July  i,  1892.] 
THF  TROPICAL  AGRICULTURIST. 
41 
THE  ALLEGED  OYER-PLUCKING  OF  OUR 
TEA  BUSHES. 
The  following  remarks  have  been  made  on  the 
statements  contained  in  our  London  Correspondent’s 
recent  letter  as  to  oritioisms  at  home  in  support 
of  Mr.  J.  L.  Shand’s  accusations  that  our  tea 
planters  are  exhausting  their  plants  by  plucking 
of  an  inordinate  and  exhausting  nature  : — 
“ It  is  impossible  to  attempt  to  disguise  the 
fact  that  the  remarks  reported  to  have  been 
made  by  Mr.  J.  L.  Shand  during  his  recent  visit 
to  this  island  in  deprecation  of  the  exhaustive 
plucking  of  our  tea  bushes  awakened  a great 
deal  of  angry  feeling.  Letters  addressed  to  the 
Observer  and  appearing  in  its  columns  but  too 
fully  evidenced  the  existence  of  such  a feeling 
and  the  bitterness  of  denial  they  contained  may 
have  been  but  the  ‘ froth  upon  the  wave’ 
whioh  shows  the  strength  of  the  tide.  But 
the  opinion  expressed  by  a gentleman  of  loDg 
experience  which  is  reported  in  the  London 
Letter  coincides  very  strongly  with  that  whioh 
has  brought  down  so  much  of  animadversion 
upon  Mr.  Shand’s  head,  and  although  we  can 
have  no  desire  to  pose  as  alarmists,  we  think 
we  shall  scarcely  be  fully  performing  our  duty 
if  we  should  altogether  abstain  from  asking  our 
planting  friends  if  there  may  not  be  a etratum 
of  truthfulness  in  the  allegations  made,  and 
whether,  in  that  case,  it  may  not  be  to  their  interest 
to  modify  their  present  practioe  so  far  as  to  set 
aside  a small  aoreage  on  eaoh  estate  over  whioh 
present  practice  might  be  varied  and  the 
results  to  doing  so  be  recorded.  It  is  acknowledged 
by  high  expert  testimony  that  the  soil  and  climate 
of  Oeylon  are  far  better  suited  to  the  growth  of 
leaf  than  to  the  production  of  fruit,  oxemplars  of 
both  kinds  being  found  in  tea  and  coffee  trees. 
It  is  argued  upon  this  that  tea  has  a far  greater 
chance  of  enduring  vitality  here  than  had  our 
now  almost  wholly  lost  cultivation,  and  with  the 
strength  of  that  argument  we  fully  concur.  But 
it  is  one  thing  to  produce,  it  must  be  another 
to  maintain  ; and  if,  as  is  asserted  in  several 
quarters,  our  tea  bushes  are  beiDg  overplucked  to 
an  extent  which  must  in  the  long  run  overtask 
their  powers,  it  will  be  hopeless  to  rely  upon  the 
qualities  of  soil  and  climate  as  an  assurance  of 
perpetuity.  We  are  aware  that  ominous  prophesy- 
ing has  been  made  by  men  of  India  and  China 
experience,  with  reepeet  to  the  results  which  must 
follow  our  perennial  plucking.  These  critics — 
interested  and  hostile,  doubtless — are  said  to  base 
much  hope  for  the  ultimate  results  to  their  com- 
petition with  ourselves  upon  the  issue  which  they 
state  they  can  rely  upon  to  the  course  while 
our  estate  proprietors  still  hold  themselves  to 
be  justified  in  following  ; and  we  do  not 
think  it  to  be  altogether  wise  to  ignore 
the  views  whioh  seem  to  afford  to  these  so  much 
of  antioipative  satisfaction.  We  therefore  think 
that  experiment  might  well  be  tried  over,  as  we 
have  said,  a restricted  acreage  on  each  estate,  with 
the  view  of  determining  whether  oertain  periods  of 
rest  from  plucking  for  the  purpose  of  admitting 
occasional  full  development  of  leaf,  might  not  be 
not  only  beneficial  to  the  tree  but  economical  as 
tending  to  foster  a higher  quality  of  production 
where  the  ordinary  course  of  plucking  is  re-resorted 
to.  It  certainly  does  not  seem  likely  that  a 
vegetable  growth  never  allowed  to  attain  the  full 
development  nature  has  assigned,  for  it  should 
remain  wholly  healthy.  We  believe  we  have  read 
that  the  dwarfed  plants  of  China.  Holland,  and 
some  other  countries,  curiosities  and  monstrosities 
Only,  are  produoed  by  checking  at  an  early  stage 
their  natural  development.  If  such  be  the  case, 
this  treatment  would  seem  to  be  allied  to  that  we 
are  now  pursuing  with  respect  to  our  tea  bushes. 
