Ploughing and Hoeing Machinery.
Dear Sir,—On looking over your columns I have been surprised to see the small attention paid to agricultural machinery: in fact, I can’t find the subject mentioned, although one would imagine it was as important if not more so than manufacturing machinery. Various agricultural instruments, such as ploughs, &c., have, I know, been tried in old times, and not with the best results to the bushes; but there is no reason why, because the ordinary machines have failed, that planters should be sunk in the belief that that costly article the coolie must endure as long as Tea does.[94]
I will now consider the cultivation implements I know of.
Planting Pots.—These are made of clay, cow dung, and cut straw. They are placed in the nurseries and the Tea seed planted in them. When the seedlings are big enough to put out, pot and all is buried where the Tea bush is to be. The pot being broken a little when placed in the ground, the rain soon destroys it. The seedling does not know it has been transplanted, and the check of six weeks or more, experienced by all transplants, is entirely avoided. I know not who invented the pots, but the idea is an excellent one.
Jebens Transplanter.—This is an implement for lifting seedlings without injuring the rootlets or disturbing the soil around them. It is noticed at page [79] favourably: since that time (1878) it has been used more or less in all Tea districts. I have seen many opinions both for and against it. I believe the truth is it works very well in light soil, and with smallish seedlings, but does not answer in hard soil or with plants above 2½ feet high. Where the soil and size of seedlings are suitable, it certainly saves much of the check experienced otherwise by transplants.
I know of no other peculiar implements for Tea cultivation.
The greatest expense connected with cultivation is, naturally, opening the soil or digging; the spade is never used in India and would not answer. Coolies dig with a kodali, a thing something like a spade, with the handle set at right angles to the blade. Could we dispense with this, and cultivate between the lines of Tea with ploughs of any suitable pattern, whether worked by steam or animal power, an enormous saving would be effected. I am sure the whole space between two lines of Tea can never be so done, round each and every bush the soil must be opened by hand; but the centre space, say about 2½ to 3 feet, could, I am convinced, be so worked, and I think it is only a question of time when it will be so treated.
The planting community are gradually appreciating the fact that something may be done in this way. The following appeared in the Tea Gazette, end of 1881, re ploughing by steam:—