THP TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [October i, 1889. 
In many districts, and at high elevations, — 3,000 feet 
and over, — there is generally a cold wet season sets 
in after June. The soil get3 saturated and cold. 
The tea bushes almost refuse to flush, the little 
they grow is small and bangy. They want rest 
Then is the time to prune : pruning will assist 
them to rest. Being deprived of their freshest 
wood and bulk of their leaves by the operation, 
they will scarcely show a live bud for weeks. The 
bushes will thus have their needed, though short 
rest during the deadest part of the year, and will 
be getting ready and in flushing order again for the 
best months. 
In the lowcountry, conditions are different, 
especially in those parts where long droughts 
prevail during the first quarter of the year. In 
such cases pruning should be done so late as 
only to reserve time for the bushes to regain 
sufficient young wood to enable them to endure 
the severe spring drought. By early pruning 
— about June and July — the young woods gets so 
well matured, and ripened, the severe drought in 
the early part of the year drives them all to seed- 
ing — and what should be the best flushing months 
are lost. These remarks, however, both as regards 
high and low elevation, only apply in a [general way : 
each one must be guided by conditions and circum- 
stances peculiar to his situation, estate, climate, 
and jat of tea. The latter especially : for instance, 
in not a few of the estates in the lowcountry there 
is a great deal of wretchedly bad jat. The planter is 
almost driven to his wits, end to know how to act 
with it. The dwarfish creeping stuff leaves him no 
choice but prune it severely, after which — as every- 
one knows — the tea made from such is of the 
poorest quality for months ; and anon discovers to 
his disgust that he has little more than got into 
fairly good leaf again when his bushes have begun 
to make blossom buds — which means that the 
strength and flavour of his teas decrease at the 
same rate as the blossoms increase. Under such 
cricumstances I can offer him no advice. It will not 
pay to pick off the blossoms — so I prefer to leave 
him to his own meditations and pass on to try to 
answer the other part of the question. 
" And How? " — To make pruning easier and tea 
bushes in every way more satisfactory. They should 
be carefully formed from the beginning. Young 
plants should never be allowed to run up (as is 
often the case) one or two stems to a height of 
four or five feet, before topping. They should be 
gone over with the knife when about eight or ten 
months planted and all running up stems cut down 
to eight or nine inches, and thus force them to 
throw out, and grow, a cluster of shoots, of as 
nearly equal strength as can be got to make a well- 
formed bush. 
Bushes thus equally formed, and good jat, " How 
to prune" may be stated in few words. Cut 
three inches above the last year's cut. Clear out 
all wiry and seed-bearing twigs, also cross branches, 
but spare every leaf you can. Coffee leaf-disease 
taught us the value of leaves. It should not be 
forgotten, however that pruning — though indispensi- 
ble — is a waste of material, and the experienced 
planter will see that he can occasionally stave off 
a regular pruning of some of his fields for probably a 
whole year by merely cutting off the matted sur- 
face and levelling the tops of his bushes, but this 
can only be done where there is good jat : with 
the low trailing stuff, of all distorted habits, he 
hardly knows how to act other than to denounce 
the man who sold him the seed and sold him at 
the same time. 
" How should toa be tluckiod from the first pick- 
ing, alter pruning till the end of the season ? " If 
the jut is good, the busies vigorous, plucking may 
begin when the young shoots have reached to seven 
or eight inches. In successive pluckings one leaf 
above the abortive leaf should be left for say a 
third of the season. After which the abortive leaf 
only may be left, but the strength and quality of 
the bushes must be taken into account in every case, 
close plucking forces the bush to push at too many 
points, the flush in consequence is smaller. A 
larger proportion of fine teas would be made, but 
a greatly reduced outturn would be the result ; besides 
the bush would get close and matted at an earlier 
part of the season and necessitate earlier pruning. 
In the case of bushes not vigorous the young 
wood should not be touched after pruning till it 
has reached to nine or ten inches. A plucking 
might then be taken off and the shoots pinched 
down to a level surface leaving ahout five inches : 
this will cause fewer and stronger shoots. The ad- 
vantage is obvious. W. M. 
TEA PLANTED ON OLD COFFEE LAND. 
Answers to Questions. 
No.E. 
1st. What do you consider the average age of the tea 
from which first pluckiDgs have been taken ? 
Answer ■■ — 2§ years. 
2nd. What do you consider the average increase 
during the second year's plucking over that of the first 
year's ? 
Answer : — 200 per cent. 
3rd. What is the average increase of the 3rd year's 
plucking over that of the '2nd year's yield ? 
Answer : — 33 per cent. 
4th. What is the average increase of the 4th year's 
plucking over that of the 3rd year's yield ? 
Answer : — 10 per cent. 
5th. What is the average increase of the 5th year's 
plucking over that of the 4th year's yield. 
6th. At what age do you consider tea in such lands 
in full bearing ? 
Answer : — 5 years. G. A. T. 
No. F. 
1st. — About six months later than if planted in new 
land, say two and half years. 
2nd. — The increase of the second over the first year 
will vary from 40 lb made tea to 120 lb. 
3rd. — The increase of the third year over the second 
from 60 to 150 lb. 
4th.— From 40 lb to 150 lb. 
5th.— From 30 to 150 lb. 
6th.— About the 9th year at a low altitude; 11th at 
a high. 
The question of whether tea on old coffee land can 
be grown to pay depends much upon the coffee land. 
For instance it may have been worked out in coffee, 
mamoty-weeded and been undrained. My experience 
goes against most land which has been much worked in 
coffee, no matter how good the soil originally was. 
Those estates which were cultivated the highest in 
coffee do not certainly always do the best in tea. Well 
drained and weeded coffee estates from the first which 
have not been highly manured, appear to do best in 
tea. That portion of the estate cultivated the most 
in coffee usually seems the barest in tea. Of course 
exposure, wind and other questions come in ; 
where much lime has been used tea seeds well but 
does not grow large or flush satisfactorily. It also 
depends upon the degree of goodness in soils. I was 
recently passing through some land where coffee had 
been grown for forty years and the tea was yielding 
700 lb. an acre, but this is not the ordinary state of 
things and other fields fell off, the ridges doing little 
or nothing. It is always difficult to lay down a rule for 
tea-land ; indeed to find any general law for agricul- 
ture. W. F. L. 
