THE SUPPLEMENT TO THE 



Tropical Agriculturist and Magazine of the C. A. 8. 



OowPltBD by A. M. & J. FERGUSON. 



No. 3.] MARCH, 1909. [Vol. IV. 



CLEAN WEEDING ON TEA AND 

 RUBBER ESTATES. 



SOME JAVA INSTRUCTIONS. 

 We publish on this page a most interesting 

 document of instructions to Managers on certain 

 tea and rubber estates in Java, which reaches us 

 through the hands of a prominent Ceylon planter, 

 who, in turn, had it sent to him from London. 

 We are not permitted to publish the name 

 attached ; our correspondent had no authority 

 to do this. He tells us he quite agrees with all 

 the Java authority says as to the ruin of estates 

 by clean weeding ; he is old enough, ho adds, to 

 remember planters who said of coffee that short 

 crops came in with clean weeding. Mr. Kelway 

 Piamber(asfaras our informant understands him) 

 condemns clean weeding in the fullest and most 

 comprehensive manner ; and although, to a cer- 

 tain extent, it mubt be allowed on tea estates to 

 work the tea properly, it is the worst of folly to 

 indulge in it in rubber estates. This Ceylon 

 planter saw quite recently a gang of between 300 

 and 400 coolies in lines, armed with mamoties, 

 scraping a steep hill side of a new clearing. 

 The loss of soil resulting from such opera- 

 tions is greater than all the manure that could 

 be applied would ever compensate for. He is 

 trying partial weeding himself ; and where it is 

 properly and reasonably done, he has no hesi- 

 tation at all in saying the growth of rubber is 

 greatly superior to clean-weeded fields. As cer- 

 tain eminent planters— he remarks— make clean 

 weeding a kind of fetish, he has no wish to start 

 a discussion which might drift into personalities; 

 but the opinions we now publish are important, 

 and we have pleasure in giving them full promi- 

 nence and expressing our readiness to publishing 

 anything on the other side, tfrat of the clean- 

 weeders, 

 39 



TO JAVA MANAGERS AND ASSISTANTS. 



Gentlemen, — I forward for your perusal en- 

 closed extracts from Reports of Mr Kelway 

 Bambor, the well-known Ceylon Expert in Soils 

 and (ieneral Tropical Cultivation made on 



and Estates belonging to the 



Java Rubber— Co. this month, as I 



feel that his remarks express in a few words so 

 exactly the advantages of a system which I have 

 urged upon all those working under me for 

 many years with excellent results where they 

 have been followed, whilst where the opposite 

 has been tho case the system of keeping un. 

 dulating land or hilly ground clean by ordinary 

 'ngored' work with the 'Parang,' and similar 

 tools has resulted with just the opposite effects. 



I maintain, and have always maintained, that 

 the scraping of the soils clear : — 



(a) Means loss of the best soil within a given 

 amount of years varying in accordance with the 

 depth of the good soil, heaviness of the rainfall 

 and the frequency with which this treatment 

 is done. 



(b) Encourages grass weeds such as 'eiueh', 

 djukoot pait, etc., to the detriment of the better 

 and more succulent class of weeds. 



(c) Is the most expensive form of upkeep 

 there is, as cutting all the tops of the Eureh 

 plants iust about level with the ground has the 

 same effect on it as pruning has on a Tea bush, 

 e.g. that the growth of tho weed is strengthened, 

 whilst far more tops come up than there were 

 before the treatment. 



If only of those who are in charge of Estates 

 would get firmly into their heads that the appear- 

 ancc of an Estate at any given moment— that is, 

 whether it is looking beautifully clean or rather 

 dirty— is a tmall matter compared with tho 



ENORMOUS IMPORTANCE OF PRESERVING THE SOIL 



of same which after all isono sCapital Asset, loss 

 of which must, natur ally mean deteriqra,tion of the 



