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is usually objectionable. Others should at all costs be removed. 

 Such are the India rubber tree (Ficus elasttca}, the Simul, the 

 Nahor (Mesua ferrea) (unless this last is preserved for show at the 

 cost of the tea bushes) and several others. 



LEGUMINOUS BUSHES FOR PLANTING AMONG TEA. 



I have often been asked by those who object to shade whether 

 there is any bush which would answer the purpose of the sau tree, 

 and yet not have the supposed harmful effect of a large tree. In 

 this connection Mr. Buckingham, who has experimented on the 

 subject, has supplied me with the following note : 



" You ask if I have ever experimented with leguminous plants as mamuial agents 

 'or tea, which have, instead of the tree form like Sau or Medeloa, a bush shape, so that 

 the manurial benefit of the sau may be obtained without the shade, as you are constantly 

 asked whether the effect cannot be obtained without the shade. 



" To say nothing of ' KalaiJ I have experimented with the following leguminous 

 plants that are of the bush type. 



(1) Crotalaria striata. 



(2) Tephrosia Candida. 



(3) Desmodium polycarpum. 



"The first named is an annual growing very much like a lupin and possessing a con- 

 siderable number of nitrogenous tubercles on the roots. This I experimented on in young 

 tea, and I must confess that I could not see that the results were in any way remarkable. 

 The plants were allowed to grow to their full height, about five feet, and then hoed in, 

 and also some were hoed in when a couple of feet high. 



" I next tried the Tephrosia Candida and I am still carrying on my experiments with 

 this bush. The advantage of this plant is that it is a perennial, has a goodly number of 

 root tubercle?, and will grow in almost any soil. My plan is to let it grow 

 some three or four feet high, and then prune it down to about a foot ; some three prunings 

 can be done in the year. This leguminous plant will grow in almost any soil. I have 

 seen it come on well in hard barren land, where certainly Sau, Medeloa, Erythrina 

 indica, Crotalavia striata, and others would die out in a month. I am pleased with the 

 result accruing from this plant, and intend this cold weather (1900-1901) to sow 

 the seed over, I hope, from fifty to sixty acres of the garden in spots where the soil is hard 

 and stiff, and the tea poor. 



" In small patches I have already planted, I certainly notice an improvement in the 

 tea which I attribute not only to the nitrogen assimilated by the bacteria, but also to the 

 enrichment of the soil by leaves, contributing to the amount of organic matter and 

 acting eventually as plant food. 



" With regard to No. 3, the Desmodium polycarpum^ this plant is a trailer 

 * * an d does not grow over a foot high. The roots possess a larger number of 

 tubercles than I have seen in any other leguminous plant * * * I have not perhaps 



given the plant the attention it deserves, as it is of such a straggling nature, that the hoers 

 were always cutting it out. My opinion is that to be of any practical use, it should be 

 allowed to run wild in poor tea for a year or so, and the land not touched with the hoe; 

 any other jungle growing might be hand weeded. No. 2 (Tephrosia Candida), however, is 

 the shrub I should call particular attention to for the present, 



