December t, 1884.] 'THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



441 



TEA AND TERRACE CULTIVATION. 

 With reference to the statement made by a writer, 

 by no means inclined to be over-sanguine, that the 

 soil of Dimbula would grow tea for a century, it was 

 remarked to us that the planters of Ceylon did not 

 take proper care to preserve their soil by means of 

 terraces. We adduced in reply the great difference 

 between most of the soil of Ceylon and that of Assam 

 and Darjiliug, which so strongly impressed Mr. Owen, 

 and which lie so emphatically described in our columns. 

 The deep alluvials of the valley of the Brahmaputra 

 and the forest humus and schistose soil of Darjiliug, 

 as well as the volcanic soil of Java, are each light 

 and easily washed away in proportion to their riches. 

 Over a large portion of the mountain and hill slopes 

 of Ceylon, the soil is, on the other hand, a stiff clay, 

 through which the tea-plant easily forces its taproot 

 and iu which it flourishes. This soil, if scored with 

 frequent drains and paths on easy gradients, will 

 suffer the minimum of wash ; for a certain amount of 

 wash cannot possibly be avoided. Then in Ceylon 

 wc do not hoe the soil but stir it cautiously with forks. 

 Our foil is a good tea soil, but not rich enough, as 

 arc those of .lava and India, to support both tea and 

 weeds, including the terrible ilui or alang-alang, which, 

 both in India and Java, is allowed to grow so as to 

 bind the outer edges of the terraces. In Java there 

 is little difference in many places between surface soil 

 and subsoil, and the same can be said of inuch of the 

 soil of India. But, iu Ceylon, terracing would result 

 in bringing to the surface a subsoil which would re- 

 quire a year at least, perhaps several, of aeration to 

 make it fertile. This fact iind the prohibitory expense 

 largely account for the absence of terracingona large and 

 systematic scale on Ceylon estates. Terracing, after 

 the Indian fashion, involves the removal of every 

 stone and stump and root, and those who, like the 

 writer, have tried even a small experiment after this 

 fashion know how entirely out of the question is the 

 complete terracing of an estate of any size. Much 

 was done in utilizing loose stones on estates, under the 

 influence and at the advice of Mr. John Hughes, the 

 chemist who came out at the instance of the Planters' 

 Association to report on our soils and the best methods 

 of combating the various enemies of coffee and altering 

 the conditions adverse to the growth and crop-bearing of 

 the plant. But we faucy that in none of the cases 

 where such means were resorted to, was the benefit 

 at all iu proportion to the expenditure. We should 

 be glad to be corrected if we are wrong, and to learn 

 if terracing on an appreciable scale has been tried in 

 Ceylon with reference to tea. We tried terraces for 

 cinchonas in excellent looking soil, but unsuccessfully, 

 although, curiously enough, there are no positions 

 in which the fever plants flourish so well as in the 

 subsoil below deep cuttings on roadsides. But such 

 subsoil has been effectively operated on by the atmo- 

 sphere and is enriched by washings from the roads. 

 Were unlimited money available and could the planter 

 delay planting until his upturned subsoil has been 

 brought into proper condition for the reception of 

 plants, no doubt the perfection of cultivation would 

 be a system of trenches in which all the jungle cut 

 down should be buried, except special trees required for 

 timber purposes, tiie Btones, except the large boulders, 

 beiug used for lining and suppoi ting the outside edges of 

 terraces. The late Dr. <'. Elliott, m papers entitled 

 " Coffee Cultivation as it Was, Is. and Ought to Be," re- 

 commended such a system ; but practical planters 

 objected first to the prohibitory expeme and second 

 to the great danger of a whole hill-side being swept 

 away in one of the rainstorms which occasionally 

 56 



occur in our mountain regions. It is difficult to com- 

 bine an efficient system of drainage with terracing, 

 for the terraces must slope inwards and not out- 

 wards; and with stagnant water on one side and hard 

 soil on the other, the plant would not be in the most 

 favourable circumstances for healthy growth and life. 

 Such objections as these are quite familiar to Indian 

 planters, one of whom stated, as the result of an 

 experiment, that his plants on unterraced soil were 

 at the end of the first year twice the size of those 

 planted on the terraces, and that the disparity 

 was equally apparent at the end of the second and 

 third years. The balance of testimony in the Tea 

 Ci/clopiedia is decidedly adverse to terracing, at any 

 rate on the "teelahs" of Assam, Cachar and Sylhet. 

 Those who voyaging up the Rhine have observed with 

 admiration the carefully terraced vineyards on its 

 banks, with similar culture in the South of Franc . 

 and in Switzerland, are naturally prejudiced in 

 favour of a system which undoubtedly saves valu- 

 able soil. But the vast majority of the vineyards 

 of Europe are small patches, kept in heart by 

 the constant toil of their peasant owners; a vine- 

 yard of one hundred or two or several hundreds of acres 

 being very exceptional indeed, But about 200 acres 

 is the average of our estates in Ceylon, whuv coffee 

 lias been and where tea is to be. It is certainly regret- 

 table chat any of our soil should be lost by wash ; but a 

 certain annual loss is inevitable, and the true remedy 

 is not a system of terracing, prohibitory in cost, but 

 a liberal and scientific provision of drains and paths, 

 equivalent iu many respects to terraces, but superior 

 to them in the facility they afford to the flow of 

 superfluous rain-water off the surface of the 

 soil into ravines and streams and rivers. The 

 percentage of particles of soil which we can- 

 not prevent from being carried away by exceptionally 

 heavy rains, and which are deposited in the ocean, 

 will yet be upheaved for the benefit, of (let us 

 hope) a grateful posterity, while on well-managed fully 

 cultivated estates the upper subsoil is gradually fitted to 

 take the place of what was the surface sod. When 

 terracing is proposed to planters iu Ceylon, it is 

 their poverty mainly, no doubt, which forbids con- 

 sent ; but, as regards their will, they generally, we 

 believe, would prefer (looking at the mechanical 

 condition of most of their soil) being able to score 

 their hillsides with a close system of drains and 

 paths at a gradient of 1 in 30. 



But it is not merely the soil over a large portion of 

 the hill region of Cejlon which differs from that of 

 India and Java in being more tenacious ; the. climate 

 is also different. Except in the portion of the mount- 

 ain zone directly facing the track of the south-west 

 monsoon, excessive rainfall and destructive rainstorms 

 are of rare occurrence. Over the vast proportion of 

 the hill estates, the rainfall is moderate (from 70 to 

 140 inches) and well distributed over the twelve 

 months. Occasional rainstorms of 5 to 10 inches 

 in twenty-four hours we have to record, but the 

 violtnce and destructiveness of such phenomena 

 are as nothing compared' to the effects of tremend- 

 ous downpours in Darjiling and considerable por- 

 tions of Assam (including Cachar and Sylhet) in 

 the neighbourhood of the Khassia Hills, the most 

 rainy reigon on the globe. In India, it is no 

 uncommon experience that the vast mass of a rainfall 

 raugiug from 150 to 250 inches should be concentrated 

 into the four or five mouths of the year commenc ng 

 with June and ending with October. On the Nadu- 

 vatam cinchona estate, Nilgiris, 102 inches of rain out 

 of 195 for the whole year 1 ell in the single month of 

 July 1882. Half this quantity in a mouth on Tem- 

 plcstowe estate, Ambagamuwa, is the heaviest fall in 

 one month we can recall as recorded in Ceylon. We 

 need scarcely remark that the more loamy and 



