54 



fact that indigo cultivation and maniifactui-e will yie^ld as a by- 

 product one of the most vahiable of natural manures is one pregnant 

 ■with the greatest possibility for this Colony. 



We know from the experience gained in India and Java that 

 this manurial matter trebles the outurn of tobacco; that it doubles 

 the outurn of paddy, in grain as well as in straw; and it will also 

 be found very suitable for coconut cultivation, for cacao, and for tea. 



The manure, consisting of the fermented green leaves and stalks, 

 is put into heaps and kept in pits, and can be further improved 

 in value by running the waste liquid after fermentation over it. The 

 bacterial life, set going by the fermentation, helps to decompose the 

 plant, and turns the whole mass into a brown friable mould. Sir 

 George Watt, in his Dictionary of the Economic Products of India, 

 -specially refers to the great value of this manure, and you will find 

 the fact mentioned there that experience has shown that land cutlti- 

 vated in indigo is greatly benefited thereby. 



Indigo is one of the few plants which enrich the soil on which it 

 is grown, (l) by the exudation into the soil of nitrogenous matter 

 from peculiar root-nodules in which through bacterial action the 

 inert nitrogen of the air is worked up into assimilable nitrogenous 

 products; (2) by the fall ofileaf; and (3) by the droppings of the 

 millions of insect life which an Indigo field harbours, while the long 

 tap roots of the plant draw nourishment from strata of soil not 

 reached by ordinary crops. 



This Indigo refuse is called " seet," and closely approximates in 

 its general composition good English Farmyard manure, though it 

 is decidedly richer in its chief constituent — nitrogen. From 100 

 maunds of green plant about 80 maunds, or about 3 tons, of well-rotted 

 ^' seet "are obtained. Mr. Pawson, from whose report to the Behar 

 Planters' Association, pages q-l2, I quote, says that without taking 

 into consideration the very vaUnl^le manurial qualities of the decom- 

 posed organic matter in the "seet," its principal plant food consti- 

 tuents per ton would be equivalent to 103 lb. sulphate of ammonia, 

 36 lb., sulphate of potash and 13 lbs., tribasic phosphate of lime. 



Compared with oil cake, which contains only 14 percent, of mois- 

 ture, while "seet" contains 70 per cent., one ton of "seet" is 

 equivalent in manurial value to about 5 cwt, of castor cake. The 

 actual results are, however, even greater in the case of "seet," as 

 the plant food there is in a more assimilable and subdivided form 

 than in either farmyard manure or oil cake. Composition of Indigo 

 refuse or "seet ": — 



Per cent 

 Water ... 72-56 



Organic matter ... 22"88 



Mineral matter ... 4'56t 



