8i8 
Supplement to the “ Tvopical Agyicultuvistl 
[May r, iSgi- 
for rise on their lands. In this they have an 
example in the indefaiigahle Tamil grass-cultiv- 
ator who will carry away irdiatever refuse matter 
he can lay his hand on — often of a useless nature 
■ — to place on liis land. 
» 
AGRICULTURAL LITERATURE AMOA^G THE 
ANCIENT INUIANS. 
By AV. a. De Silva. 
The diseases which attack vegetation are also 
dealt with by ancient Hindus, and particularly 
in the works referred to in my previous con- 
tribution. One cause of disease is stated in 
the following passage “ Cold winds and scorch- 
ing sun produce diseases in trees, and the 
trees turn light in colour and do not put forth 
new" leaves, while the branches become dry and 
the sap leaves the tree.” 
The remedies given to meet these results, as well 
as the recommendations for producing luxuriance 
in orowth, and inducing plants to flower and 
fruit freely, while they in some cases include 
measures 1^ no means antagonistic to our modern 
ideas generally indicate means, the adoption of 
which would in these days be considered the 
height of the ridiculous. 
‘‘To cure the plant of these diseases,’ says 
this ancient writer on vegetable Pathology, first 
scrape of or otherwise remove with the knife, 
the parts found dead on the tree ; rub oi'er 
the.se parts a mixture of Erycioe I aniculatum 
(a plant possessing the jiroperties of a vermifuge), 
ghee and mud ; and iiour at the roots water 
mixed with milk. If the fruits are inclined to 
wither, take a mixture of horse-gram, black- 
beans, sesamum seed and barley, and 
it at the roots this will bring about 
an increase of both flower and fruit. But here 
are yet more startling recommendations To 
make trees fruit and flower abundantly, mix 
tvm measures of the excrement of the goat and 
ram with one of sesamum seed, half of lice flour, 
one measure of water and a hundred tulas or 
nearly a pound of cow’s flesh ; keep the mixture 
for seven days, and then watei, cieepeis, plants, 
A special compost for increasing the size of 
plantains is the following : — “ Dse as manure ■ 
for the roots of the plaiiitain the excrement 
of tlie ass and the horse, burning dry twigs 
over the roots: the xilaintains will produce fruit 
as big as the trunk ot the elephant. 
For increasing the size of yams: — “Dig a pit 
and burn inside it the dung of the cow and 
tlio hog ; remove the ashe.s and till the pit 
witli earth. The root of the yam will he found 
to grow 1o a size sullicient to hll the ]>it! 
i■’or lU'oducing a lu.xuriant p'owth : “Ali.x 
with milk the marinw of the ti.sh and the hog, 
as wrdl as their ile.sli. Soak the seed of the 
idaiit in the mixture, dry it and expose it to 
the va])Our of smoking ghee, ihu .seed wlien 
sown will be found to ,S]>ringf uj) in an iin- 
n-uid and wondiu'ful manner.’ ' 
Tlie.se (piolations sullice to give oiie an idea 
of the nature of jilani li’eatnumt in ancient V'orics 
touching on agricull iii'e. Absurd as many sug- 
gestions found in tliem seem to lie, it will he 
uoticed that nearly all the pre.scriptions greatly 
favour the use of organic manures for stimu- 
lating growth, such as carioii, blood and milk. 
Both the first and second are not to be des- 
pised as manurial agents. A carcase is always 
an accpiisition on cultivated laud, and what is a 
loss to the stock-owner is a gain to his soil 
and the plant ; while there are manures in the 
market which may he called “ Meat Manures,” 
for instance that prepared from the refuse 
matter in Liebig’s Extract of Meat Comiiany. 
In milk we have the most perfect food, as much 
so for the plant as for the animal, s, and though 
it seems ridiculous enough to use meat and 
milk for manuring plants, yet it must be borne 
in mind that the population of countries and 
the occupation of their inhabitants were not 
the same at that remote period as they am 
now, and that meat and milk could have well 
been spared for the pui’xiose for which they 
have been recommended. It must at the same 
time be remembered that unacquainted as the 
ancients would probably have been with the 
secrets of artificial manures, they did the next 
best thing, viz., they returned to the soil the 
product of the soil, whether primarily as sesamum 
seed, rice flour, barley, Ac., or secondarily as 
the flesh of the goat, cow, pig and fish (the 
last-mentioned common enough in Ceylon as 
“ fish-manure”). 
In reading the passages I have quoted, some 
allowance will of course have to he made for 
exaggeration, — a common enough failing among 
ancient writers, — as well as for a dash of super- 
stition (I can call it by no other name) in 
claiming pieculiar virtues for special parts or 
Xnoducts of a plant or animal — instances of 
which are very common among old writers, and 
are even found associated with old nations yet 
extant. 
There is no doubt that most of the recommen- 
dations are based on experience. The composts 
which are prescribed are evidently meant to 
supply all the ingredients of plant food, as far 
as anything was known of this subject. In 
the mixtures of seed mentioned as comiiosts, care 
is taken to adidse that seed should be first 
heated or put by for a sufficiently long peiiod 
to destroy all germinating power ; the seed of 
plants is happily chosen as the storehouse of 
the most valuable materials in the plant, while 
the selection of seeds for the mixture is by no 
means a bad one. 
But here 1 must stop for the x*reseut, re- 
serving for another issue of the Magazine a 
consideration of still more curious recommen- 
dations relative to agriculture. 
— — 
SOILS AND MANURES. 
Mr. Robert Tatlock, e. i. c., p. c. s., in 
a lecture on Soils and Manures, has been 
condemning in unqualified terms the analysis 
of soils as it is generally carried out by chemists. 
The composition of a soil, he says, does not 
necessarily throw any light on its value from 
an agricultural point of view, and no information 
short of a statement of the amount of valuable 
availnhla material yielded by it during the pieriod 
of, and under the conditions which obtain during 
growth, can 1 k' of service in thi,s re.siiect. Mr. 
Tatlock suggests a method for the examination 
