COCONUT PLANTER'S MANUAL. 23 



This is fully and ably discussed in the Colombo Commercial Company's 

 brochure, which makes a very good case for clean weeding. The 

 old practice of keeping a large number of cattle for the manuring 

 of the estate is one which is dying hard ; but, with the intro- 

 duction of a more thorough tillage system and a regular programme 

 of manuring with artificial fertilisers, it will not be long before 

 an estate with grass growing amongst the palms will be a rare 

 sight, particularly in the drier parts of the island where the 

 preservation of a soil mulch as a means of conserving moisture is 

 bound to become a practical detail of the first importance. 



The good effect of ploughing and harrowing in coconut culti- 

 vation is now generally acknowledged, and untilled lands left in 

 high weeds are not so frequently met with today. Within the past 

 few years the use of the tractor in agriculture has been demon- 

 strated, and some of the larger estates are employing this method 

 of tillage. Here is what the Director of Agriculture has to say 

 on the subject : — 



Tractors have now been utilised upon coconut estates in Ceylon 

 for the past three years and useful work both in ploughing and in 

 disc-harrowing has been performed. 



The tractor is capable of performing much deeper ploughing than 

 when animal traction is employed and work can be done even in very 

 dry weather when the ground would normally be too hard for work 

 with either cattle or buffaloes. Similarly, heavier and larger imple- 

 ments can be utilized for harrowing and work thereby performed 

 more rapidly. In some quarters there is a belief that on the sandy 

 coconut lands of the coastal regions good deep disc-harrowing with 

 tractors would afford adequate cultivation. 



The initial cost of a tractor and its outfit is heavy and therefore 

 only the larger estates are likely to be in a position to afford tlie capi- 

 tal outlay, but it is possible that neighbouring estates could co-operate 

 together to purchase a tractor outfit for use upon their estates or that 

 provision could be made by the owner of a tractor to hire it for work 

 on other estates in the neighbourhood. 



Similarly, it is possible that organizations could be formed solely 

 for hiring tractors to estates for definite contract work. 



Such co-operation for the use of tractors for hiring out for 

 definite pieces of work is common practice in all countries where 



