76 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF TEA. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



TRANSPLANTING. 



IF the pits for the plants have been all prepared, as directed 

 at pages 59 and 75, this operation is simple enough. 



A fortnight or so before it commences tip all the seedlings 

 in the nursery. Take off only the closed leaf at the head of 

 each young plant (see a leaf diagram, page 104), so that the 

 bud at the base of the next leaf be not injured. Doing this 

 will make the seedlings hardier and enable them earlier to 

 recover the transplanting. 



On the day you intend to take up the seedlings from any 

 bed, if you have water enough at command, flood the bed. 

 This, as you take up each seedling, will cause the soil, being 

 moist, to adhere better to the roots. 



The difference between young plants transplanted with a 

 ball of earth round the roots, and those moved with their 

 roots bare, is no less than three months' growth, if even it 

 does not make the difference between life and death. 



Proceed thus to ensure the former. At one short end of 

 the bed, the lowest if it is on a slope, dig close to the first 

 row of seedlings a trench so deep that its base shall be lower 

 than the lowest end of the tap-roots. Then with a five or 

 six-pronged steel fork (this is better than a spade, for it does 

 not cut the rootlets) put in between the first and second row, 

 and pressed down with the foot to its head, force carefully so 

 much of the row down into the trench. Then with the hand 

 take up each seedling separately, helping the soil with a very 

 light pressure (so light that it shall not change the lateral 

 direction of any of the rootlets) to adhere, and place it in a 



