slack months, the expense is not entirely an out-of-pocket one, but 

 represents money, a large part of which would have to be expanded 

 in any case. This, 1 am afraid, opens up an aspect of the question 

 which I am hardly competent to discuss ; but would it not be 

 possible for coolies to be more profitably employed? In certain 

 cases, at any rate, would it not be feasible to plant up some of the 

 waste land of the grant with a crop in the cold weather which 

 would yield an equal amount of manure, and a valuable product as 

 well ? Such a crop would be mustard which would entirely be 

 produced with comparatively little labour in the slack time of the 

 year and would give a valuable manure cake, and also a large 

 quantity of oil needed by the employees of the garden (see page 88). 

 I throw this out merely as a suggestion, but it certainly seems hardly 

 the most profitable and economical method of manuring to remove 

 say 200 tons of material per acre, only 5 per cent, of which is in 

 any way valuable to the tea plant, 



GARDEN SUBSOIL AS MANURE. 



There remains to consider one type of top-dressing which one 

 cannot condemn sufficiently as unprofitable, namely, that of putting 

 on ordinary garden subsoil as manure. In several cases canals have 

 been cut through the garden at the sacrifice of one or two rows of 

 tea, and then the material down to 4 feet deep put on the surround- 

 ing land. This can be justifiable only in the special case where 

 excessive wash has taken place, the bushes are standing right out of 

 the ground, and it is essential to replace the soil lost, anything 

 being better than nothing for the purpose. In other cases, however, 

 such a process is absolutely devoid of advantage, save very occasion- 

 ally to improve the texture of the land. In some cases the applica- 

 tion of subsoil has even resulted in material injury to the bush and 

 I cannot recommend it on economic grounds in any but those places 

 where the subsoil is itself a black peaty material. To show the average 

 extreme poverty of the subsoil, the following figures are given : 



