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Edible Products! 



{<■) All snags, which are seen to have little chance of healing over, 

 might well be pruned off. 



(d) All "trailing" branches at the outside of the bush are better away. 



(e) All the previous year's horizontal shoots at the outside of the bushes 

 should be headed back to induce them to throw out vertical shoots. 



(/) All small twiggy shoots throughout the bushes, which will never 

 give strong healthy wood for the next year, should be cut right back to the 

 stem from which they arise. 



(g) The amount of new wood left on each shoot should be as little as 

 possible ("generally not more than one and a half inches), consistent with this 

 containing one bud, dormant or otherwise. 



(h) The same length of new wood should be left on each pruned shoot 

 throughout the bush. 



Where deterioration of the bush has commenced, either in the normal 

 course or hastened by incorrect pruning or plucking, there is one method of 

 bringing it back to a healthy condition, provided always that the soil and the 

 roots are in a thoroughly satisfactory condition. This is by 'heavy pruning.' 

 Though more rational methods of annual light pruning will make heavy prun- 

 ing necessary less often than it would be otherwise, and less often than it has 

 been in the past, yet just as pruning at all is necessary to remove the refuse 

 mass of twigs which plucking say, twenty or thirty times in the season, leaves 

 in the bush, so heavy pruning is necessary to remove the refuse of several 

 light primings. But it is not merely a method of removing the refuse non- 

 yielding wood from a bush ; it also has an effect in directly stimulating the 

 plant to greater exertions, and this is evidenced, if by nothing else, by the 

 greater development of small-feeding rootlets after heavy cutting of the plant, 

 provided the soil is such as to allow of their formation. This is probably one 

 of the principal reasons in some cases why heavy and especially collar pruning 

 has been such a great success. The bushes are a mass of useless wood, inade- 

 quate feeding of the root energies occurs, and little new root growth takes place. 

 The bush is heavily pruned or collar pruned, and allowed to rest, when the 

 whole of the new growth spends its time in feeding roots innumerable ; new 

 and valuable rootlets make their appearance, and the result is a magnificent 

 bush, which, if dealt with properly, gives as good a plant probably as has 

 ever been in the place before. 



The amount of pruning required to stay deterioration is a matter which 

 can only be settled by a practical man on the spot. There are, however, several 

 guiding principles. In the first place, heavy pruning should not disturb, if 

 possible, the shape and framework of the bush, and if it is necessary to cut so 

 low down that this is destroyed, collar pruning is indicated. Secondly, as few 

 knots as possible should be left below the cutting. Again, grey lichenous growths 

 on a bush are a sign that the wood on which they are taking place must be 

 cut out if it cannot be made vigorous by heavy manuring. Fourthly, it seems that 

 in almost every case manure should be applied either before or at the time of heavy 

 pruning, at any rate if the pruning is really low. It will stimulate the bush at a 

 time when it has suffered a great shock and so should usually be given even on a 

 good soil. Finally, the bush must be nursed and easily treated tor a long time after 

 the heavy or collar pruning is carried out, and in very low cutting it requires 

 very careful cultivation, especially immediately round the stem of the bush. 



TREATMENT OP VERY BAD TEA. 



There may come a time in any garden, and it has already come in a 

 few gardens in the older portions of Assam, where the methods hitherto mentioned 

 seem insufficient to bring deteriorated tea back to a profitable and yielding 



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