Edible Products. 02 



cultivation becomes more and more necessary to maintain vigour in the bushes, 

 and a garden which will in its early days do well with four light hoes per annum, 

 will ten years later need six or seven to give anything like equal results. 



While on this point I cannot refrain from referring to a controversy wtiich 

 has recently arisen, as to the value of hoeing a garden in the latter part ot a season, 

 say from August onwards. My own idea is that such cultivation is extremely 

 valuable, and this largely from considerations not of the results for the season in 

 which it is done, bvit rather of the following one. It may generally, I think, be 

 said that any lack of hoeing in the latter part of one year is likely to be felt in poor 

 thin weedy growth at the beginning of the following season. 



Quite as often as it is the result of deficient light hoeing the deterioration 

 in the tea is directly caused by poor shallow cold weather cultivation, or by this 

 cultivation being done very late. One can hardly too strongly insist on the 

 importance of the cold weather deep hoeing. If done deep enough, it makes the 

 lower layers of the soil friable, and hence penetrable by the delicate tea roots. It 

 causes the retention of a large quantity of moisture during the dry season in the 

 subsoil for the use of the plant, which would otherwise be lost. Very frequently 

 indeed the non-luxuriance of a tea estate can be traced to scamping of the cold 

 weather deep hoe or to its being left too late. 



While adequate cultivation can be obtained by hoeing of various kinds, 

 this does not make the deeper subsoil friable and penetrable for the tea roots as it 

 should be. This can only be done by growing deep-rooted trees and plants in 

 among the tea. To this subject we will return a little later in dealing with green 

 manuring. 



EXHAUSTION OF PLANT FOOD. 



But the land may be Avell drained and cultivated, it may be in good physical 

 condition to a sufficient depth, yet if it is exhausted of plant tood, these will count 

 for little, and manuring in one form or another will be essential. This state has 

 been reached in many Assam gardens, and can be judged on the spot fairly 

 well by several indications. The first of these is the chai'acter of the green 

 herbage. Wherever, for instance, 'ilami' 'cold weather weed' (Ageratum sp.) 

 grows vigorously, the soil is not exhausted ; and the same may be said of quite a 

 number of the common weeds of tea. A short, stunted herbage, principally of small 

 grasses, on the other hand always looks bad, and seems to indicate exhausted land. 

 A little examination of the jungle on good land and on the old areas of a garden 

 will very quickly show the difference in the character of the weeds on which I 

 wish to insist. A second and excellent test of the exhaustion or otherwise of a tea 

 soil is obtained by trying to grow mati kalai (Phaseolus mungo) upon it. If this be 

 put into well hoed, slightly moist land, at the end of April or the early part of May, 

 and it is not ruined by very heavy rain, the vigour of its growth may be taken 

 as a very fair measure of the condition of the soil in this respect. If it flourishes 

 and grows two feet high or more in six or seven weeks, the soil is good enough for 

 the time being ; if not, it is probable that manure is required before the tea will 

 reach what it ought to be. A third indication of the exhaustion of the surface soil 

 is given by a gradually increasing difficulty in retaining good tilth on the surface 

 of the land. The condition of the soil largely depends on the amount of organic 

 matter present, and when this disappears through long growth of a crop, the tilth 

 suffers, and the surface after hoeing often quickly forms a hard-baked layer of 

 soil again. 



The last and ultimate test of exhaustion is analysis of the soil. It is 

 necessary to urge tea growers, however, not to depend too much on the indications 

 which this gives, for soil analysis even in its most modern developments is essentially 



