CHAPTER V. 



CHARACTER OF SOIL IN THE ASSAM DISTRICTS. 



[ In this chapter I have tried to describe, classify, and indicate the best method of 

 manuring the tea soils of each district in the Brahmaputra Valley, Such an attempt must 

 necessarily be very imperfect, as my acquaintance with the districts themselves is only a 

 short one, and I have not been able to analyse the soils of any but comparatively few sup- 

 posed typical gardens. The incompleteness may be wiped out by further studies : for any 

 errors which may be present I must plead in excuse the short opportunity I have had for 

 study, and ask for lenient judgment.- H.H.M.] 



The whole of the tea culture in the Assam Valley lies in the 

 alluvial tract, which fills the space between the Himalayas on the 

 North, and the hills, variously termed Naga, Mikir, Jaintia and 

 Khasia on the South. Though it is all alluvial, yet it differs very 

 much in character in the different parts, and even within a few miles 

 of each other points may be found the soils of which are totally 

 distinct. The lower part of the valley contains a large number of 

 isolated hills, and in fact the main range of the Khasias approaches 

 the river at Gauhati. Even above this, however, an isolated hill or 

 two crops up, generally composed of rock of a gneissic character 

 and red in colour. These isolated hills occur right up to Tezpur 

 and Silghat, where they appear to form outposts of the Mikir hills, 

 and even at Bishnauth and at Nigriting. The existence of such 

 hills would probably point to the fact that, at a long ago period, 

 what In now the lower part of the valley, had a general higher level 

 than what is now the higher. 



The geological history of the formation of the valley is little 

 known. Though officers of the Geological Survey of India have 

 worked in the hills round the valley itself, since 1865 practically 

 nothing has been done in connection with the mass of alluvium 

 which forms the cultivated area. In that year, Mr. Medlicott, a then 

 officer of the Survey, wrote of the valley as a whole as follows : 



" I scarcely like to touch upon the very interesting and important, but most intricate, 

 question of alluvium without having time or data to discuss it as it deserves. On first 

 reading Mr. Ferguson's most valuable paper on the delta of the Ganges, it struck me as 

 primd facie anomalous, and requiring explanation, that the deposits of the Brahmaputra 

 should be so backward as compared with those of the Ganges. Its volume is stated to be 

 equal to t^at of the Ganges, and the amount of silt it carries is immensely greater. The 

 valley of Assam above Dhubri is insignificant compared with thit of the Ganges above Raj- 

 mahal ; over a large portion of it, moreover, rock seems to be near the surface. Yet the 

 alluvial formation of Assam is far more backward than that of the Gangetic plain. Even 

 supposing that most of the deeper deposits of the Dinagepore region, and even of the delta, 

 were the work of the Brahmaputra, the actual relations of the rivers must have been long 



