Days with heavy rain are not good to plant in. Those with showers or light drizzling rain are best. When there is very heavy rain the soil “cakes” much. Fine days, if the ground is wet, and if more rain may soon be looked for, are good, better though if cloudy than sunny.
Where much planting has to be done, of necessity planting must be carried on daily, for, as observed, it must all be finished by end of July at latest.
In case of a sunny break in the weather, stop planting after the second day, for early rain to young transplants is a necessity.
In making a garden too much care cannot be given to the way seedlings are placed in their homes.
Just before sending the third edition to press, I saw in the Indian Tea Gazette some details of “new transplanting and transporting tools,” patented by Mr. Jeben. I hope these will prove a success, for such are much wanted, and if they will do all it is said they can do, a great boon will have been conferred by Mr. Jeben on the Tea industry.
Mr. J. W. Mountjoy, of Pandawbrang, Arracan, writes as follows regarding these tools:—
“The Transplanter has, in working, proved to be a complete success. Almost all the remaining seedlings have been transplanted by the aid of your instrument, without the slightest injury to their roots or check to their growth. The fact is, the young plants do not know that they have been transplanted, and now that sunshine has succeeded the late very heavy rains, new and vigorous growth is ‘bursting out’ from all the seedlings that were transplanted by means of your Transplanter. No manager of a Tea or Coffee plantation, who had once seen this instrument at work, would ever again be likely to recur to transplanting by hand, and not a single seedling should die when removed from the nursery and carried to its place of ultimate growth by means of your Transplanter. Your transplanting apparatus is better than baskets, and has moreover the great recommendation of being very economical. Your Transplanter will, with moderate care, last for many years, and combines thorough economy with thorough efficiency.”
I am glad to give the above extract, for I look on the invention, if successful, as a most important one.