January i, 1884.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



483 



met by the answer that it may be all very well to dis- 

 peuse with holing in free rieh soil, but what would I do 

 in heavy soil ? To which I reply that if ever holing be 

 open to objection, it will be so in retentive soil, where 

 water, unable to escape freely, remains in the hole, 

 souring the good soil with which it has been filled, and 

 causing root-rot. Those who, like me, have had to sup- 

 ply over and over again holed clearings in a wet district 

 will know what I mean. As to the removal of stones, said 

 to be one of the advantages of hohng, are tbere no stones 

 below the nine or twelve or more, inches to which you 

 cut your hole ? A young taproot will, I think manage to 

 creep round a small stone, and a large one which it cannot 

 get round, caunot be taken out of a nine or twelve inch 

 hole. A field of coffee which was one of the last to suc- 

 cumb to the effects of leaf disease and bad seasons on a fine 

 old Dolosbage estate, was a dibbled one and I know of an 

 estate in Dimbula which is one of the most productive in 

 the islnnd, which was dibbled also. 



I now plant with aliavangns. The coolydrives his alla- 

 vangu well down, thoroughly breaking up the earth, and 

 plants as usual. Those who doubt the success of this plan, 

 I would invite to inspect the four-year old trees on Adam's 

 Peak and Peria JIaskeliya, planted in this wjiy. 



Topping. — "SThen young plants attain a height of five or 

 six feet it is time to top them. I take them down at once to 

 18 inches. In this operation as in pruning, we should al- 

 ways have in view the object we wish to attain, i. e.the 

 shape we wish the tree to take. My idea of a perfect 

 tree is that it should have as much width as may be 

 necessary with as little height as possible, I do not top 

 lower than 18 in -^hes, because by so doing, we should as a 

 rule, take off too many laterals. I do not top higher, 

 because I wi .h the plant to save its energy for extend- 

 ing its laterals, rather than expend it upon upward growth 

 which will have to be cut away. The plant should not, 

 however, be plucked regularly, as it will probably be too 

 young to bear the removal of much leaf (the lungs of 

 the plant,) without loss of Wtality. But when it again 

 reaches about three feet in height, further V2>ward growth 

 may be checked by the pluckers. The coolies 

 should each have a stick cut to the height at 

 which you wish to pluck, and they should not be 

 allowed to touch anything below that height. At this 

 stage plucking the siiie is most pernicious. The tree 

 should be trained in this way, keeping it down and encour- 

 aging it to grow outwards and spread from the bottom, 

 until it is three years old when it is ready for pruning and 

 serious plucking. 



Pruniiiff.^On this important subject, there would seem to 

 be many opinions, and somewhat of a lack of experience. 

 Even the oldest tea in Oeylon which has been regularly 

 worked, is stiil almost too young to have afforded quite 

 sufficient opportunitj' for observation and experiment. But 

 it is not with the tea as with the coffee planter, the young- 

 est coffee planter having the accumulated experience of 40 

 years to refer to. And the experience of our elder breth- 

 ren in India would appear to be not always to the point. 

 The conditions of climate ;ind soil are very different, and 

 several imported styles of pruning have, to my knowledge, 

 been tried and found wanting. For my own part, though 

 I have now been some six years tea planting. I don't 

 consider (since one only prunes once a year,) that I 

 have yet had sufficient experience to pronounce c.r ra(//fc?rrt 

 opinions on pruning I think it best, therefore, as 

 I am addressing practical planters, merely to offer 

 suggestions and to point out, as well as I can, what 

 appear to me to be the objects to be attained, leav- 

 ing it to your practical experience to decide upon the 

 best means to adopt. 



It has lately been said that trees should be allowed to 

 grow to 3 feet 6 and 4 feet, (with a minimum of 2 feet (i), 

 the object of allowing them to grow to this excessive 

 height, being I understand, to secure a laru'o and flat 

 picking surface, on the necessity of which much stress is 

 laid. But it seems. I think, to be forgotten that the 

 picking surface of each tree is necessarily limited by the 

 distance from each other at which the bushes havebeen 

 planted. Taking 4 feet by 4 feet as the usual planting 

 distance, it follows that 2 feet from the centre of the 

 bush is all that is required, since yon can but cover the 

 ground. And I think you will find no difiSculty in Mas- 



keliya at least, in doing this at a much lower height than 

 3 feet 9 or 4 feet. I can speak from experience of the 

 bad effects of too high pruning— this being an error into 

 which in former days I have myself fallen. The result of 

 it is, that nearly all the young brown wood from which 

 Hushes are obtained, appears on the upper part of the 

 bush the wood on the lower part having hardened as the 

 tree grew upwards. There is thus a comparatively bare 

 space from the point at what the branches diverge from 

 the stem, to the foliage on the upper part of the tree. 

