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effective than 4 inches of loose soil, and the excess in one foot 

 of soil was equal to an inch of rain ! Mulching of this kind is 

 already done with nurseries in most districts, and while it would 

 be too expensive probably to carry out over extensive areas, it 

 might well be done on exposed pieces of land, say low teelas 

 exposed to the sun, where the drying up effect is at its maximum. 

 An objection has been made to me that while such mulching might 

 be effective, it would be the means of introducing a very large 

 amount of weed seed into the garden, and the objection seems to 

 be valid, but the objectionable result could be reduced to a 

 minimum by selecting the jungle to be used for the mulching 

 of the land. 



SHADE FOR CONSERVING SOIL WATER. 



Water may also be effectively preserved by the shade of trees 

 on the soil, and it may be that a small portion of the effectiveness 

 of the sau tree may be due, not to shade in the growing season, 

 but to shade preserving the soil water in the dry weather of the 

 spring. Such trees should always be planted on exposed teelas 

 facing south or south-west, and may be especially valuable on 

 terraced land, where the effect of the sun's ray is much greater than 

 on sloping hill-sides. For the same reason, especially in the climates 

 which are particularly hot, it is wise to try and get the tea bushes 

 themselves to shade the land as much as possible, and if it is not 

 possible to obtain this shading of the soil when the tea is planted 

 the usual distance apart, it should be planted closer to ensure that 

 it should do so. 



EFFECT OF WEEDS ON SOIL MOISTURE. 



Such are positive ways of keeping the water. Others of 

 equal importance consist in the avoidance and removal of 

 agencies which remove it The most noxious of these is the 

 crop of weeds so often allowed to grow among the tea in the cold 

 weather. Every plant growing on any land is a means of removing 

 a certain proportion of water. Land after a crop, whether 

 of weeds or of a cultivated plant, contains far less water than the 

 same land which has been kept free from plant growth. To take an 

 example. At Rothamsted (Hertfordshire, England) Sir John Lawes 

 found that the difference between land which had been cropped with 

 barley and the same land left fallow amounted in the middle of the 



