63 



the amount needed for many crops, and the quantity of other con- 

 stituents removed is much less than with most agricultural products. 

 Tea does not therefore make very excessive demands on the soil, and 

 both from a consideration of these figures, and from analyses of old 

 and new tea soils one may, I think, say that for Assam at any rate 

 only Nitrogenous and Phosphatic Manures will usually be needed at 

 present, and only the latter will be required from purely artificial sources. 



TOP-DRESSING SOIL MANURE. 



But let us first consider the manures locally available. The 

 first and most important of these, both for the extent to which it has 

 been used, and for the extension which its use is likely to take in the 

 future, is top-dressing soil material. It is not in many climates and 

 countries that the extremely rich deposits which can be used are 

 available, and their presence arises from the low character of the 

 land, from the fact that the excessive rainfall causes it to be cut up 

 in every direction, and from the extreme rankness of the vegetation 

 which causes the low uncultivable tracts thus produced to be 

 immediately covered with plants, which by constant growth 

 and decay give a topsoil of exceeding richness. On the other 

 hand, it must be remembered that after all, it is a very clumsy 

 method of manuring, as it often involves the removal of 100 tons of 

 soil to get 5 tons of valuable material, and that it is only in a 

 country where labour is extremely cheap that it could even be thought 

 of. The success which has followed its application has tended to 

 make it somewhat of a fetish, and I have seen many hundred tons 

 of material put on the land which, except for some slight mechanical 

 improvement of the soil to which it was applied, could have little 

 or no manorial value. When it is remembered that the usual dress- 

 ing of 6 inches deep (equal to 2 to 2j inches when settled down) 

 means the application of 400 tons of material per acre, it will be 

 seen how extremely wasteful it is of labour, strength and money if 

 the material be not of the best. It has also been objected that 

 " bheel soiling " lowers the quality of the tea obtained. In this 

 connection it must be remembered that there are various kinds of 

 top-dressing, real peat bheel might lower quality, but even this 

 question is still sub judice, while it would be difficult to conceive 

 that forest surface soil could do so. It is quite possible that the 

 supposed lowering of quality may be quite as much due to the sappy 

 growth after cutting down, for the time of hard pruning was usually 

 chosen for top-dressing, as to the top-dressing itself, 



