[CHAPTER XXI.]
FILLING UP VACANCIES.
So difficult is this to do, that I have heard several planters declare they would attempt it no further, but, on the contrary, accept the vacancies in their gardens as an unavoidable evil.
That it is difficult I, too, can certify. Seedlings put into vacant spots year after year die, either in the rains they are planted or in the following spring. If, however, a few yards off a fresh piece of land is taken in and planted, the plants live. What is the reason? It can be nothing connected with the soil, for on adjacent spots they live and die.
It puzzled me a long time, but I believe I can now explain it. First, seedlings planted in vacant spots in a garden are never safe. When in the rains there are many weeds in the gardens, and it is being dug, the young seedlings are not observed, are either dug up, or injured so by the soil being dug close to them, that they shortly after die. This is, I believe, the principal cause of the failure, and it may be in a great measure, if not entirely, obviated by putting, first, a high stake on either side of the seedling, and taking care it remains there all through the rains. Secondly, as an additional precaution, and a very necessary one, before any such land is dug, send round boys with “koorpies” to clean away the jungle round the young plants, and at the same time open the soil slightly over their roots. Doing this “cultivates” them, and the plants being apparent, with the newly-stirred vacant spaces round them, are seen by the diggers, and are not likely to be damaged.
The second cause of failure I attribute to the old plants on either side of the young seedling, taking to themselves all the moisture there may be in the soil during any drought. The young seedling, whose tap-root at the time is not a long one (for it is in the spring of the year following the year of planting that this occurs), is dependent for life entirely on the small amount of moisture that exists in the soil, at that insignificant depth (say 8 inches). But on two sides of the said seedling’s tap-root, and in fact surrounding it, if the neighbouring Tea bushes are full grown, are the feeding rootlets of the big plants, sucking up all the moisture attainable (the necessities of all plants being then great), and leaving none for the poor young seedling, which consequently dies in the unequal contest.
This last evil (in climates where there is a deficiency of spring rains, and, in fact, more or less in all Tea localities, for in none is there as much rain as the plants require in the spring) there is no means of avoiding as long as seedlings, after transplanting, lose time, the effect of the transplanting, and thus fail to attain a good depth before the said dry season.
In fact, unless something is devised, I believe with many, trying to fill up vacancies is a loss of time and money.
The pits to plant in, advised at page [59], should of course be made in these vacant spots, for they help much towards the early descent of the tap-root. Still they can scarcely avail sufficiently to avoid the evil, if the plant is lying inert, as is generally the case for two or three months after planting; this delay being, moreover, in the rains, the best growing time.