The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom: Considered in Their Various Uses to Man and in Their Relation to the Arts and Manufactures; Forming a Practical Treatise & Handbook of Reference for the Colonist, Manufacturer, Merchant, and Consumer, on the Cultivation, Preparation for Shipment, and Commercial Value, &c. of the Various Substances Obtained From Trees and Plants, Entering into the Husbandry of Tropical and Sub-tropical Regions, &c.Simmonds, P. L. (Peter Lund)
Science
The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom: Considered in Their Various Uses to Man and in Their Relation to the Arts and Manufactures; Forming a Practical Treatise & Handbook of Reference for the Colonist, Manufacturer, Merchant, and Consumer, on the Cultivation, Preparation for Shipment, and Commercial Value, &c. of the Various Substances Obtained From Trees and Plants, Entering into the Husbandry of Tropical and Sub-tropical Regions, &c.
Simmonds, P. L. (Peter Lund)
Botany, Economic
1. _Situation and extent_.--The Deyra Doon, or Valley of Deyra, is
situated in latitude 3 deg. 18 min. north, and in longitude 78 deg.
east. It is about 60 miles in length from east to west, and 16 miles
broad at its widest part. It is bounded on the south by the Sewalick
range of hills, and on the north by the Himalayas proper, which are
here nearly 8,000 feet above the level of the sea. On the west it is
open to the river Jumna, and on the east to the Ganges, the distance
between these rivers being about 60 miles.
In the centre of this flat valley, the Kaolagir tea plantation has
been formed. Eight acres were under cultivation in 1847. There are
now 300 acres planted, and about 90 more taken in and ready for many
thousands of young plants raised lately from seeds in the
plantation.
2. _Soil and culture_.--The soil of this plantation is composed of
clay, sand, and vegetable matter, rather stiff, and apt to get
"baked" in dry weather, but free enough when it is moist or during
the rains. It rests upon a gravelly subsoil, consisting of
limestone, sandstone, clay-slate, and quartz rock, or of such rocks
as enter into the composition of the surrounding mountain ranges.
The surface is comparatively _flat_, although it falls in certain
directions towards the ravines and rivers.
The plants are arranged neatly in rows 6 feet apart, and each plant
is about 4½ feet from its neighbour in the row. A long, rank-growing
species of grass, indigenous to the Doon, is most difficult to keep
from over-topping the tea-plants, and is the cause of much extra
labor. Besides the labor common to all tea countries in China, such
as weeding, and occasionally loosening the soil, there is here an
extensive system of irrigation carried on. To facilitate this, the
plants are planted in trenches, from four to six inches below the
level of the ground, and the soil thus dug out is thrown between the
rows to form the paths. Hence the whole of the plantation consists
of numerous trenches of this depth, and five feet from centre to
centre. At right angles with these trenches a small stream is fed
from the canal, and, by opening or shutting their ends, irrigation
can be carried on at the pleasure of the overseer.
3. _Appearance and health of plants_.--The plants generally did not
appear to me to be in that fresh and vigorous condition which I had
been accustomed to see in good Chinese plantations. This, in my
opinion, is caused, 1st, by the plantation being formed on _flat
land_; 2nd, by the system of _irrigation_; 3rd, by too early
plucking; and 4th, by hot drying winds, which are not unfrequent in
this valley from April to the beginning of June.
GUDDOWLI PLANTATION (NEAR PAORIE).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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