Sept. i, iSS6.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



20J 



was still uusettlcd when I left home in 1840. lu 184i-43 

 some estates in Cej'lon were planted in hoies 3x3x3 

 feet and others 1x1x1 and all possible sizes between 

 those extremes, bat at no time n,f cerwar is could ajy one 

 have told which was which. In process of time the 

 dispute settled down to 18 x 18 x 18 in. which is now 

 the general practice. In 1842 I tasked my coolies to 

 120 holes, 40 is now I believe the usual task. The 

 object with the coolies is to get them to hole in the 

 right spot, and make the regulation size. The super- 

 intendent must see to this on his owu method, or 

 may accept of Mr. Wildes, as siuts him. In Onylon 

 holes are usually filled by takiug thf surface "soil 

 from the upper side, but I have lately had to deal 

 with soil where no filling was needed, but to cut two 

 .small drains from the upper side of the hole, at 

 an angle of forty-five with the line, and a few showers 

 silts them full of the prime of the soil. 



NUESERIE.S 



The rearmg ol nursery plants in b.istr^ts should 

 supersede every other arrangement in the case of all 

 delicate plants, but Coffee Arabica can hardly be 

 classed as a delicate plant, where one hundred inches — 

 or upwards — of rain falls in the year, but it is sufii- 

 ciently perverse, where the temperature is nmch greater, 

 the rainfall very much lower, aud the droughts last 

 for mouths. Of course, ever3' one must study his own 

 ease, so far as climate is concerned- In .some parts of 

 Ceylon, no one thinks of making nurseries; they 

 have only to send a gang of coolies iuto the jungle, 

 to bring in whatever number of stumps may be re- 

 quired. In other parts, where rains are heavy and 

 frequent and the soil soft, the best nurseries are made 

 by clearing the uuderwood in a jiiece of forest, gather- 

 ing the fallen leaves and rotten twigs into heaps, 

 sowing broadcast, and then scattering the leaves. &c. 

 over the seed. 



PL.\NTI.\G. 



I have had occasion to remove many large aud 

 flourishing coffee trees in old fields in the course of 

 my planting operations, and I do not recollect one 

 of those with a single tap-root running straight down. 

 I have sei^n many turned by a stone, and going 

 horizontally along its surface, but the most common 

 appearance is a plurality of tap-roots, from two to 

 sis, none of which go to a great depth, few indeed 

 being a foot long, beyond the branching point. I have 

 therefore long looked on the fuss so m.any planters 

 make about tl>6 tap root, as mostly humbug. I do 

 not indeed hold that it is a beneficial operation, to 

 turn up the tap-root in transplanting, but I never 

 saw a Tamil cooly, put in a plant without pressing 

 it dovvn, aud however often checked he was always 

 found at the trick again. For this cause I have 

 always cut off tap-rooi at hard wood that is not 

 easily dmibled up. It i.s hardly possible to take up a 

 nursery plant with the tap-root complete, to its deepest 

 fibre, and if that is not done it will branch in the 

 new situation, however carefully treated otherwise, 

 aud why should it not branch and who has proved, 

 that a single deep tap-root belongs to a stronger aud 

 more fruitfid tree, than the tree that owns a divided 

 tap ? Else, if we must have perfect plants, put down 

 seed in baskets, and plant out in the field, before the 

 tap gets through the bottom. 



The best way of planting is to fasten two pieces 

 of stick — long enough to cross the hole and rest on 

 the sides together at one end, place the plant 

 between the sticks so that it will hang with the 

 root straight down in the centre of the hole, over 

 the loose end of the sticks slip a loop of string so 

 that the plant may be held in position till the earth 

 has been filled in round it. By this plan there can 

 be no possible turning up of the tap-root, or twist- 

 ing of the lateral fibres. 



CATTLE AXD MANURE. 



I know nothing about the keep of cattle in India, but 

 i n Ceylon the manure made will barely pay the expense of 

 keep, when the planter has a tract of natural pasture suSi- 

 cient for his herd all the year rouud. The planter there- 

 fore who has no pasture laud, should limit his herd 

 of cattle to such work bullocks as he can employ ou 

 or off the estate with advantage and such cows as may 



be necessary to supply his table with milk aud butter. 