If  suoh  an  experiment  as  we  have  suggested  were 
made,  a year  or  two  would  suffice  to  enable  com- 
parison to  be  made  between  the  oondition  of  the 
acreage  so  treated  and  that  left  to  the  results  o 
existing  practice.  We  therefore  think  that  on  all 
the  considerations  mentioned  such  an  experiment 
might  usefully  be  made  by  all  our  planters.” 
On  the  above  we  have  to  remark  that  experiments 
in  the  direction  indicated  might  well  be  made. 
But  it  must  be  remembered  that  in  the  case  of  tea, 
as  in  that  of  coffee  and  many  other  products,  pro- 
fitable cultivation  includes  and  must  ever  involve 
interference  more  or  less  considerable  with  “ natural 
habits  ” and  spontaneous  growth.  The  tea  plant, 
if  left  to  grow  at  its  own  sweet  will,  would  shoot 
up  into  a tree  of  from  thirty  to  forty  feet  in  height, 
and  following  the  instinct  common  to  all  vegeta- 
tion would  produce  leaf  only  of  a quantity  and  of 
a character  best  calculated  to  enable  it  to  mature 
a crop  of  fruit  for  the  perpetuation  of  its  kind, 
The  instinct  of  the  coffee  and  cacao  plants  in 
this  direction  is  furthered  and  assisted  by  the 
planters  who  grow  them,  by  all  possible  means. 
The  object  of  the  tea  planter,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  to  oompel  the  tree  to  put  its  whole  strength 
into  the  production  of  leaf  ; and  one  of  his  greatest 
troubles  is  the  development,  at  certain  stages  of 
growth  and  in  certain  seasons,  of  blossom  and  the 
formation  of  seeds.  This  is  the  natural  tendency 
of  the  plant, — a desperate  c-ffort  to  propagate  its 
species  but  for  the  planter  to  encourage  or  permit 
this  natural  tendency  would  be  not  only  injurious 
to  his  immediate  interests,  but  more  injurious  to 
and  exhaustive  of  the  strength  of  the  tea  bush 
than  many  pluokiugs  of  leaf  would  be.  If, 
therefore,  the  time  for  pruning  has  not  come  (an 
operation,  in  the  case  of  the  tea  bush,  performed 
largely  to  prevent  the  formation  of  fruit  and 
procure  abundance  of  leaf  in  the  form  of  “ flush”), 
the  coolies  on  the  estate  (generally  the  boys  and 
girls)  are  turned  on  to  deprive  the  bushes  of  every 
blossom  developed  and  every  fruit  formed  or  com- 
mencing to  form.  Then  as  to  allowing  the  trees 
to  rest,  by  allowing  a luxuriant  orop  of  flush  suited 
for  manufacture  into  marketable  tea,  to  harden 
into  ordinary  leaves,  we  suppose  the  orthodox 
planter  would  protest  against  such  a course  as 
depriving  him  not  only  of  the  crop  of  flush  thus 
hardened  but  of  several  others  ; because  the  tree 
relieved  from  the  incitement  of  supplying  the  flush 
removed,  would  put  out  buds  and  young  leaves  but 
sparingly,  unless  the  knife  was  used.  The  process 
of  “ perennial  pluoking  ” is,  no  doubt,  exhausting  to 
the  bush,  but  so  is  th  3 gathering  of  fruit  from  coffee 
and  occao  trees.  Our  bushes  in  Ceylon,  grown  within 
7°  of  the  equator,  have  not  the  rest  which  a real  winter 
affords  between  November  and  March  to  the  tea 
grown  in  Assam  and  Northern  India.  But  it  would 
be  a mistake  to  suppose  that  our  Oeylon  tea  plants 
do  not  enjoy  occasional  rests,  mere  or  less  pro- 
tracted, according  to  the  amount  of  wind  driven 
rain  which  strikes  on  them  during  the  height  of  the 
monsoons.  There  are  also  the  dry  winds,  the  heat 
during  the  day  and  the  lowered  temperature  during 
the  night, — with  real  frostiness  at  high  altitudes,— 
in  the  clear  weather  of  January  to  April.  But  what 
is  the  specially  exhaustive  pluoking  complained  of  ? 
On  every  hand  Ceylon  planters  are  warned  and 
intreated  to  pluck  “fine”;  and  yet  experts  tell  us 
that  the  finer  the  plucking, — that  of  the  buds  and 
the  just  developed  minute  flush, — the  more  exhaust- 
ing it  is  to  the  tree.  Anyhow,  the  processes  of 
periodical  pruning  and  frequent,  though  not  inces- 
sant, pluoking  are  and  must  be  more  or  less  exhaust- 
