773 
May  I,  1897.]  THE  TROPICAL  AGRICULTURIST. 
proval  ; for,  vre  cannot  believe  that  science  cannot 
restore  to  a plant,  through  its  food,  the  quali- 
ties it  loses  through  exhaustion  of  the  soil.  “ M” 
from  Neboda  and  “ Tea  Bush  ” regard  coarse 
plucking  at  medium  and  low  elevations,  and  the 
ambition  for  largo  yields  of  tea  per  acre,  res- 
ponsible for  low  prices  ; but  the  practice  is 
claimed  to  be  profitable.  If  it  is  found  to 
be  so,  it  is  unreasonable  to  expect  its 
abandonment  ; for,  it  is  on  the  real  re- 
munerativeness of  the  industry,  and  not  on 
the  reputation  alone  of  the  teas,  that  its  con- 
tinuance and  development  depend.  If  “ Tea 
Bush  ” is  correct  in  his  opinion  that  manuring 
increases  the  yield,  without  adding  to  the 
flavour  of  the  teas,  and  indeed  while  affecting 
it  prejudicially,  the  necessity  is  all  the  more 
urgent  of  ascertaining  whether  tlie  drawback 
cannot  be  remedied.  If  it  cannot,  the  deterio- 
ration must  continue,  and  tlie  factory  can  do 
but  little  to  improve  teas  if  substance  is  lacking 
in  the  leaf.  On  the  need  of  the  utmost  care 
in  the  supervision  of  the  factory,  there  is  as 
little  divergence  of  opinion,  as  on  the  need  of 
ample  withering  space  and  cool  surroundings. 
Even  those  who  assert  that  coarse  ]>lucking  and 
large  yields  find  favour  hecause  they  )iay,  ad- 
mit the  probability  that  tliey  may  cease  to  be 
remunerative;  anct  if  quality  becomes  an  object, 
the  reform  must  begin  vvith  the  soil,  and  it  is 
not  too  early  to  start  the  investigation  of  the 
influence  of  soils  and  manures  on  the  .strength 
and  flavour  of  the  liquor. 
^ 
(Letters  continued.)  ^ 
No.  LIII. 
Deak  Sik, — With  reference  to  your  queries  as 
to  the  causes  which  have  brought  down  the 
average  prices  of  Ceylon  teas  : — 
(1) .  That  coarse  plucking  is  one  of  the  causes 
caiinot  be  gainsaid.  We  see  by  the  Colombo 
tea  sales  lists,  lots  of  stuff  sold  at  8 cents 
and  9 cents — that  proves  coarse,  if  not  carele.ss, 
plucking.  A greater  cause  of  the  low'  average, 
however,  is,  in  my  0])inion,  the  much  greater  pio- 
portion  of  lowcountry,  and,  of  course,  inferior 
quality  coming  into  the  market. 
(2) .  Manuring,  if  W'e  know  what  to  apply, 
ought  to  improve  quality  and  thus  raise  the 
average.  It  is  a well-knowm  fact  that  the  flavour 
of  fruits  is  much  improved  by  scientific  culture, 
(for  instance,  the  grape  or  pine  apple),  and  if  fruits, 
why  not  leaf? 
(3) .  Excessive  cutting  dow'n  (a  pernicious  sys- 
tem fortunately  fast,  dying  out)  though  it  reduces 
the  quantity,  also  reduces  the  quality  for  many 
months,  and  must  contribute  to  lower  the 
average. 
(4) .  There  is  not,  as  a rule,  the  same  w'atchful 
care  over  manufacture  that  was  years  ago. 
There  are  too  many  meets  now  to  prepare  for  and 
attend.  Large  rollers  do  not  make  such  good 
teas,  nor  so  fine  in  appearance,  as  the  smaller 
ones  ; but  as  this  bears  on  line  and  coarse  alike, 
•I  do  not  see  that  tlie  average  should  be 
much  affected.  There  is  much  tiuth  in  the 
saying,  that  good  tea  is  made  in  the  field,  but 
unequal  withering  or  over-fermenting  will  turn 
out  low  grade  teas,  however  line  the  leaf. 
(5) .  I have  no  personal  experience  of  shortness 
of  labour. 
(())  and  (7).  That  rubbishy  stuff  th.at  goes  in 
Colombo  sales  at  8 cents  and  9 cents  (largely 
the  result  of  careless  plucking  though  sometimes 
of  .shortness  of  labour)  should  be  consigned  to 
the  manure  heap,  or  the  boiler  furnace,  instead 
of  going  to  depress  our  already  very  low  average. 
— Yours  &c.,  M,  JB. 
