MANUEING AND DEAINING. 
'was emptied, then the heap at the corner of the stable ; 
cattle were rarely kept, or if so, in any mimbers. Then 
all the refuse accumulations round the “ lines,” and 
the manuring was done. What are now called artificial 
manures were never, or at all events seldom, thought 
of. When the manuring was done, so were the baskets. 
Ghosts of baskets might be seen Ijing about every- 
where, sides torn, an<l bottoms out. What matters, 
before our next manuring time came round, the basket- 
makers would be back again. 
Draining was unknown. What numbers of fine estates 
might have been preso ved to their proprietors had 
they preserved the soil.* In some instances where 
draining was attempted ii just made matters worse. 
In the district of Kurunegala, 1 once saw a plan 
of draining adopted, called Guthrieing, a pun upon the 
name of the superintendent who instituted it. His 
name was Guthrie. On the slope of a hill, a trench 
was dug between the coffee row^s, straight up and 
dowm the hill; the earth dug from this trench was 
heaped up .m the roots of the trees, below the stem, 
on each side ; this, no doubt, was a very good plan 
if you could get the earth to remain there, but, after 
the first heavy fall of rain, the water came tumbling 
dowm these trenches like a cataract, gradually it carried 
all the loose earth along with it, until the estate was 
left with little but bare hard sub-.soil, on the top of 
which the roots of the coffee w^ere exposed to th« 
action of the weather. A more melancholy sight was 
seldom to be seen. 
A French dentist from Mauritius made his appear- 
ance in Kandy, in the exercise of bis calling. He had 
discovered such a wondertul inaimre, that coffee could 
be made to grow and bear crop anywhere, and on any 
soil. His name was Perindorge-r— ajid Perindorge man- 
ure became all the craze. It simply consisted in col- 
lecting a large amount of vegetables, such as leave* 
and twigs of trees, green gras.s, weeds, or any vegetable 
production, in large qu entity ; put all this into a big 
hole dug for the purpose, w^ater it w'ell with a solu- 
tion of sal ammoniac, saltpetre, and conimon salt — I for- 
get the proportions of each — until the whole fermented and 
rotted. The manure was well enough in its way, but 
it took an enormous amount of material to make a 
small quantity of decomposed vegetable matter, so that 
the expense of collecting materi-d was excessive as com- 
pared with the qurintity supplied. ’ ooiies were employed 
collecting green leaves all round the jungles. What a 
mass they appeared when all put into the big pit, but 
how small was the result after they w'ere rotten. 
Perindorge’s manure did not remain long in vogue. 
*N. B. — Ed. 
