388 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[November i, 1882. 



TEA PLANTING IN NATAL. 



" Ager siue cultura fructuosiis esse nou potest/' — (C'ie. 

 Kearsney Estate is five miles from Stanger, and the 

 road leading thereto offers pleasant and charming scenery, 

 and the landscapes are beautiful. On reaching the top 

 of the hill overlooking Stanger you are struck by the 

 picturesque parorama you have before you. The several 

 farms in the distance speak highly, by their appearance, 

 of the enterprising and agricultural sphit of their 

 owners. Entering the estate you notice a large area of 

 coffee trees, now abandoned ; and on ascending the hill 

 to the house, at the right hand side of the large avenue of 

 magnificent blue gum trees, you come to the tea plantation, 

 which has taken the place of the coffee trees. Acres 

 and acres are covered with this precious tree, amongst 

 which can be noticed by their .size trees of all ages. 

 The young plants are very promising indeed, and I have 

 been told by the proprietor of the " Kearsney" Estate— 

 and I was able to see it myself — that the tea plant 

 likes a light or sandy soil, in fact it grows splendidly in 

 such a soil. The old trees, that is to say those of three, 

 four, and five years, are covered with seeds, and some 

 are in full blossom. These are left for seeding, and in 

 consequence are not pruned. In a month there will be 

 a very large amount of good seed ready for sale, not to 

 speak of the young plants that can be applied for. 

 Judging from what has been already pruned, this year's 

 plantation will give a splendid yield. The preparation 

 of the leaf is very simple, and does not require as great 

 an outlay and trouble as the mairafacturing of sugar. 

 Four hundred pounds of good, sound, first-class dried 

 tea will soon be ready for the market, and a better 

 quality of tea than the one already obtained can hardly 

 be had in Natal. The tea I have tasted has the _ same 

 flavour as the one you drink in " Assarn," and is far 

 superior in taste to the ones imported in this colony. 

 For cheapness in price it compares favourably with the 

 ones you can get at the various stores. Three pounds 

 of green leaves give one pound of dry tea, and a tea 

 plant of three years' growth gives several pounds of 

 superior dry tea. The plant itself is a charming tree, 

 which planted in a garden will be quite an ornament. 

 It resembles the camellia, and its white flowers are 

 very pretty indeed. From what I have seen and tasted, 

 considering the rapid growth of the plants and the 

 small outlay of capital it requires to grow them, the 

 tea-plantmg at Kearsney proves a success ; and tea-planting 

 is likely very soon to be a som-ce of revenue in Natal, and 

 will bo grown with advantage at places where coffee 

 and sugar are no more thought of. It is but right to 

 mention that this result is due in a great measure to 

 the well-known energy, intelligence and ability of the 

 proprietor of Kearsney and to cite the name of James 

 Leigh Hulett, junr., is enough to tell inteudiug visitors 

 of this splendid e.state who will be willing to go and 

 convince themselves of the reality and success of tea 

 planting in Natal, not to speak of the pleasant and 

 home-like hospitality they will receive. 

 Ohoisy, January aO. "Ignotos." 



— NatalMercuri/. 



COST OF MANUKE. 



The cost of fertilising the land is a subject of prime 

 importance in agricultme. Most amatem- farmers who come 

 to grief or loose their money— as that class of agricul- 

 tiurists often do— are wrecked on the manure bill. Practical 

 farmers will understand that in speaking of the manure 

 bill 1 do not refer merely to the direct purchases of manure, 

 but to all charges incident to the fertilisation of the land, 

 including the cost of feeding stuffs consumed by stock, 

 whether the "stutt" be purchased or grown at home. 

