282 



The Supplement to the Tropical Agriculturist 



property, diminution of Crops, and depreciation 

 of that Ksfcate. The first and the first and fore- 

 most point every Manager should keep before him 

 is the retaining of the best part of the soil, for a 

 maximum period, from the time the land is 

 cleared, even if doing so forfeits the complimonts 

 of a V. A. or visitors' congratulations, upon the 

 cleanliness of the Estate— which may give at the 

 moment much satisfaction to him, compared 

 with criticisms to the opposite oit'ect. 



J know of Estates in the close vicinity of 

 where I have lived most of my Java career 

 where the Tea crops are reduced to a minimum, 

 almost entirely because the best part of the 

 soil has long ago been washed down to the 

 Ravines through the fault of former Managers, 

 who thought of nothing except . pleasing their 

 V. A. on the ground of having the Estate beauti- 

 fully clean. The result of this is that profits are nil 

 and the shares standing at a hopelessly low price, 

 there being practically no sail left to grow the 

 crops which are required to make such profits. 



If gentlemen will only give themselves the 

 trouble of making a good experiment of the two 

 systems on a fairly targe scale, they will see, J am 

 sure, the difference and results— within a year 

 — for themselves. The system I advocate is dig- 

 ging or forking out all "Eureh" "Casso" and 

 injurious grasses, and leaving the harmless or 

 rather beneficial weeds such as "Sintrougs", 

 "Djukoet Mingoe", to grow up fairly plentiful 

 but not to such an extont as to impede in any 

 way the cultivation in question. When these 

 weeds begin to get out of hand, cut them down, 

 but at a couple of inches from the ground, so that 



THEIR KOOTS REMAIN 

 AND PREVENT DISPLACEMENT OF ROIL 



when you get the heavy rains. But the 

 plan of taking out systematically and wherever 

 they show themselves the Eureh and grass 

 weeds by means of "garpee djodjo'' (forking 

 out grass weed wherever they appear, as opposed 

 to forking a garden right through) a system 

 which should be at a cheaper cost per Bouw 

 every time that coolies employed for this work 

 go round the Estate until the cost is reduced to 

 a trifle, must be systematically, and at regular 

 intervals, followed. 



In this way you are constantly decreasing 

 your injurious weeds, and encouraging harmless 

 and beneficial weeds, which in themselves keep the 

 first-named out of the gardens. 



Once a year or more if necessary and if funds 

 are available the whole of these 



BENEFICIAL WEEDS SHOULD BE DUG RIGHT IN 

 THE EARTH, BEING SIMPLY TURNED OVER 



in big clods. After this treatment you will 

 see that the injurious grasses are still further 

 diminished, and the character of the weeds wh ich 

 come up still further improved, until you get 

 a system which combines the advantages of 

 preserving soil, greenmanuring andiliorough culti- 

 vation of soil, which— it is impossible for any one 

 who has given much attention to the results of 

 the different systems to doubt— is entirely to the 

 benefit both of the soil itself, and of the growth 

 and health of the product undercultivation. 



I will be extremely obliged if all gentlemen 

 to whom this letter is addressed, will 



RESERVE A CERTAIN ACREAGE FOR A THOROUGH 



AND SYSTEMATIC TRIAL 



of above ; whilst, if they wish it, they might 

 try the results of the other system of keeping 

 the gardens clean by ordinary weeding (ngored) 

 which is still the most prevalent one, on most 

 Eastern Estates in the Preanger. And I will be 

 extremely obliged, if they will keep an exact 

 record of the frequency with which the dif- 

 ferent kinds of treatments to the grounds 

 are given giving cost of same each time 

 and general results at the end of the year, 

 both as regards the appearance of the soil, 

 and growth and general healthiness of the trees 

 and bushes, being cultivated. Such informa- 

 tions or conclusions I am pleased to hold at the 

 disposal of any of the gentlemen working on 

 Estates I am connected with, and also to hear 

 their opinions upon what 1 have written above. 

 In my opinion the question of the best form of 

 upkeep in the long run for our Java soils, on 

 steep or even undulating laud, is far and away the 

 most important one which the would-be suc- 

 cessful planter of the future has to decide upon. 



One has only to go through old hilly gardens 

 on Estates in the Preanger, where the Coffee and 

 Kina gardens were for years and years kept clean 

 by the ordinary ngored system, and where only 

 with the greatest assistance and heavy cultiva- 

 tion, can even a strong product like the tea bush 

 be got to give a fair production, and then to go 

 into a bib of unopened forest, joining same 

 gardens, and witli exactly the same lie of land 

 and originally the same soil, to realise what a 

 cruel destruction of property and loss of Share- 

 holders' money has been effected by this, 



IN MY OPINION, MOST DAMNABLE OF SYSTEMS 



by which such estates have been kept beautifully 

 ciean in the past to the satisfaction of visiting 

 agents but at a cost of the value of the Share- 

 holders asset. The same results can be seen on 

 very many of the steeper Tea Estates in Mas- 

 keliya.Dikoyaand other steep districts of Ceylon. 



Hoping those to whom this is addressed will 

 give this matter their close and earnest atten- 

 tion.— I am, Gentlemen, yours faithfully, &c. 



MESSRS. IfScGKEEKIN & CO.'S 

 ANNUAL TEA REPORT. 



Messrs. McMeekin & Co.'s annual report on 

 the tea trade is usually the last to reach us 

 from London ; but it invariably more than makes 

 up for the lateness of its appearance by the 

 comprehensiveness of its scope and the novelty 

 of its contents. Points of very immediate 

 interest to the tea trade are carefully investi- 

 gated and presented by Messrs. McMeekin, 

 which as a rule are ignored by the majority of 

 tea firms in their annual reports. Following 

 this will be found the full text of Messrs. 

 McMeekin'sdeliverance on the tea trade of 1908, 

 which we are sure, all our readers will consider 

 well worth reproduction in the T.A. The report 

 deals with the position of the industry in all pro- 

 ducingcoun tries and it will be noticed that Messrs 

 McMeekin's remarks on Java tea bear out what 

 we stated in alluding to the official statistics of 

 tea production in Java we published last month. 

 Java teas, it is pointed out, have made more 