Extract  from  a letter  written  a good  many  years 
ago  : — On  many  estates  pruning  seems  to  have  deve- 
loped into  a ruthless  hacking  down  of  the  bushes 
which  only  their  natural  hardiness,  their  still  being 
young,  their  strong  deep  feeding  roots  together  with 
the  finest  of  climates,  enable  most  of  them  to  sur- 
vive and  rally  in  spite  of  this  execrable  treatment 
erioneously  called  pruning.  In  the  lowcountry  I 
have  seen  beautiful  fields  of  tea  made  very  patchy 
in  one  year  by  this  fashionable  cutting  down.  Many 
bushes  were  killed  outright.  The  half-dried  stumps 
of  many  more,  never  regained  their  former  luxuriance. 
This  sort  of  hacking  down  is  even  more  common 
in  the  hill  country,  though,  attended  with  fewer 
fatal  results. 
At  this  present  time  you  would  not  have  far  to  go 
in  some  of  the  finest  districts  without  seeing  beauti- 
ful fields  of  four  feet  across  tea  bushes,  being  ruth- 
lessly cut  down  with  knife  and  saw  to  a few  thick 
sticks,  representing  nine  or  twelve  inches  breadth 
instead  of  four  feet.  When  you  take  into  considera- 
tion the  enormous  quantity  of  material  in  excess  of 
what  is  necessary  thus  cut  down  and  thrown  to 
waste,  the  shock  to  the  bushes,  likelj'  to  kill  a 
number  and  render  many  others  stunted  and  feeble, 
the  time  that  must  elapse  be'ore  these  thick  leaf- 
less sticks  can  grow  to  a fair-sized  plucking  bush 
again,  and  the  draft  on  the  soil  to  make  up  the 
waste,— tell  me  if  you  can,  good  Messrs.  Editors,  C.  0. 
and  T.  A.,  a single  good  and  justifiable  reason  for 
such  cutting  down  as  that  alluded  to  ? Also  tell  me 
how  many  hardwooded  bushes  you  know  in  the 
vegetable  kingdom  that  would  live  and  thrive  under  it? 
As  tea  gets  older  this  wholesale,  wasteful  and  des- 
tructive system  will  become  more  transparent  and 
those  who  practice  it  now  will  discover  their  error 
with  regret  some  day,  or  I am  no. — Abboeicultueist. 
[In  pruning,  as  in  most  other  matters  there  is,  we 
suppose,  a via  media.  We  know  that  years  ago  Indian 
visitors  s'rongly  denounced  the  Ceylon  system  of  prun- 
ing, on  the  grounds  now  stated.  But  somehow  the 
system  has  been  successful.  In  the  case  of  jat 
approaching  China,  wonderful  results  have  been  ob- 
tained from  low  pruning  and  where  high  jat  bushes 
have  been  plucked  for  a long  period,  or  have  run 
into  seed  and  become  scrubby,  careful  and  experienced 
planters  will  act  on  the  principle  that  to  enable 
such  trees  to  recover  they  must  cut  low, — down  to 
a foot,  say,  instead  of  the  orthodox  eighteen  inches. 
Will  some  of  those  who  believe  in  and  practise  low 
pruning  favour  irs  with  the  philosophy  of  their 
system  ? — Ed.  T.A.\ 
From  an  Indian  paper  we  quote  : — 
There  are  many  who  still  use  a murderons  looking 
weapon,  more  like  a billhook  than  a pruning  knife, 
both  for  light  and  heavy  pruning,  but  I think  there 
is  little  doubt  that  the  yield  of  their  gardens  would 
be  increased  by  the  introduction  of  small  knives  and 
careful  pruning. 
To  begin,  taking  my  own  experience  in  three 
districts  with  new  and  old  cultivation,  and  in  a fourth 
with  old  cultivation  only. 
I have  left  the  plants  to  grow  till  three  feet  high, 
and  then  plucked  all  above  that  height,  and  then 
the  season  after  that  pruned  them  down  below 
every  branch,  in  no  case  leaving  more  than  10  inches 
above  the  ground.  The  plucking  over  the  3 feet 
tends  to  thicken  out  the  stem  and  strengthen  the 
roots  ; while  the  cutting  down  so  low  forces  the  plant 
to  throw  up  a number  of  stems  from  its  roots 
while  these  are  young  ; later  on  they  will  not  sprout 
so  readily. 
The  next  year  it  will  be  found  that  there  is 
already  some  breadth  on  the  bush,  and  cutting 
6 or  9 inches  above  the  first  year’s  cut  and  leaving 
3 inches  of  new  growth  in  succeeding  years  the 
bushes  will  both  grow  and  yield  w'ell.  1 have  always 
found  those  cut  down  lowest  in  tlie  first  year  make 
