July 1, 1898.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
31 
is cnt at abont two feet from the ground and one or 
two ot the tallest branches are cutout, the weakest 
being selected for sacrifice. I am not sure thp.t three 
feet is too high, because I find bushes of this height 
have new wood as thick as one's thumb, and by the 
end of the aeison they have grown to about 4j 
feet which is irell within reach of the pluckers. If 
my system can be adopted, the result after eight 
or ten years would be that each bush would be com- 
posed of straight clean branches without a break, 
to the height of two feet, and above that there would 
be visible the scars of each successive pruning. 
And then year by year the weakest of these would be 
cat down as low as possible, and replaced by new wood 
from below. 
I have been applying this system thoroughly only 
for four years, and I notice that most of the bushes 
have one to three of these fine clean stems ; an \ the 
older branches show good growth owing to i iJicious 
topping off of weaker parts. And when I find that 
an old branch has sent out good new wood fr^^m low 
down, and the top has ceased to give strong new 
growth, I cut off the piece above the new wood. Only 
four years have shown such a vast iinprovement 
that I am now confident of being able to renew each 
bush in course of time. 
I recognise that there is a short cut to this result, 
i.e. to out down and re-grow the bushes, but I should 
have to sacrifice a great deal of tea, and I .consider it 
wiser to sacrifice the appearance of the bushes to 
keep up yield of tea, than to sacrifice the yield to 
get good bushes. " (Jutting down" is a short cut, and 
as ujual with short cuts it proves to be the longest 
way round. The object of cutting down is eventually 
to increase the yield, and no sooner has this object 
been attained than it becomes necessary to resort 
to it. But I hold that by a system of constantly 
cutting out onli/ those branches which show weakness, 
the bushes can be kept at one constaat level and sur- 
face, and will give the sime yield from year to year 
■without any limit of time. It is also reasonable to 
think that branches quite clean from the ground to 
the pruning pjint will have a freer flow of sap than 
those which have been cut and hacked at yearly inter- 
vals. One must have at least two feet growth to give 
a large surface to a bush, and if you can get the sap 
to flow sfrairfht up to this necessari/ height the 
result must be increased yield. It is necessary to 
els 4n out the bushes now and then and I think that 
intervals of two years are quite sufBcient. Thus one 
half of a garden would be cleaned out thoroughly, all 
whippy and undersized wood cut off, and the other 
half of the garden should bs light pruned, and all 
the inside growth left alone, and only the surface 
growth should be cut off. 
This light pruned part would begin to yield first, and 
would give a considerable amount of leaf before the 
other part can be plucked. The surface only of 
each bush should be plucked, so that any new shoots 
which grow from inside are not touched until they 
appear on the surface. These will give new straight 
wood to prune on at the end of the year. At first I 
had to do my pruning with two lots of coolies; the 
ordinary lot simply pruned the bush leaving the 
required amount of new growth. 
After them came the knowing lot who selected hard 
wood to be cut out. My work was to examine this 
cut out hard wood to see that no vigorous parts were 
cut away. If I found a knot with decent wood on it 
-say about J inch diameter I explained to the man 
that I had lo'st the yield of that piece ot wood for a 
whole year, and that 1 wanted only weak wood to be 
cut off. This required a great deal of attention. Now I 
make the men collect what they cut off and 
heap up the bits at intervals and I examine 
those hefips. But even the or inary coolies are 
getting to know what I want, auJ as only half 
the garden has to be pinned with d ajretion there 
is njt much fear of serious over pruning. The rest ot 
the garden is only " cut over," not quite straight, 
but with a view to giving as legular a surface as 
possible. I like to see the bushes ''round," it gives 
more surface, and the side branches can be of the 
same length as the centre ones. I have seen a piece 
ot old tea yielding well which had never been cut 
down,— it averaged about 3 feet to tho pruning point; 
and regarding the fear that a bush will get too high 
this can be obviated by not leaving too much growth at 
each pruning. If you start pruning a new shoot at 2 
feet, and leave only one inch each year, this shoot 
will onlv be 3 feet in height in 12 years ; and supposing 
that by that time it shows signs of getting weak you 
can cut it out entirely, and its place will be taken by 
other shoots which have grown up in the interval. 
With anew extension, and this system of prunincr I 
imagine that the greatest yield would be attained 
over the course of ai,y given number of years. No 
branch should be tut helow 2 feet, and I really 
think that with a good class of plant 3 feet would 
be the best height. A bush of this sort would not 
grow much brush-wood inside. Failing a ready made 
garden which has not been hacked and hewed, it is 
possible with patience and discretion to get the 
place round gradually. Rtther than cut down a 
gnarled bush, I would leave it uupruned for two years; 
It has not snflioient energy to grow fine new wood in 
one year, bat at. the end of two years some of the 
growth would be found of a decent size. With a little 
humouring this bush will begin to send out good wood 
from lower down, and it will in time regain vigour and 
youth, whereas one or two " cuttings down " will leave 
it an old wreck with only a few twigs to show that it 
is alive. I think that as a rule tea is •' cut down " not 
because it has fallen off in yield, but from the fear 
that it will soon begin to yield less, and that the 
bushes will get too high. I would earnestly recom- 
mend to any one who contemplates the renewal of a 
plot of tea by cutting down to give it a year 
or two more of full growth, thinning out 
some of the worst branches, keeping a careful 
record of the yield as cDnapared with past seasons 
This advice would apply especially to any manager 
taking charge of a new garden, which, (accordfng 
to his opinion) has been ruined by past bad prun- 
ing, or overpluckiug. As long as a branch can give 
new wood as thick as one's little finger there is" no 
fear of its power of yielding well; then why should 
thousands of such branches be cut down ? And con- 
sider the loss of plucking surface. As an illustration, 
take a compass and draw concentric semicircles on a 
straight line, have one of 1 inch radius, another of 
2 inches, another of 3, and another of 4. This 
last semiciicle of 4 feet represents the bush which 
has to be cut down, and the intermediate lines will 
show the gradual increase to the original surface, 
and I am quite convinced that the greatest possible 
surface (i.e., all the bashes touching) can be main- 
tained by simply cutting out weak branches and 
pruning any new growth at the level of the surface 
of the bush. 
I must admit that I have never seen a whole 
garden pruned on this system from the very begin- 
ning so that I must also admit that the universal 
practice is opposed to my theory, and it is always 
rash to suggest that the universal practice is wrong. 
However I venture to do so because I have worked 
hard at the problem for six years on an old and much 
hacked estate, and at the end ot this time, of which 
only four yeai-s have been fulb/ given to the idea, I 
can see a very great improvement in the appearance 
of the bushes, and I have also the proof oi the benefit 
to the bushes, because I make more tea of very much 
better quality than my predecessors made in former 
times. 
If any one has had experience that this system ig 
not the best, I should like t') hear from him. I ima- 
gine that this system would give best results in Ceylon, 
the bushes being pruned every second year ; one 
quart er of the estate cleaned oat and pruned tho- 
roughly, one quarter pruned lightly, and one-half not 
touched at all. T.ie two years of growth gives the 
new wood time lo be well matured before it is cut, 
and any wood that has not grown to a standard size 
can be shaved off close to the branch it started from. 
This pruning at intervals of two and three years is 
cuatomary in Ceylon, I have little doubt that it would 
