The history of Sumatra : $b Containing an account of the government, laws, customs and manners of the native inhabitantsMarsden, William
History
The history of Sumatra : $b Containing an account of the government, laws, customs and manners of the native inhabitants
Marsden, William
Natural history -- Indonesia -- Sumatra; Sumatra (Indonesia)
In the rainy weather that succeeds the first appearance of the fruit the
whole vine is loosened from the chinkareen and turned down again into the
earth, a hole being dug to receive it, in which it is laid circularly or
coiled, leaving only the extremity above ground, at the foot of the
chinkareen, which it now reascends with redoubled vigour, attaining in
the following season the height of eight or ten feet, and bearing a full
crop of fruit. There is said to be a great nicety in hitting the exact
time proper for this operation of turning down; for if it be done too
soon, the vines have been known not to bear till the third year, like
fresh plants; and on the other hand the produce is ultimately retarded
when they omit to turn them down until after the first fruit has been
gathered; to which avarice of present, at the expense of future
advantage, sometimes inclines the owners. It is not very material how
many stems the vine may have in its first growth, but now one only, if
strong, or two at the most, should be suffered to rise and cling to the
prop: more would be superfluous and only weaken the whole. The
supernumerary shoots however are usefully employed, being either
conducted through narrow trenches to adjacent chinkareens whose vines
have failed, or taken off at the root and transplanted to others more
distant, where, coiled round and buried as the former, they rise with the
same vigour, and the garden is completed of uniform growth, although many
of its original vines have not succeeded. With these offsets or layers
(called anggor and tettas) new gardens may be at once formed; the
necessary chinkareens being previously planted, and of sufficient growth
to receive them.
This practice of turning down the vines, which appears singular but
certainly contributes to the duration as well as strength of the plants,
may yet amount to nothing more than a substitute for transplantation. Our
people observing that vegetables often fail to thrive when permitted to
grow up in the same beds where they were first set or sown, find it
advantageous to remove them, at a certain period of their growth, to
fresh situations. The Sumatrans observing the same failure have had
recourse to an expedient nearly similar in its principle but effected in
a different and perhaps more judicious mode.
In order to lighten the labour of the cultivator, who has also the
indispensable task of raising grain for himself and his family, it is a
common practice, and not attended with any detriment to the gardens, to
sow padi in the ground in which the chinkareens have been planted, and
when this has become about six inches high, to plant the cuttings of the
vines, suffering the shoots to creep along the ground until the crop has
been taken off, when they are trained to the chinkareens, the shade of
the corn being thought favourable to the young plants.
PROGRESS OF BEARING.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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