LAYING OUT A GARDEN. 43 



middle part does not flush as quickly as the others ; in 

 this case it will be picked before it is ready, that is, 

 when the flush is too young, and the yield will consequently 

 be smaller. 



I believe the yield of a plantation may be largely in- 

 creased by attending to this. Every Tea estate should be 

 divided into gardens of, say, about five to ten acres each.* 

 If no natural division exists, small roads to act as such 

 should be made. More than this cannot be done when the 

 plantation is first laid out, but when later the plants yield, 

 any difference between the productive powers of different 

 parts of the same garden should be noted, and these divided 

 off into sections. To do this latter with roads would take 

 up too much space, and small masonry pillars, whitewashed, 

 are the best. Four of these, one at each corner of a section, 

 are enough, and they need not be more than 3 feet high and 

 i foot square. Thus each garden may, where necessary, be 

 divided into two sections, which, in a 3Oo-acre estate, par- 

 titioned off into thirty gardens, would give about forty to 

 sixty sections. No matter where a section may be, directly 

 the flush on it is ready it should be picked. Where the 

 soil on any one garden is much the same, and observation 

 shows the plants all over it flush equally, it may be left all 

 in one. I only lay down the principle, and I am very certain 

 it works well, the proof of which is that, where I have 

 practised it, some sections during the season give three, 

 four, and five flushes more than others. Had the usual 

 plan of picking from one end to the other been adopted, 

 they would have been all forced to give the same number ; 

 in other words, the said extra flushes would have been lost, 



* A garden I have just finished in the Western Dooars is 300 acres in 

 extent, all on flat land without any breaks in the cultivation, and all divided 

 into sections of 5 acres each. Being in one large block it is not divided into 

 gardens at all, only sections. 



