Ploughing v. Hoeing.
Dear Sir,—I am glad to see by the letter of a “Man in the Kundah” that some managers have taken up the idea of ploughing instead of hoeing. It is an idea which I have been dinning into the ears of Tea planters ever since I saw a Tea garden. Mr. Lyell deserves credit, and so will everyone who assists to introduce ploughing instead of hoeing. The saving of labour would be immense. The gentlemen who are interested in the subject will be glad to learn that I wrote home last month to several leading agricultural machinery people asking the fullest particulars as to steam ploughing machinery, with a view to seeing how far suitable it would be for Tea cultivation. As soon as all my information arrives, and I have thought the matter out, I will give the planting community my opinion. I have, as far as I am personally concerned, already formed it, and am confident that at no very distant date the steam plough will supersede the dhangar or other hand labour. But of course I must make out a strong case for it, or my opinions would be supposed to arise from a professional predilection for machinery.
F.
Siligoorie, 27th November, 1882.
Again, “Nil Desperandum,” quoted above, continues:—
I enclose a report on Darby’s Digger from the Times and Pioneer, which shows that it is an instrument possessing the principle we require in deep hoeing, viz., turning the earth completely over, and bringing the subsoil to the surface, although of course far too unwieldy, costly, and weighty to be used in Tea. It is, however, the first step in the right direction, as it closely copies spade action; and we may hope that before long a machine with that principle, and capable of being worked in a Tea khet, will be brought out. For light hoeing, last cold weather I procured from Messrs. Vipan and Headly, Church Gate, Leicester, England, two expanding horse hoes, which I worked all the hot weather, and which did their work admirably and at a much cheaper rate than can be done by hand labour. Two of these hoes hoe a 12-acre khet in six days up the lines of Tea and across them, but to make a thorough job it is better to go over the work again. The total cost of this:—
| Planted 4′ × 4′ | |||||
| For one hoe | {Pay of boy and man 12 days | = | 3 | 6 | 0 |
| {Food of bullocks @ 4 as. per diem, Barley @ 24 per Rupee | = | 2 | 0 | 0 | |
| Cost of light hoeing 12-acre khet | = | 5 | 6 | 0 | |
| 2 | |||||
| Against | 10 | 12 | 0 | ||
| Nirrikh for 136 bildars, light hoeing, 240 spaces, 4′ × 4′, per diem @ 0-2-9 each | = | 23 | 6 | 0 | |
| Or a saving of more than 100 per cent. | |||||
I gave one 12-acre khet four of these light hoeings during the hot weather, which so thoroughly destroyed the grass seeds that, although heavy rain has fallen here for the last month and a-half, the grass in this khet is thin and not more than 6″ high, a fact which, to those who know how the jungle springs up in cultivated ground in the Doon when the rains set in, will be a sufficient proof of the success of these instruments. The frame of the hoe is only 7″ high, and when the blades are buried in the ground is only 4″, and as the handle projects from the centre of the back of the hoe and not from the sides, there is no danger of the bushes being injured. The hoe will expand from 14″ to 20″ at back, and from 3″ to 7″ in front; and as the standards of the blades are curved outwards, the hoe in its greatest expansion cultivates a breadth of 27″ of ground. I found that one bullock was too weak to drag a hoe, although a good pony was quite equal to the work, so put in a pair of bullocks. The bullocks and hoe take up between them three rows of Tea at once, the bullocks on each outside row and the hoe in the centre one. A boy walking up the centre row leads the bullocks, which are harnessed to the hoe in the same manner as bullocks are harnessed to the country ploughs, but with longer julas of course. These hoes are, I find, useless during wet weather, as they clog dreadfully, but during hot dry weather they are invaluable. What we now want is a machine that, either by bullock, horse, or steam power, will do our deep hoeing as well as the light hoe does the light hoeing. This is a matter which I consider of vital interest to owners and shareholders, as, unless in these days of very low prices we can reduce the cost of production considerably, we cannot hope that Tea will pay a fair interest on the money expended, and great length of time lost in getting up a garden.
Nil Desperandum.