November i, 1S82.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



42S 



ever, is that although manurmg has been inteiinittecl, 

 cai'eful weeding is, wlienever possible, still insisted on ? 

 Mr. Harnian is now, we believe, on a visit to Cey- 

 lon, and may, perhaps enforce or modify his un- 

 orthodox views, after seeing our plantations. 



WEEDS ON COFFEE ESTATES. 



TO THE EDITOR OF THE "MADRAS MAIL." 

 Sir, — In your issue of the 16th inst. your correspond- 

 out " R.M.S.B.," commenting on the subject of sick- 

 ling weeds iu the mousoon on coffee estates, saj s : 

 "It is surely obvious to the most casual observer tliat 

 the coffee plants ought to have all the soil to them- 

 selves, and that whatever is abstracted from the soil 

 by otlier vegetation is so much waste of power." To 

 caiiUai observers probably this is eo, but by many a very 

 different conclusion is arrived at by more thorough 

 observation. To me it uppears clear that a system 

 of covering the soil by plants which prevent the evil 

 effects of mechanical wash and the loss of nitrogen, 

 which has recently been so conclusively proved by my 

 old friend Mr. Warington at llothamsted, and the 

 increase of humus, so valuable an agent in absorbing 

 and ret'iiuing moisture in the dry season, must re- 

 quire very strong arguments against it. The effect of 

 weeds in binding the sod together and preventing the 

 roots of the coffee tree from penetrating is not iu 

 my experience supported by fact. Nothing gives me 

 greater pleasure at the close of the monsoon than to 

 have a sufficiency of weeds in the soil to allow of 

 the coolies fork turning over big clods to receive the 

 ameliorating action of the air during the dry months ; 

 while the tap root of the coffee cares no more for sur- 

 face weeds than do the roots of an oak. The rootlets 

 of the coffee are of course in a measure broken by a 

 deep forking, but not to the injury of the tree 

 As to impoverishing the soil, I hold that weeds, it kept 

 properly in hand — that is if they are not permitted to 

 seed and are dug over annually — have exactly the op- 

 posite effect. On an estate I visited some years ago in 

 Mysore, where clean weeding was attempted, the 

 organic matter and water of combination had become 

 reduced from 27 '60 tu 2000 after ten years' cultivation; 

 iu other words the soil had lost 25 per cent of its power 

 to absotb water from the air, equivalent roughly in a 

 well cultivated soil to a fall of 10 inches of rain. There 

 is also a great chemical loss in the absence of weeds 

 continually rotting in the soil, there being less carbonic 

 acid to assist the decomposition of silicates. If our 

 weeds caused a permanent loss to the soil, I could 

 understand there being an objection to their growth, 

 but as they sooner or later pay back all tliey have 

 borroned as well as a handsome interest acquired from 

 the air, 1 cannot endorse the deep-rooted prejudice in 

 your correspondent's mind to their growth. In con- 

 clusion I quite agree with him that water sliould pass 

 through the soil and not over it, but it would be inter- 

 esting to the maungers of the Ouchterlony valley 

 estates to know how a profitable system of subsoil 

 drainage could be practically carried out over their 

 extended cultivated area. 



F. E. Hakman, m. r. a. c, f. c. s. 



II. 



Sir, — A correspondent in your impression of the I5th 

 instant seeks to revive the ancient, fallacy that clean 

 weeding is the proper system to follow on cofl'ee estates. 

 I thought this idea had been exploded long ago. The 

 stock arguments of the binding of tlie soil and iinpovir- 

 iahiug it are again trotted out. The weeds cer- 

 tainly do bind the soil, and without their 

 conserv.itive action there would be very :ittle soil left 

 to bind on most estates after a couple of monsoons 

 like the one we have lately passed through. So far 

 from impoverishing the soil, vegetuble growth of 

 any kinc^ if buried, can only enrich it, Where the 



weeds are pulled up, carefully put in a hag, carried 

 to tlie nearest road and burned — as I have seen done 

 years ago— the soil certainly is impoverished ; tnt 

 where the" weeds are allowed to grow in the wet 

 weathei, and are turned into the soil before the dry 

 season sets in, we are simply continuing the natural 

 system by which all rich toils have been formed— 

 the decay of vegetable matter. In most books on 

 coffee culiivatiou, marvellous plans are given for 

 making compost heaps, the bases of all of which are 

 rotted weeds. What difference is there between ap- 

 plying your weeds direct, and stacking them to be 

 afterwails carried out and applied? If weeds do not 

 enrich the soil, what is the meaning of a fallow ? The 

 notion that we'-ds impoverish the soil has been brought 

 out by the so-called "practical" men, whose chief 

 experience before their arrival in the coffee dis- 

 tricts has been in the forcing of crops on the 

 worn out garden soils of Eiiglanri, where it is 

 only by manuring highly thut crops can be pro. 

 duced at all. In such soil every weed that springs 

 up is fattening on the manure put down for the forc- 

 ing of the legitimate crop, and is rightly looked on 

 as a bane. In garden cultivation the whole ground 

 is occupied by the plants put down, of whatever na- 

 ture they may be ; no returning of weeds to the 

 ground is possible, as belore they could decompose 

 into vegetable mould, the garden produce would be 

 uprooted, and the ground cleaned for the sowing of 

 a fresh crop. The state of affairs obtaining on a coffee 

 estate is entirely different to this, and the tactics of 

 the cabbage garden become wholly unsuitable. The 

 tree is permanent, and each growth of weeds, as it is 

 buried, is a gain to it. Not only do we return to 

 the soil what was taken from it, but all that the weed 

 also absorbed from the atmosphere, which is given by 

 the most modern authorities as three-forths of the 

 whole. " K. M. S. B." recommends draining. Per- 

 hajjs he has tried it ? I did so (to the cost of my 

 employer) about 17 years ago, under the direction of 

 the most experienced planter nt that time in VVynaad. 

 Tuo season^ were sufficient for us. If any of your 

 renders are dissatisfied with the rate at which iheir 

 soil is being naturally waslied into the ravines let 

 them try "catch draining." 



iManantoddy. AoKRATUM. 



GRASS ON COFFEE ESTATES. 



Sir, — The letters that have appeared lately in 

 connection with a description of thr wei ding in thE 

 Ouchteilouy Valley, make no distiction between grass 

 and weeds The latter if kept low and thin do not 

 do much harm ; but grass cultivated as it is under 

 that system of sickling down for several months in 

 the ye.ir until there is a strong turf, and tben plaster- 

 ing it over with earth can ouly have one effect on 

 C'ffce, that is, cause it to disappear, and manuring 

 does not even go as far as to repair the wear .ind 

 tear under this system alone. Of course soil like 

 the ' Valley ' will stand it the longest, but I remem- 

 ber seeing some of the old coffee three years ago, that 

 showed, uumistakeable signs of the effects of 



Gherka Hooi.oo. 



ON TEA CULTIVATION. 



A correspondent of the hidiun Ten Gazette, asks 



a few questions on tea culti\ation, viz: — 1st Does 



throwing the earth up round the stem of a tea bush do 

 any good? 2ud. — Whether s it good, bad, or iudifl'erent 



cultivation to hoe deep during the rains? 3rd. 



Whether is it better to let weeds grow, and then hoe 

 them into the ground, or not to let them grow at all. 



It thus appears that even in Indian Tea Cultiva- 

 tion it is u jt yet settled whether it is better to bury 

 than to remove weeds. 



