FBBRUARY. 1900.] 



121 



had formulated— the theories were that 

 by the constant scratching of the surface 

 by the native system of ploughing the 



PLANT FOOD OP THE SURFACE SOIL 

 to the depth of their scratching 

 was exhausted, but below that, in 

 the soil that had not been touched 

 there remained a plentiful supply 

 of dormant plant food that could 

 be made available ; that paddy, like all 

 cereal crops, require a well-prepared seed- 

 bed free from weeds ; that every oper- 

 ation must be as carefully and systemati- 

 cally done as in the growing of wheat. 

 As soon as my plough was ready and 

 found workable, I improved the irriga- 

 tion channels, as I found that the old 

 modes would waste too much of the 

 precious tank water. I then wet the 

 land sufficiently for ploughing. I 

 ploughed 3 acres of this land doing most 

 of the ploughing myself — ploughing to a 

 depth of 5 to 6 inches, I then allowed it 

 to remain a bare fallow. When a good 

 crop of grass and weeds had grown 1 

 concentrated a number of cattle on it 

 and kept them there until they had 

 eaten up everything eatable. I then put 

 on a " Planet Junior " Cultivator that I 

 had procured from Australia and 



STIRRED UP THE SOIL 



which also stirred into the soil auy 

 cattle droppings ; then I again allowed 

 the weeds, etc, to grow and repeat 

 the same operation, and so on until 

 the time was ripe for the sowing of 

 another paddy crop, I then flooded the 

 land, and as soon as it was dry euough 

 to permit working, I cross-ploughed, 

 put the cultivator on the ploughed land, 

 smoothed it aud sowed the seed. The 

 sowing I did myself by the two hand 

 method of broadcast sowing as practised 

 in other countries ; all I did aftervvarJs 

 was to irrigate when I thought it was 

 necessary. This land I may say was 

 not first-class paddy land as it was sandy; 

 the villagers helped me to make the 

 channels and drive the bulls, etc.; they 

 cultivated the rest of the land in their 



own way, their land being superior to 

 some extent, as it was less sandy and the 

 bottom fields had no sand at all. The 

 harvesting and threshing was done by 

 the villagers in their usual way, only 

 the produce of my three acres being kept 

 separate — the result was that the time- 

 honoured scratching customs produced 

 14 bushels to the acre, while my experi- 

 ment resulted in 31 bushels to the acre. 

 As soon as the harvesting was over, I 

 again wet the land and ploughed it and 

 kept on the feeding down of the weeds 

 by cattle (which also added some manure 

 to the soil) and the cultivating by means 

 of the " Planet Junior" Cultivator until 

 the next year's sowing came round. I 

 repeated my first performances and was 

 pleased to find an increase in the 

 results, as the 



HARVEST YIELDED Soh BUSHELS PER ACRE. 



Drilling would have no doubt saved 

 some seed, but if every plant had been 

 transplanted, I am certain I could not 

 possibly have got these results except 

 that the seed-bed had been carefully 

 prepared, and I had by cultivation 

 made the plant food available. I tried 

 similar experiments with dry grain 

 cultivation and found also that deep 

 ploughiug and cultivation would yield 

 very good results, while the villager, 

 with his light-holing, got results that 

 hardly paid for his trouble. 



P. G .SCHRADER. 



—Ceylon Independent. 



[So far as agricultural education is 

 concerned, this article is admirable ; but 

 without money the ordinary cultivator 

 cannot afford to try improvements. 

 How. for instance, could he put a culti- 

 vator—a machine we know to yield 

 excellent results— upon his land without 

 money to buy it ? Money is the great 

 desideratum at present, and then, after 

 a few years' agricultural improvement, 

 properly so-called, and more agricultural 

 education, will come in.— Ed. J 



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