NURSERIES. 65 



allows the necessary air to circulate ; while the expense, 

 danger from high winds, and the objectionable entrance of 

 the sun at the sides, all of which high artificial shade is 

 subject to, are avoided by this low frame-work. 



Mats are the best to cover the frame-work. In case of 

 accidental or incendiary fire they are not so objectionable as 

 grass, for they burn less and slower, but mats are expensive. 

 Any coarse grass (freed from seed) will answer, and it should 

 be laid on as thin as will suffice to give shade. 



The beds may be watered, if there is no rain, a fortnight 

 after the seed is sown, and from time to time during the dry 

 season, whenever the soil at a depth of three or four inches 

 shows no moisture. 



The soil should also be kept free of weeds, and after the 

 plants are three or four inches high, the spaces between the 

 drills should be slightly stirred every now and then. 



After the seed has germinated, and the seedlings have, 

 say, four leaves on them, the artificial shade should betaken 

 away. But it must be done gradually, taking off portions of 

 the grass first, so that the young seedlings may by degrees 

 be inured to the hot sun. 



Though cultivation, as described, by watering and opening 

 the soil at times is well, these should not be done much, or 

 the seedlings will be too large when the time comes to trans- 

 plant them. Large seedlings do not, as a rule, thrive as 

 well as moderate-sized ones, after being transplanted. 



Among the many very absurd mistakes made in the 

 cultivation of the Tea plant, none exceeds the ridiculous 

 way Tea seed used to be sown in the Government planta- 

 tions in the North-western Himalayas. The seed was 

 sown in drills, as I have advised, but in six linear inches of 

 the drills, where it is right to put two, or at most three, 

 seeds, perhaps thirty were placed ! I do not exaggerate ; 

 the drill, six inches deep, was filled with them. Many and 



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