 Unpractical farmers who do not keep accounts, and do 

 not really know how the stock-feeding part of their 

 business stands, are apt to imagine that farmyard dung 

 co.sts them nothing. There is no subject that has been 

 more constantly thrashed liy speakers and writers dm-ing 

 the past thirty years than high farming. Those who 

 approach the scientific bearings of the .subject will learn 

 what our fortunate predecessors, in dearer times for corn, 

 may not have thought of, that, in the jiresent struggle 



between the farming of England and the ■\'irgin soils of 

 America, the system of high farming is handicapped with 

 an adverse scientific principle which has often been en- 

 tirely ignored. A'irgin soils are tmhampered, since they 

 yield their whole crop from their own substance ; but 

 EngUsli soils depend on mamu-e. They yield something, 

 no doubt, from their omi substance ; but, in spite of deep 

 ploughing and steam cultivation and all other expedients, 

 nothing but abimdant manuring can secure continued heavy 

 crops. In America the production of corn is a manufacture 

 of the soil's own substance, aided by the atmosphere ; in 

 England, under high farming, the soil yields httle of its 

 own substance— sometimes it yields nothing, but gains 

 by the process— and its crops are " manufactured " from 

 dung and other manure as their raw material. The advice 

 BO often, and sometimes so heedlessly, offered about in- 

 creasing the amount of farming capital and beating the 

 Americans by doubling our crops, has a sort of patriotic 

 ring about it. High farming was always regarded as a 

 good thing for the country, though no business can really 

 be good for the country unless it be conducted at a profit ; 

 and those who read the first report of the Agricultural 

 Commission may remember how many persous were shown 

 to have .suffered severely by high farming. A gentleman 

 in Staffordshire, whose farm is his own, so that he enjoys 

 fixity of tenure, lost £2,287, or one-fourth of his captial, 

 in one year; and half the loss was due to the heavy 

 payments for feeding stuffs and manures. A high farmer, 

 who " goes in " for 10 bushels an acre more than his 

 neighbour loses it in a wet season, and his risks are en- 

 hanced by the operation of a scientific principle. If the 

 double dressings doubled the crops, the man who applied 

 much manure would only incm- the same risk as the 

 man who applied little, and with high farming for a 

 weapon we should easily flog the Americans ; but, quoting 

 the words of Sir John B. Lawes, " the higher you farm 

 beyond a certain limit, the less is the amount of increase 

 vou obtain for a given amount of manure, and therefore 

 the grater the cost of that increase. 



One cannot but conclude that agriculture is confronted 

 with a great difiiculty in having to meet lower prices 

 by increasing the crops. lu solving the problem how to 

 adjust his buisness to existing circumstances, I cannot 

 thiidi that " ' low farming " will be resorted to, since 

 laud that has been long cultivated yields but little with- 

 out liberal dressings. The practical farmer will probably 

 ask himself how he can best fill the soil with manm'e 

 at the least cost and ri.sk, and he will then proceed with 

 the cultivation of the best crops for his neighbourhood. 

 He will not fatten bacon hogs, and if he rears his own 

 bullocks he will not keep them till three or four years 

 old, young beef, as every practical farmer knows, being 

 far more profitable than old; and the same may be said 

 of mutton. The prize farm near Eeading, which the 

 writer had the pleasiure of visiting, and which has a 

 thoroughly practical tenant in Jlr Radcliff, reads us a 

 useful lesson, as, indeed, all well-conducted farms nuist 

 do in these trying times. "We may learn what the ablest 

 farmers and proprietors are doing to meet the tiines in 

 the extension of pastures and the diminished arer of wheat. 

 It happens that the prize farm is well ailapted for wheat, 

 and that the straw is exceptionally valuable in that neigh- 

 bourhood ; but, looking to the cattle for the lesson we 

 require, we find that milk, mutton, and beef — all of the 

 best — and 10-stone porkers are the leading animal products, 

 and the system of feeding and management is so good 

 that I have no doubt the manure is obtained at a reason- 

 able price. The cattle at the prize farm, too, are bred 

 with great skill and care ; the forty cows (on a farm 

 of 230 acres) are first-rate milkers, and excellent for beef, 

 ' as their achievements at the Agricultural Hall at Islington 

 testify. 



Our test is" the cost of manin-e;" and when we con- 

 sider the need for manure in farming an old country, and 

 that good farming implies a heavy mauuring of the first 

 crop, the turnips, of the four-course rotation, with the 

 folding oft' of a portion of that crop for the barley that 

 follows, and one drefsing at least between the clover and 

 the wheat, the third and fourth crops, it is evident that 

 that economical manuring of the land is a subject of 

 the first importance. In Sir James Caird's volume on 

 .'English iVgriciUture " republished from the Times, he 



