516 MANUAL OF THE NILAGIRI DISTRICT, 



CH. XXIX. western half will point out those parts of the district where 

 Z plantations are not only as a rule situate at higher elevations, but 



where growth and yield are much curtailed by what amounts 



virtually to a double wintering, viz., during the high cold and 

 damp winds of the south-west monsoon, and the clear sharp dry 

 winds and nightly frost of the cold season. The severity of the 

 climate checks the growth and yield of the plants to such an extent 

 that bushes five years old will show less vigorous growth and 

 constitution than plants of half that age grown at the same elevation 

 on the eastern side of the hills. The black sour grass lands I look 

 upon as wholly unfitted for tea cultivation ; not but what they 

 may be made capable of yielding some return after some years, but 

 because the money so spent would have yielded a treble or 

 quadruple return if invested on soil that had good drainage and 

 was of a freer nature. The lands best suited to successful cultiva- 

 tion of the tea plant lie along the southern and eastern slopes of 

 the hills. These have the advantage of getting a fair share of 

 both monsoons, possess a warmer and more equable climate, and 

 the atmosphere taken throughout the months of the year contains 

 a greater percentage of humidity. In many parts these lands are 

 very stony, but this is rather an advantage than a drawback, 

 provided the stone present is in detached boulders, and not in 

 the form of sheet rock at a short depth below the surface. Stones 

 not only facilitate free drainage, a matter of no small importance . 

 to the health of the tea plant, but they retain moisture both beneath 

 and around them ; they absorb heat during the day and give it out 

 at night, thus rendering the temperature in their immediate 

 neighbourhood more equable ; and also, by their constant decay 

 under atmospheric influences, they provide a valuable supply of 

 inorganic food for the roots of plants. That stony lands are less 

 easy to cultivate in the first instance must be admitted, but their 

 fertility makes ample amends for this defect. 

 Varieties of Before going further in my remarks on the climate and soils of 

 t ie ea p an . ^-^^^^ hills, it will be better to describe the several varieties of plant 

 cultivated, as the suitability of the variety to the soil and elevation 

 of the site selected has a great deal to do with the success of a 

 garden. 

 —the China. First we have to deal with the pure China plant. This is a 

 low-growing shrub vdth. small, harsh, dark green leaves, growing 

 at first with a single stem, but very soon throwing up additional 

 suckers, and the more these are cut near the surface of the 

 ground the more numerous do they become. The leaf hardens | 

 and the young wood ripens more rapidly than does that of either of 

 the other varieties, and in consequence the plant bears seed earlier i 

 and to a very much greater extent. Amongst pure Cliina plants 

 a very great difi'ercnce exists in the size and texture of the leaf of 



