64 



PEAT BHEEL SOIL AS TOP-DRESSING, 



The various kinds of top-dressing have however very different 

 properties and are of very different value. Best of all, as producing 

 luxuriance, is the real peat bheel soil which only occurs occasionally 

 in Assam, A real peat is formed by the decay of many generations 

 of rank growing plants, the principal part of this decay occurring 

 under water. Where this has occurred, naturally drainage and 

 hence wastage of material has been at a minimum, especially as 

 under these conditions practically no nitrates are formed. It 

 implies long years of formation, for the particular deposit termed 

 peat is of very slow formation. These deposits occur sometimes 

 on the surface, sometimes at some depth under the soil, especially in 

 the Tezpur and Nowgong districts. The Nitrogen and Organic 

 Matter in these is usually very high, as the following analyses 

 both from the Tezpur District show : 



Organic Matter, &c. Nitrogen. 



I .30*29 per cent. ... ... '60 per cent, 



2 2178 ... ... '68 



Another bheel soil of the same character from Chittagong, which 

 came into my hands, is even richer. 



3 50*85 per cent, ... ... 1-15 per cent. 



These peats are eminently valuable, and wherever found should 

 be undoubtedly used for manure, as they will assuredly pay for 

 putting on the land. It has been said, as noted above, that they 

 lower the quality of the tea. I have recently had the opportunity 

 through the kindness of Mr. M. Chamney of the British Assam Tea 

 Company's gardens at Tezpur of comparingthe quality of tea produced 

 by two similarly light-pruned plots lying side by side on the Tezpur 

 bank, one of which was treated with the very rich bheel material 

 marked 2 above, at the rate of 100 tons to the acre, while the other 

 received none at all. The top-dressing was carried out in February, 

 March and April, 1901, and the yield of the plots has been as follows 

 (up to September 26th), in 1900 and 1901, weighed as green leaf 

 Plot top-dressed in 1901 | 1900 ... 481 maunds. 



(34 acres) f" 1901 ,, 543 



Plot unmanured in either i 1900 ... 458^ 



year (357 acres) )" 1901 ... 35^1 



The increase in yield is therefore enormous. Messrs. W. S. 

 Cresswell & Co. of Calcutta, who were good enough to report on 

 the quality of these teas, say that in each case the plots treated 

 with top-dressing give a tea with a slightly brighter liquor than 



