Edible Products. 



24 



f J ANUARY, 1909. 



with the local conditions of soil and cli- 

 mate. On very loose sandy soil it will be 

 found that by loosening the soil under 

 each plant practically all the nuts will 

 remain adhering to the branches from 

 which they can be picked, Often in 

 South Arcot, on such light soil a mam- 

 mootie is attached to a draught pole 

 and worked like a plough through the 

 crop to loosen the soil at a depth of 

 about four inches. If the crop has 

 become too ripe, or if the soil has baked 

 hard, many of the nuts will be left in 

 the soil ; in this case it would be better 

 to remove all the tops first, pick auy 

 nuts which adhere to them, then loosen 

 the soil with a mammotie to a depth of 

 4 inches, and have the crop collected 

 by women, who carefully go through 

 all the soil and pick out the nuts. 

 When the nuts have all been collected 

 they should be thoroughly dried before 

 storing, by spreading out in the sun- 

 In the evening they are heaped up and 

 covered with straw, and again spread 

 out the following morning. This con- 

 tinues until the ground-nuts are quite 

 dry. 



13. Yield.— This naturally varies with 

 the treatment. With good cultivation, 

 sufficient manuring and a normal season, 

 a rain-fed crop can be expected to pro- 

 duce a crop of 700-1,200 Madras mea- 

 sures. Many people who try this crop 

 are at first encouraged by the large 

 yields obtained from poor soil without 

 any manure being applied, and are 

 afterwards disappointed when the 

 same treatment in the following season 

 does not produce such heavy yields. 

 As previously mentioned, it will always 

 pay the farmer to manure his land for 

 this crop. 



14. The Disposal of the Crop— The 

 ground-nuts themselves, as a rule, find 

 a ready sale, though sometimes in a 

 new district, where the crop is unknown, 

 there is difficulty. In such cases, the 

 ground-nut oil is usually saleable, and 

 the kernels can be crushed as any other 

 oil seed in the ordinary country oil-mill. 

 One hundred pounds of ground-nut 

 kernels will produce from 30-40 pounds 

 of oil. The cake which is obtained can 

 be used either as cattle food, or it can 

 be applied directly as a manure. In the 

 South Arcot district many of the culti- 

 vators apply ground-nut cake at the 

 rate of one candy per acre to the wet 

 lands for paddy, so that their village 

 manure will be available for the culti- 

 vation of the ground-nut crop. Experi- 

 ments have been started at the Palur 

 Agricultural Station to find out whether 

 ground-nut cake will not be equally pro- 

 fitable, when applied as manure to the 

 ground-nut crop. Ground-nut straw, 



when dried, makes excellent fodder for 

 cattle, and should be mixed with the 

 straw of cereals for feeding. 



Irrigated Ground-Nuts. 



15. Ground-nut, as a dry irrigated 

 crop, is now extensively grown iu the 

 South Arcot District during the hot 

 weather months, and the rapid exten- 

 sion of this cultivation shows how pro- 

 fitable it must be from a monetary 

 point of view. There seems to be no 

 reason why this method of cultivation 

 should not be extended to other dis- 

 tricts, where the soil and water-supply 

 are suitable even if the ground-nut, as 

 a rain-fed crop, cannot be grown. 



16. The system of cultivation of the 

 irrigated ground-nut crop in South 

 Arcot is merely an adaptation of that 

 adopted for the rain-fed crop, and as 

 the expected yield is greater the land 

 is more heavily manured. The crop is 

 usually grown mixed with ragi, the 

 land being laid out into small square 

 beds after sowing ragi broadcast, and 

 the ground-nut dibbled in afterwards 

 as described above. Occasionally, if the 

 land cannot be prepared at the right 

 season, ragi seedlings are raised in a 

 nursery and afterwards transplanted. 

 Sometimes the ground-nut is grown as 

 a pure crop, the seed being dibbled in 

 6-9 inches apart in the dry beds before 

 irrigation, and watered immediately 

 after the sowing is completed. Too 

 close sowing is the principal objection 

 to this method. The cultivator still con- 

 tinues to plant the "Mauritius" nut at 

 the same distance that formerly he 

 planted the "country" ground-nuts, 

 and seems not to have realised that, 

 whereas the "country" ground-nut 

 formed its pods near the crown of the 

 plant, and could therefore stand to 

 some extent this close planting, the 

 "Mauritius" variety forms its nuts all 

 along the main branches. Thus by plant- 

 ing closely the Mauritius nut with its 

 flat spreading habit soon covers the 

 ground and the branches are thus forced 

 to grow up into the air- With this 

 close planting, proper weeding and hoe- 

 ing soon become impossible, besides 

 having all to be done by hand. In 

 consequence, the soil becomes hard and 

 caked, Avhile weeds which have only 

 been checked while the crop is young 

 soon spring up when weeding has to 

 stop. This close planting also means 

 a great waste of water. The whole 

 surface of the ground has to be flooded, 

 and unless the land is hoed by hand 

 (an operation which is both expensive, 

 if done thoroughly, and often requires 

 more labour than is available), the water 

 soon evaporates from the surface of 

 the ground, thereby entailing much 

 more frequent waterings. 



