262 TOBACCO 



length of 6J kilometres, and which is capable of irrigating 

 more than 1,500 hectares. 



So many questions are bound up with the actual 

 cultivation of the tobacco plant from beginning to end, 

 from the collection of the seed to the gathering of the 

 leaf, the drying of the picked leaf, the fermenting, the 

 sorting, etc., that it is easily understood that tobacco 

 planters have felt the necessity of establishing a testing 

 station. As a consequence, a " Testing Station for Vor- 

 stenlanden tobacco " was established at Klaten on a 

 fairly extensive basis in 1913 it was estimated to cost 

 75,000 florins and to which nearly all the tobacco estates 

 in the Vorstenlanden are affiliated. The testing station 

 is closely connected with the Department of Agriculture 

 at Buitenzorg, whose director has the power of appoint- 

 ment and dismissal of the scientific staff of the testing 

 station and has a casting vote in the arrangements 

 concerning the working programme, etc. The testing 

 station is not an analytical control depot, but its object 

 is to examine all doubtful questions touching tobacco 

 cultivation in the Voirstenlanden by making careful tests, 

 and by rendering the results thereof and of experiments 

 made elsewhere of practical use in tobacco cultivation. 

 Quite naturally, therefore, the work of the testing station 

 is illustrative of the changes and improvements which 

 have taken place in the cultivation itself, although, of 

 course, only part of the researches of the testing station 

 have resulted in such improvements. 



Amongst the improvements in cultivation introduced 

 during late years the very deep tilling of the soil practised 

 at the present time is of enormous significance. Through 

 the persistence of the very energetic planters in the 

 Vorstenlanden such intensive tilling is now applied as is 

 not exceeded in any part of the world. By means of the 

 " Patjoel " the soil is turned to a depth of 18 in., a tilling 

 fully equal to the intensive tilling of a kitchen garden of 

 a European villa, and it must not be overlooked that we 

 are dealing here with large estates, often of more than 

 400 hectares, planted with tobacco. This, of course, is 

 only possible where there is a large population, and it is 

 calculated that at least 400 coolies are required for every 

 100 hectares, at all events on the good estates. Different 



