89 



Horticulture, 



see the giant drum head cabbages in those days which could in point of siae and 

 weight easily compare with, or even outclass some of Messrs. Sutton & Company's 

 "Giant Drum-head" prize cabbages, or Messrs. Carter's Mammoth Beef Heart 

 cabbages. It was not unusual then to have six, seven or eight continued and 

 repeated crops of cabbages or cauliflowers from off the same plot. 



Within the last four years the failure of the successful growth of cabbages 

 and cauliflowers in the gardens in the town, for causes to be dealt with later on, has 

 in turn led to a greater attention being paid to the growth of root crops such as 

 carrots, beetroots, parsnips, etc., and has seen the introduction of the more useful 

 English garden herbs which grow to some perfection; the gardens in the town 

 now mostly grow these crops. 



Market gardening in Nuwara Eliya has greatly developed, and the supply 

 to-day is inadequate to meet the demand. The great demand there is for fresh 

 English vegetables and the necessity there is, therefore, that a better method of 

 cultivation should be adopted, and that our gardens should keep pace with the 

 horticultural progress of the day, can be gathered from the fact that Messrs. Paul 

 Soris & Company, who supply the German line of steamers calling at Colombo send 

 monthly on this order alone an average of 3,000 cabbages, 20 to 30 thousand carrots, 

 1-5 thousand turnips, beside large quantities of other vegetables. 



In attempting therefore to lay before this meeting a few of the difficulties 

 to be met with in market gardening at present in Nuwara Eliya. with the causes of 

 these difficulties and the remedies which could be suggested, I only hope that the 

 subject will be of interest to those who not only gain a living, but supply a great 

 want, and at the same time "induce others, whose greater experience and more 

 practical knowledge of the subject better qualifies them, to express their opinions 

 and suggestions thereon. 



For the last five or six years the growth of cabbages, cauliflower and 

 knolkhol has met with no success, and at present it is hard to get a single cabbage 

 to grow sucessfully in any of the gardens in the town. In fact, it is very hard to get 

 a crop to come to any perfection out of seed, and this difficulty is partly avoided 

 by many of our gardeners by getting sprouts (called " Rikili ') from healthy cabbages 

 from Ragalla and Kandapolla, which come to some perfection in carefully prepared 

 9oils. Local suppliers have been forced to get their cabbages from Palugama, 

 (Wilson Plains), Kandapolla and Ragalla, where the cabbage still seems to thrive. This 

 must be attributed largely to a soil exhausted in sulphates, phosphates and potash. 

 A cabbage according to Sutton wants a soil containing 8 per cent, sulphuric acid, 

 16 per cent, of phosphoric acid, 4 per cent, of soda, 48 per cent, of potash, and 15 per 

 cent of lime, and it is evident that we cannot expect to grow a cabbage on a soil 

 which is destitute of these ingredients, to say nothing of others. The repeated 

 planting of cabbages in the present gardens with no change in the crop had 

 undoubtedly exhausted the soil of these ingredients, and it is only after great care 

 in the selection of soils, manure, and probably after the ground has been treated 

 with a rotation of crops on some scientific plan that one can expect to grow a 

 cabbage with success. 



In dealing with this difficulty it ought to be borne in mind that to make 

 our gardening successful great attention should be paid to the rotation or alter- 

 nation of crops, for this will enable one not only to get the largest possible 

 production, but the highest possible quality of every kind of crop. We have noticed 

 the evil effects of our gardeners in Nuwara Eliya limiting their first crops mostly 

 to the potato, and we have then seen how the repeated planting of cabbages and 

 cauliflower without any alternate crop of any other kind on the same plot of 

 ground, one crop following the other for a long series of years, ended in a complete 

 12 



