1] 



3 feet deep was of no importance. It is, as I shall show later, a 

 very important factor in determining the suitability of land for tea, 

 He goes on, " to be avoided are stiff soils of every kind, as also those 

 which, when they dry, after rain, cake together and split. Avoid 

 also black-colourecl, or even dark-coloured earths, All soils good for 

 tea are light-coloured. If, however, the dark colour arises from 

 decayed vegetation, that is not the colour of the soil, and, as 

 observed, vegetable matter is a great advantage." The instruction 

 given as to the colour of soils (especially as the dark colour is almost 

 always due to vegetable matter) is delightfully vague, but apart 

 from this, the general principles laid down by Colonel Money are 

 admirable. 



A writer in the Tea Cyclopadia (1882) gives his views 

 as follows : " * * * an essential feature of a good tea soil will be 

 porosity and friability down to a depth of at least five feet. If a 

 heavy and impermeable clay stratum intervenes above that depth, 

 the rootlets of the tea plant will be unable to overcome the 

 resistance offered and will spread horizontally : the plant will 

 become more or less a surface feeder, and will be easily affected 

 by droughts or extreme cold, If such a soil is on a level, the evil 

 will be increased by the presence of stagnant water, an invariable 

 result of a clayey stratum in the subsoil " More valuable advice 

 could not be offered to-day, and one can only wish that it had 

 been more taken to heart in laying out many gardens. 



Long experience since the time at which these extracts were 

 written has confirmed, as I have said, their substantial correctness, 

 and one may now look upon it as absolutely settled that for its 

 greatest luxuriance tea requires (i) a loose friable soil, (2) a deep 

 easily penetrable subsoil, (3) a soil whose water-level approaches 

 the surface at no time of the year, and yet possessing a moist 

 subsoil at all times of the year. If these conditions do not exist in 

 a garden, it is our object in this chapter to show how in some 

 measure they can be produced. 



CAUSES OF THE FRIABILITY OF SOIL. 



The looseness or friability of a soil may be produced by 

 various causes. In the simplest case the soil itself consists of little 

 else than large particles, that is to say, it is a coarse sand. The 

 following physical analyses of three soils show how this factor will 