 When you have attained (in 5 years from the first prun- 

 ing or 8 years of age, which is Mr. Armstrong's limit, if 

 I understand him aright) the extreme height to which 

 you can allow your bush to grow and cut down to 2 feet 

 G again, I fear you will find no brown wood Jifhw the 

 knife, and the next year will have to be devoted to its 

 formation, to the great detriment of the yield for that 

 season. It seems to me that our effort should be dir- 

 ected to form a system, by which so much old white 

 wood should be each year removed, (keeping the tree 

 if possible, to a maximum height of say 2 feet 6 or .so) as 

 would allow of the growth of sufficient red wood in its place 

 to carry on the flushes, without subjecting the tree to 

 the severe shock entailed by cutting down from 4 feet 

 to 2 feet six. This is the problem I submit to you for 

 solution. It would have been solved for us had the late 

 Mr. Cameron Uved longer, I believe — I did not know Mr. 

 Cameron personally but he told a fi'iend of mine upon 

 whose correctness I can confidently rely, and whom he was 

 advising to cut down to 20 inches some trees which I had 

 allowed in former days to grow too high, * ' that this mea- 

 " sure was necessary to again get the trees into proper 

 "form — this once done, so severe a pruning should never 

 *' agaiu be necessary. " I have spoken to many of Mr. 

 Cameron's pupils and beUeve that such was generally tho 

 tenor of his remarks upon this subject. "The system" 

 which has been criticised with such severity and even vio- 

 lence, was never more than commenced, and to censure it 

 as one of "severe cutting down," "hacking" &:c., has 

 been rashly done, appears to me to be sometliing like con- 

 demning the musie of an opera on hearing the tuning 

 of the viohns ! 



And it appears to me a debateable question which is the 

 " nerere " system ! I am inclined to think it too high pruning 

 system may be entitled to the designation for the cutting of a 

 foot to 18 inches off a large bush entails the removal of a 

 gi-eat quantity of heavy wood. Thi-s is waste, for it cost' 

 the tree and the soil much to produce this wood. The aim 

 of a system perfected on the lines I have endeavoured to 

 indicate, would be avoid this waste as much as possible. 



Fluckuiff.—VfiVb. regard to plucking, there are various 

 systems. I wiU call the bud or tip No. 1, and the rest 

 in succession, 3, 3 and 4. I pluck with one motion of 

 the fingers 1, 2 and three-quarters of No. 3, leaving the 

 leafbud at the base of the latter, and with another motion of 

 the hand I take f of No. 4, providing it be in a suit- 

 able condition {i.e. not "bang}'" or hard) and leaving 

 its leaf-bud also. This leaves two leaf-buds to carry on 

 tho flushes. Plucking in thi.-. m.iinier I am well content 

 if I can average 15 lb. leaf per cooly. By taking more 

 stalk and coarser leaf you can get more per cooly. You 

 will also probably get a lower price for your tea. It 

 must be borne in mind that save the cost of plucking, 

 every expense is the same on a pound of sixpenny, as on 

 a pound of two and sixpenny tea. In this district, as 

 in Ambagamuwa, I find the pickings come on iu aver- 

 age weatlier, iu a period varyuig from 10 to 14 days, 

 say 12 on the average. I have had here a heavy pluck- 

 ing in S days, but that was an exceptional flush, which 

 is a different thing from an ordiuary picking and does 

 not, in my experience, occur more than twice or so, iu 

 a season. The sides of the bushes should not be touched 

 until, at all events, the shoots are well above the height 

 at which you mean to prune. Youug ti-ees should never 

 have their sides plucked at aU. Every shoot may be 

 plucked that is large enough to deal with as described 

 iihove. Picking thus, with two leaf buds left on tho shoot, 

 I do n't see how there can be any oivr-phtckin;/. My 

 standing orders are to pluck round m ten days, but the 

 rounds are lengthened or shortened according to circum- 

 stances. About 2i rounds in the month is perhaps the 

 usual thing. I " cannot recommend cooty-sacks for 

 picking leaf. Every picker should have two baskets. 



