It is stated elsewhere at length (page 102) why I conceive pruning to be necessary for the Tea plant. Whether I am right or not, the fact is certain that without pruning very little leaf is produced.

Pruning must be done in the cold weather when the plant is hybernating, that is to say, when the sap is down. The sooner after the sap goes down it is done the better, for the sooner the tree will then flush in the spring.

There have been many theories about pruning Tea bushes, but none, I think, worth much practically, for the simple reason that it is impossible to prune 250,000 plants (the number in a 100-acre garden, at 2,500 to the acre)[25] with the care and system a gardener prunes a favourite fruit tree. The operation must be a coarse one, done by ignorant men, in large numbers at one time, who can in a measure be more or less taught, and the nearer they do right the better: still, really careful and scientific pruning can never be carried out on a Tea plantation.

The time to do it, too, is very limited. It cannot be begun before the trees have done flushing, say, at the earliest, middle of November, or continued, if early flushes and a large yield next season is looked for, beyond end of January, at the latest. Thus at the most two months and a half is all the time given.

I shall confine myself therefore to giving such directions as will be practically useful.

The best instrument is the common “pruning knife.” It cuts far cleaner than the “shears,” besides which the natives very seldom use the latter well. What is called in England a “hedge-bill” is useful to trim the outsides of the trees. If required it must be got from England, as I do not think it is procurable in Calcutta. Whatever instruments are used should be kept very sharp, and for this purpose, besides sharpening them every morning on the grinding stone, each pruner should be provided with a small pocket “hone.”

The theory, and it is correct, is in pruning, to cut near above a bud or branch, but not near enough to injure them. The cut should be quite clean and sloping upwards, so that nothing can lodge on it. This theory can be, and must be, strictly carried out in cutting the thick stems and branches, but it is quite impossible to do it with the slender branches or twigs of the tree.

Prune so as to cause lateral growth. A Tea plant should never be allowed to exceed, say, 4 feet in height, but the wider it is the better.

Prune off all lower branches tending downwards,[26] for the plant should, if possible, be clean underneath to a height of, say, 6 inches. This clean stem high class plants have naturally, not so the Chinese, or the Chinese cast of hybrid.

Plants should be more or less pruned out in the centre. In the following spring young wood is then formed in the heart of the tree, and it is only young wood and shoots that give leaf.

Plants, if above two years old (see foot note next page), exceeding 2½ feet in height at the end of the season (and all plants of any age will) may be pruned down to 20 inches, but the thick wood must be pruned down to varying heights several inches lower.

Small plants must naturally be more lightly pruned.

The best plan is, I think, to have two gangs:

The first to go ahead and cut out the thick wood (here judgment is necessary, so let them be the best men) to varying heights, from about 11 to 18 inches. The second gang to follow, each with a rod 20 inches long, to cut down all the light wood left to that level.

All plants, how low or how young soever they may be, must be pruned somewhat.[27] The lower their stature and the less their age the less pruning they require.

Of the two extremes, at least with the Tea plant, it is probably better to over than to under-prune. The treatment of the plants, with reference to the leaf to be taken in the spring, must be a good deal regulated by the way, or rather the extent, to which they have been pruned. On this point see page 103.

The cost of pruning depends on whether it is high or low, and whether the plants are large, middling, or small. The greatest cost is about Rs. 6, the least about Rs. 3 per acre.

Let all prunings be buried between the lines of plants, if possible, before the leaves have even withered. They make capital manure, but much of the virtue escapes if they are allowed to lie on the ground any time before they are buried.