 There is po.siiively nj market for .any kind of 

 Cattle but working bullocks. The small quantity of 

 beef required is in the hands of the butchers, who 

 purchase native cattle at from E6 to R 15, and worn out 

 cart bullocks for next to nothing, and any attempt by 

 outsiders, to introduce a better article by systematic 

 fatteuing, is resisted by their united might { tlie only 

 thing a planter can do with his surplus stock is to 

 shoot them and use the carcases as manure. I suspect 

 matters are not much better in India, and the HO'O 

 Mr. "Wildes recoauueuds to be expended on stock 

 keeping had better be directly employed in the 

 purchase and tiausport of nitrates, phosphates and 

 alkalies. Cattle manure is an excellent thing, but it 

 may be purchased too high. 



EOADS AND DEA.INS. 



The author has got the right view about the im- 

 portauce of roads, aud his plan of tracing and parti- 

 ally cutting them as early as possible is a very good 

 one. To make a drain as the first operation in making 

 a road is the only way to get proper work, for when 

 the Tamil cooly, gets a few shovel-fulls of loose 

 earth to deal with, he scratches it up and down, and 

 back aud lore, and rouud about, and never leaves it 

 till a kick or a curse overtakes him, and sends him 

 forward to stiff er work ; when h« is set to cut a drain 

 he has no loose earth to manipulate and must put 

 some pith into his strokes to make any impression. 



I do not like a road to be even so steep as one 

 in 15, if it be possible to obtain a better gradient; 

 of course they may be steeper where no bandy road 

 can be made. I have before me as I write, a zig-zag, 

 going up a steep face, sprinkled with mighty boulders 

 and bouuded by chtfs. None of the few gentlemen 

 who had travelled it made any laudatory remarks on 

 my engineering, but I compensate mysfclf by looking 

 on the work with unqualified admiration. In some 

 recent road making I have involved myself in the 

 necessity of some heavy blasting but that can be 

 deferred till better times, aud no one coming after 

 me can improve on my traces, but I forgot I was 

 asked to review Mr. "Wildes' book and not to tell 

 my own tale. Well, I agree with all my author 

 says about roads, but I join issue with him about 

 drains. He says "as a rule, and for a permanency, 

 I do not approve of drains; I prefer renovating aud 

 and weeding pits, to stop the wash," I have no special 

 objection to supplement my system of drains by wash- 

 holes, but I Jl^e not rely on holes alone, for dealing 

 with the surface water resulting from exceptioually 

 heavy rain; and be it remembered that it is the ex- 

 ceptional, that has in this case to be provided for. 

 One twenty four hours in July 1878, Colombo was 

 visited with a ranfall of eleven inches. Here where 

 I sit twenty miles inland I have seen certainly not 

 less than five inches fall in two hours. Five inches 

 of rain gives upwards of 11 cubic feet of water, to 

 every twenty-five feet of surface. I incidentally learn 

 that Mr. SVildes' " renovation holes are 2 x 2 x li feet 

 or a capacity of 6 cubic feet, suppose the eatth to 

 absorb one cubic foot, which is certainly as much as 

 it is likely to do, the remaining 4 cubic feet must 

 go down the hill, at the nearest to the first natural 

 water-course. Then the surface is encumbered with 

 the loose earth dug out of the holes: this the descend- 

 ing flood searches, and carrying off all the loamy 

 portion in suspension, silts the holes up to the surface 

 with the sand ana smaller gravel while the water 

 is fjrced out of them to augment the stream. This 

 is tlie one serious objection to all systems adopted 

 with a view of retaining the whole rainfall ou inclined 

 surfaces. The terrace, the embankment, tlie water 

 hole may stand for years aud answer the purpose 

 satisfactorily, but the awful exoeptioual downpour 

 comes at last and sweeps all away. 



On a gravel surface there h no noed of Drain.'*, or 

 of any other arrangement to save w.nsh, for there i.> 

 none. The same may be said of soaj)y clay, which 

 may possibly benefit by deep tile drains, but yield* 

 little or nothing to surface wash. The cause is very 

 different where there is a rich loose surface soil 

 several inches deep, from which eyevy shower carries' 



