Edible Products, 



310 



[OCTOBER, 1909. 



thing to be done in the first instance is 

 to " trench." That is to make a narrow 

 trench about two feet deep in each 

 alternate row of bushes. This trench to 

 be filled in for half its depth with the 

 best soil or compost available — good 

 bheel soil or lime manure is preferable, 

 and if nothing better is to be had the 

 surface soil may be used for the purpose. 

 If there is anything left in the shape of 

 roots at all, they will go down to this, 

 and the better the quality of the buried 

 material the more readily they will go 

 down to it. The rows which are left 

 may be done the same way the following 

 year. In the course of a few years the 

 roots will be induced to take a deep 

 action and allow of that sine qua non 

 to successful plateau tea cultivation — 

 the early cold weather deep hoe. 



Of course this all ought to have been 

 done early in the garden's history. 

 There never ought to have been a hard 

 pan to cripple the root action of the 

 plant, and, under intelligent up-to-date 

 cultivation, such a thing never would 

 have happened. But owing to scarcity 

 of labour or other causes these things do 

 happen and are always happening, A 

 cure has been pointed out which has, 

 in some cases, answered the purpose. 

 But prevention is proverbially better 

 than cure, and if we always treated our 

 soils, bushes, and coolies on prophylactic 

 principles, we should have little need for 

 cures or tea garden doctors. Every care 

 should be taken during the early years 

 of a garden to keep the soil from form- 

 ing a hard pan. Deep cultivation is 

 even more necessary during these early 

 years than it is later. The roots of a 

 young tea bush respond readily to in- 

 ducement to take a deep-rooted action. 

 When once they run into the deeper soil 

 they, in a very great measure, are able 

 to keep the soil free and open enough for 

 the penetration of rain-water and air to 

 follow on its draining away. The gist of 

 all this is— early deep cultivation in order 

 to get a deep-rooted plant, for if it is 

 delayed till the plants root habit be 

 horizontally formed, it is a most difficult 

 and expensive matter to get things right 

 again. 



A Long Drawn-out Experiment. 



An experiment has been suggested 

 by our experts to determine the actual 

 kind of light hoeing most suitable for 

 producing the maximum amount of leaf. 

 As this experiment would have to be 

 carried over a period of eight or ten 

 years in order to get reliable data, most 

 planters will be inclined to leave the 

 experiment to " the other fellow." More- 

 over, it is difficult to see where the 

 advantage would come in generally. It 

 would prove useful for the particular 



garden experimented upon. But differ- 

 ent gardens require more or less differ- 

 ent treatment. Environment and cir- 

 cumstance are seldom, if ever, alike on 

 any two gardens. In the absence of 

 such an experiment, which has every 

 likelihood of remaining absent, there are 

 cogent reasons for thinking that the 

 depth of our light hot weather cultiva- 

 tion might be advantageously varied 

 upon most gardens. 



We have authoritative opinion that 

 a garden getting five four-inch hoes in 

 the season would be much benefited by 

 the middle one being increased to six 

 inches. 



Soil exposed to the atmosphere is 

 "freshened," as it is often termed, by 

 the oxidation of the particles which 

 have been reduced to a lower condition 

 of oxidation during the time they had 

 been covered up. The oxides of iron are 

 examples of this action. When they 

 are exposed near the surface of the 

 sun and air they become fully charged 

 with oxygen. But when buried in the 

 soil they give up seme portion of this 

 oxygen in the several decompositions 

 which take place in the soil and thereby 

 become again reduced to a lower form 

 oxide. In this way they are performing 

 a most important duty as they really 

 become " oxygen carriers " through being 

 alternately buried and exposed during 

 cultivation and in some cases carry am- 

 monia also. 



Professor Way's Investigation. 



Over thirty years ago Professor Way 

 carried out an investigation into the 

 character of the silicates of alumina, 

 and disclosed truths of immense import- 

 ance which have not even yet oeen 

 thorougly understood, and consequently, 

 not fully taken advantage of. He 

 showed the existence of a class of bodies 

 which are termed double silicates. 

 These were silicates of alumina in which 

 part of the alumina had been replaced by 

 an equivalent quantity of some other 

 substance such as lime, soda, potash, or 

 ammonia. Thus we appear to have 

 these double silicates in the soil as sili- 

 cate of alumina and soda, silicate of 

 alumina and lime, silicate of alumina and 

 potash, and silicate of alumina and 

 ammonia, which is the highest of the 

 series. These substances must be of 

 exceeding importance, and a familiar 

 acquaintance with them is most desirable. 

 Their services have never been men- 

 tioned amongst the benefits derived from 

 tillage operations in tea cultivation, but 

 they may be the most important of all 

 in the production of leaf. They have 

 the power, as we have seen, of absorb- 

 ing ammonia from the atmosphere. Or, 

 perhaps, we shall be putting it mora 



