THE TEA SOILS OF ASSAM 



AND TEA MANURING. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The successful production of any plant or of any vegetable 

 product is influenced for good or for evil by a number of conditions. 

 Soil, climate, " breed " of plant, conditions of culture, prevalence 

 of pests and blights, may each play a preponderating role in decid- 

 ing the possibility or impossibility of profitably growing a plant 

 in a given situation, But among these natural conditions there is 

 perhaps none (except that of climate and this is entirely beyond 

 our control) which plays a more fundamental part in determining 

 the character of the cultivated plants in a country or a district 

 than that of the soil. Its character in England, for instance, 

 determines whether land shall be devoted to wheat or to barley, 

 to turnips or to some other root crop, to pasture or to arable cul- 

 ture. In India likewise, entirely apart from climatic questions, it 

 determines the paramount suitability of a district for rice, for millet, 

 for cotton, for sugar, or for tobacco. 



Its influence is not less paramount in the cass of tea. In 

 many parts of the tea districts it might be said that every condi- 

 tion has been favourable except that of soil, but as a result of bad 

 soil conditions in certain Assam districts garden after garden has 

 passed entirely out of cultivation. It might be thought that the 

 essential importance of a suitable soil was too obvious to need 

 that stress should be laid on it, but I have noticed quite a number 

 of pieces of tea put out during the past three years in total ignor- 

 ance of the character of the subsoil which really proved to be 

 very unsuitable, and also in positions where the tea can never 

 flourish nor do well. Such incidents seem to indicate that there is 

 room for insisting on the soil requirements of the tea bush, and 

 for further investigating those soil conditions which answer the 

 purpose best. 



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