and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultual Society.—- October, 1911. 



363 



Company has a fleet of motor and steam boats 

 and small schooners and quite respectable 

 jetties on the plantation. The agricultural 

 animals are chiefly mules, imported from Aus- 

 tralia and are about 14 hands high. 



After the trees on the land to be planted are 

 felled and the stumps pulled out. the undergrowth 

 is mowed with an animal power 



MOWER 



and burnt. Holes are dug by coolies and they are 

 filled with plough and rake drawn by mules. If ne- 

 cessary, the mouths of the holes are trimmed by 

 coolies. Thereafter, all the operations are me- 

 chanical and up to date. The soil is thoroughly 

 cultivated and kept in a proper state of tilth . 

 Writing to me originally, Mr. Westland stated : 

 " It may interest you to know that on one of our 

 experimental estates, the coconuts looked yel- 

 low, stunted and showed very poor growth for 

 their age. The entire estate was thoroughly 

 ploughed twice, once up and once across the 

 lines. The result has more than justified the 

 expense. The coconuts now are green, vigorous, 

 and have made astonishingly rapid growth in 

 the short time that has elapsed." I commend 

 this experience to all coconut planters in Ceylon. 

 For experimental purposes, different kinds of 



LEGUMINOUS SHRUBS 



are grown on different plantations and 

 turned into the 6oil. Mark the method 

 of doing so. A wide furrow is made with 

 the plough. A mower follows and cuts 

 down the shrubs adjoining the furrow. A mule 

 rake fills the furrow with these. The plough 

 on its return journey fills up the furrow and 

 covers up the leguminous plants. The process 

 goes on till the whole land is ploughed and the 

 leguminous plants are buried. This is very far 

 in advance of anything we have reached. Neces- 

 sity is said to be the mother of invention. In 

 Papua, necessity (the want of labour), has 

 taught agriculturists to adapt methods of culti- 

 vation, which are well nigh perfect. 

 The 



PLOUGH 



used being the disc, the danger of its being 

 wrecked by coming in contact with roots 

 and stumps is obviated. The disc jumps 

 over every obstacle. Mr. Westland says that he 

 has tried almost every kind of plough, but for 

 effective work, nothiug can come near the disc. I 

 again appeal to engineering firms to import a few 

 " Massy-Harris " disc ploughs and to the Agri- 

 cultural Society to give demonstrations of then- 

 work. 



One of the 



MEANS OP TRANSPORT 



on this Papuan Estate is with sledges, 

 where the sand is heavy. I told Mr. West- 

 land that it was a strange circumstance 

 that this idea occurred to Mr. CR Cumber- 

 land. When he was A. G. A. of Chilaw, 

 he asked me whether I did not think that if 

 sledge-like contrivances took the place of cart 

 wheels, draught on the estate I am in charge 

 of, would be easier. I thought that the revolu- 

 tion of wheels made traction easier than rigid 

 sledges. He was certain his idea was good and 

 intended to experiment with sledges, on the sea 



shore at Chilaw. Before he could put his idea 

 into operation, he was transferred elsewhere. 



In the old coffee days, Mr. Westland, senior, 

 and Mr. W H Wright, the veteran planter of 

 Mirigama, were both at Haputale and must 

 have known each other very well. The latter 

 will be interested to know that Mr. Westland 

 junior, met his son early this year. He had 

 just returned from a holiday trip to Australia 

 and was said to have been in excellent health. 

 He is doing very well in Papua. 



At the time the 



STEAM DIGGER 



was introduced to the C. T. Plantation Co.'s 

 Coconut Estates, after examination of its work, 

 I was of opinion that a steam plough would be 

 preferable to it. That is a plough drawn by a 

 steam traction engine. I placed my views before 

 ray employers, but they were not acted upon. Mr 

 Wernham from the Solomon Islands called on 

 me and in conversation said hi had a steam 

 plough on Messrs. Lever Bros.' Coconut Estates, 

 which could plough 20-30 acres a day. Mr West- 

 land says he uses a steam plough and one of the 

 Directors of his Company in Australia has a 

 motor plough which draws a string of ploughs 

 with a harrow behind. The work of ploughing 

 and harrowing is done in one operation. — Cor. 



RECENT EXPERIMENTS ON TEA 

 IN JAVA. 



By A. Gordon Howitt, B. Sc. (Berlin.) 



It is now generally admitted that the only 

 practicable method oi ascertaining the proper 

 cultivation and manuring of sub-tropical and 

 tropical economic plants is by carefully conduc- 

 ted experiments. At one time it was believed that 

 the analysis (chemical and physical) of a soil was 

 necessary as a preliminary to actual experimen- 

 tal work, but this rather expensive process is 

 obviously of little value, since in the first place 

 it is difficult to obtain a sample of soil which 

 may be taken as an average of any plantation, 

 and, secondly, the results so obtained —that is, 

 the percentages of the plant foods, nitrogen, 

 phosphoric acid, and potash, determined by 

 using a 1 per cent solution of citric acid — give no 

 direct clue to the possibilities of that soil, and to 

 the availability of the plant foods therein. Look- 

 ing over a large number of analyses of typical 

 soils from gravels up to heavy clays, one is struck 

 with the small variations in the percentages of 

 the essential plant foods, and those small varia- 

 tions do not coincide with the great differences 

 which actually exist in the fertility of the differ- 

 ent classes of soils. Noteworthy, also, is the 

 fact that even the percentages for the poorest 

 sods show, when calculated per acre, a quantity 

 of plant food which is far more than is required 

 by ordinary crops. For instance, chemists tell 

 us that, if the percentage of potash found by a 1 

 percent solution of citric acid is above 'Ul percent, 

 then there is sufficient potash in the sol!, and the 

 application of soluble potash manures is un- 

 necessary. In giving this statement they over- 

 look not only the many other factors which 

 make up the fertility of a soil, but also the "rang- 

 ing " powers of the roots of the various crops. 



i 



