MARCli, 1910.] 



209 



Edible Products. 



expense of thoroughness is the reverse 

 of being economical. The choice of land 

 may be left out as well, as, in ninety- 

 nine cases in a hundred, the man who 

 opens out will have no choice in the 

 matter. With altered ideas as to plant- 

 ing generally, we now plant closer than 

 we usually did twenty or thirty years 

 ago, and 4' x 4' diagonal planting is more 

 the rule than anything wider. The 

 planter of a new gardefe ought to bear 

 in mind that he is planting for posterity ; 

 not so much on his own account, as on 

 account of at least three generations 

 coming after him. 



It costs no more to the planter to have 

 his work pleasing to the eye by having 

 his lines running straight in every 

 direction as it will having them running 

 anyhow and all ways. The roads ought 

 to be systematically laid out according 

 to a preconceived plan so that the mains 

 converge on whatever centre has been 

 determined upon. Some land is natur- 

 ally adapted for being accurately laid 

 out so as to have all or nearly all the 

 sections of the same size, but it is 

 always possible to make the best of the 

 worst lay of land, and unfortunately it 

 is not always done. 



Pitting and Planting. 

 Having got our land staked out, we 

 now come to the most important of all 

 opening out operations : pitting and 

 planting. In trying to account for 

 degenerated tea gardens, at a time when 

 they ought to be flourishing in the 

 heyday of youth, our experts have never 

 given much thought to how they may 

 have been originally planted. There 

 are many gardens — a great many more 

 than are suspected— which owe their 

 falling off in the strength and vigour of 

 the bushes to careless pitting and plant- 

 ing at their very inception. Even at 

 the present day with all our progressive- 

 ness, there are more gardens being 

 permanently handicapped through bad 

 planting than there are otherwise. A 

 pit for planting in should be nothing 

 under two feet deep and ought to be 

 filled to the brim with the surface soil 

 of its own 16 " area space. The surface 

 soil will be safer there and where the 

 young plant can have the full benefit 

 of it. 



When the young plant is brought 

 from the nursery the greatest care 

 should be exercised never to expose any 

 part of the young tender tap root to the 

 sun. If possible the plant should be 

 lifted with a ball of earth adhering to 

 the roots sufficiently large to entirely 

 enclose the tap root to its utmost tender 

 tip. The young plant should be care- 

 fully planted in the centre of the hole, 



and if the point of the tap root is pro- 

 jecting beyond the ball of earth, the 

 greatest care should be taken that it is 

 planted straight doion. If a plant has 

 its tap root twisted to the side when it 

 is planted it will never go down 

 but will grow as it is, remaining at 

 right angles to the perpendicular. 

 Simple and all as this slight-looking 

 mishap to the young plant's tap root 

 would appear to be, it is a permanent 

 injury from which there is no recovery. 

 It never appears to be able to right 

 itself and never makes a fresh tap root. 

 The plant remains a surface rooter 

 and annually suffers from drought 

 every cold weather which causes it to 

 "coppice." It has every appearance of 

 being a bush growing upon a poor soil 

 and responds to top dressing and manur- 

 ing, but it is unable to hunt for itself for 

 either moisture or food. The tea plant 

 is essentially deep rooted and every- 

 thing possible ought to be done to 

 encourage this from . the very start. 

 It has never been determined how deep 

 the tea root will penetrate. It is quite 

 commonly found as much as 7 ' and 8 ' 

 deep at the sides of road cuttings. It 

 might almost be asserted that a tea root 

 will go as deep after food as you can 

 possibly make a drain deep enough to 

 carry away the water and allowing the 

 fertilising constituents of the air to 

 penetrate. In certain districts a fairly 

 severe dry spell was experienced during 

 the last spring. A planter was showing 

 another planting friend over his new 

 extensions and asking his opinion of 

 them, as they appeared to be hanging 

 in the wind and making little progress 

 and a very great many of them had died 

 outright during the dry spell. The 

 visitor who had seen the same before, 

 promptly put it down to bad planting, 

 and to prove it pulled up a few dead 

 bushes and showed the twisted tap 

 root and all other roots within 6 " or 7 " 

 of the surface where they simply had 

 had the life roasted out of them. The 

 plantation was three years of age and 

 had never been pruned as the plants 

 had always been growing weakly. It is 

 lamentable but true that gardens are 

 still planted very badly. The pits are 

 made far too shallow. The young plants 

 are carried from the nursery piled on 

 top of each other with broken and 

 exposed roots. They are then dumped 

 down into the shallow pits with hard 

 impenetrable bottoms, the soil which 

 was taken from the pit is hastily dragged 

 in again, a few tramps of the feet and 

 there you are ; the woman has a swing- 

 ing number for a nerrick to get through 

 and, as she would ask you herself, 

 " Kia kurega"? 



