, "Weerackody simply had a total 

 uf the men he employed and divided them at the dilferent 



works when about to write his essay. Two cwt. of fish 

 manure at 50 cents is decidedly cheap. I wish I can get 

 as much phosphoric acid at the same figure ; I would go 

 in largely for manuring my field. There is a dilferencc of 

 only 4 cents between his cost of reaping and mine, but 

 however did he manage to thresh his crop for Kc 1? It 

 took me on two successive occasions 11 men to thresh my 

 croj), and their wages at 33 cents come to considerably more 

 than Ke 1. There are a few items I\Ir. Weerackody has 

 omitted from his account. I. The cost of transplanting. 

 2. The wages of a maa to tend his field, either by fencing 

 it or watching it against cattle trespass, and to tiu-n water 

 on and otf his field. There is another slight omission — the 

 quantity of paddy he reaped, lieing told that the paddy 

 and straw amounted in value to EtiG, does not enlighten 

 us as to how many fold his field yielded.* 



Now, my experience of the two systems — cultivating by 

 paid labour and Goiyas — thougli not large may be useful. 

 By the former system the return just balances theexijcnd- 

 itm'e, valuing the paddy at Ke 1 per bushel. I am not 

 singular in my experience. A neighbour whose fields are 

 extensive found it cost him about R200 to produce 200 

 bushels of paddy. By the Goiya system, after charging 

 myself with the Government share, value of manure and 

 seed paddy, I got two-thmls of the crop. So that my belief 

 iu the Goiya system is founded on rciison and experience. 

 This time the fields will be cultivated more intelligently 

 and in a dilferent manner, and I sliall be glad to make 

 the results public. 1 am at one with Mr. Weerackody when 

 he says it is the duty of every landowner to adopt "new 

 systems" as a means of educatmg the ignorant Goiyas. — 

 Truly yours, B. 



GLEANINGS IN THE SOUTIl-WESTEKN PROVINOKS 



OF CHINA. 



The interior of the enormous Chinese empire is still to 

 the Western world so nearly a terra incoipiUa as to render 

 all fresh trustworthy information respecting it extremely 

 acceptable. Such a contribution has just appeared in the 

 form of a parUamentary paper containing an account of 

 a four months' journey made in the early part of last year 

 by ]\Ir. Ilosie, a consular agent, through a considerable 

 portion of the impitrtant provinces of iSe-chueu, Yun-nan 

 and Kuei'-chuw in the south-west of China. It is princip- 

 ally hi these provinces that, in defence of Imperial edicts, 

 the cultivation of the poppy has been introduced and per- 

 severed in, until now it seems to be a tolerated industry, 

 and home-grown opium has become in China a powerful 

 competitor with the Indian drug. Scattered here and there 

 among the observations made on tins journey are several 

 that appear to possess sufficient interest for the readers 

 of this Journal to make them worth culling and binding 

 together in a note. The starting-place was Chuug-ldng, 

 the great trade emporium of the province of Se-chueu, and 

 the first objective point was Cheng-tu, its capital, lying 

 about two hundred miles to the north-west. Along the road 

 between these two towns the poppy w'as a freciuent crop, 

 more land being devoted to it in some districts than to any- 

 thing else; indeed it is there cultivated to such an extent 

 as to atfect the price of corn and all other connnodities. 

 Nearing tho capital the salllowcr was met with, but here, 

 as iu India, its cultivation is decreasing under the joint 

 competition of opium and foreign <lyes. Orange groves 

 were also passed, and it was noticed that everywhere the 

 skin of the orange was carefully collected and preserved, the 

 epidermis and the white inner layer, when .sejtarated, both 

 finding a place in (. hinese medicine. Along this route and 

 everywhere throughout the province there was an abundance 

 of the Chinese "wood oil tree'' {FJcrococca lernicia^) a 

 Euphorbiaceous plant, irom ftie seeds of which an oil is 

 expressed that is u^ed by painters; the tree was also met 

 with in the i»rovinces of Yun-nan and Kuei-chow. Besides 

 coal, a common fuel in this district is charcoal made from 

 ferns, wfaich aie placed in a \ni and allowed to smouUler, 

 water being constantly sprinkled on the heap to prevent 

 a blaze. A detour was made to visit the famous .salt and 

 fire wells at Tzu-hu-ching, where side by side with the 



* Mr. "\^'ec^ackoody says 50 bushels, and he sowed 

 bushels. — Ei>, Examiner. 



