If the pits for the plants have been all prepared, as directed at pages 59 and 75, this operation is simple enough.

A fortnight or so before it commences tip all the seedlings in the nursery. Take off only the closed leaf at the head of each young plant (see a leaf diagram, page 104), so that the bud at the base of the next leaf be not injured. Doing this will make the seedlings hardier and enable them earlier to recover the transplanting.

On the day you intend to take up the seedlings from any bed, if you have water enough at command, flood the bed. This, as you take up each seedling, will cause the soil, being moist, to adhere better to the roots.

The difference between young plants transplanted with a ball of earth round the roots, and those moved with their roots bare, is no less than three months’ growth, if even it does not make the difference between life and death.

Proceed thus to ensure the former. At one short end of the bed, the lowest if it is on a slope, dig close to the first row of seedlings a trench so deep that its base shall be lower than the lowest end of the tap-roots. Then with a five or six-pronged steel fork (this is better than a spade, for it does not cut the rootlets) put in between the first and second row, and pressed down with the foot to its head, force carefully so much of the row down into the trench. Then with the hand take up each seedling separately, helping the soil with a very light pressure (so light that it shall not change the lateral direction of any of the rootlets) to adhere, and place it in a low basket sloping. Do this again and again, till two baskets are full, when they will be carried, banghy fashion, to the garden.

When the first row is finished clear away the loose soil, so that a similar trench to the first shall be formed, and then proceed as above with the second row, and so on.

No further directions for lifting the seedlings out of the nurseries are required.

All is ready for their reception in the garden if the directions at pages 59 and 75 have been followed out. The work now to be detailed must be done by careful men well superintended.

In the soft soil of the lately filled up pit, described at page 59, a hole is made either with the hand or a narrow kodalee (the former, if the soil has not settled much, will suffice), large enough and deep enough to take in the seedling with all the earth attached to it. The seedling is then put in and the soil filled in and round it, which completes the operation.

The manner, though, in which this is done is of great consequence. Four things are all important:—(1) That the tap-root shall not be turned up at the end because the hole is too shallow. (2) That any rootlets projecting outside the attached earth shall be laid in the hole, and shall preserve, when the soil is filled in, their lateral direction. (3) That the collar of the plant (the spot where the stem entered the earth in the nursery) shall be, when the pit is filled up, about 1½ inch higher than the surface of the surrounding earth. (4) That in filling in the hole the soil is pressed down enough to make it unlikely to sink later, but not enough to “cake” the mould.

The following is the consequence of failure in these four points:—

1. Probably death, in any case very much retarded growth. I have planted some seedlings so purposely, the majority died; those that lived recovered very slowly, and digging them up later the tap-root was found to have gone down after all by assuming the shape of the letter S, the growth downwards being from the head of the letter.

2. Rootlets, turned away from their lateral direction, interfere with other rootlets, and though they eventually grow right if the plant lives, they retard it.

3. Fill in as you may (unless you “cake” the soil, which induces worse evils) the plant sinks a little; thus, if not placed a little high, it will eventually be too deep. If on the other hand placed too high, the rootlets and collar will be exposed, which is an evil.

4. Unless this is attended to the plant will sink too much and the collar be buried; likewise an evil, which it takes the young seedling some time to recover.

Only first teaching and then practice will enable either European or Native to plant well. This is how it should be done.

Take the seedling in the left hand, holding it by the stem just above the collar; then take the very end of the tap-root between the second and third fingers of the right hand, and thus put it down into the hole (you thus insure the tap-root being straight). Now judge exactly the height of the collar that it be as directed. Rest the left arm then on the ground to keep the plant steady, release the tap-root, and fill up the hole about one-third, pressing the soil lightly. The plant will then be fixed, and you can employ both hands to fill up the remainder, and keep the rootlets in a lateral position. Press the soil lightly as you do so, and when all is filled up press it down a little harder round the stem of the plant.

All the transplanting should be finished as early in the rains as possible. A seedling, planted in the first fifteen days of June, is worth two planted in July, and after the latter month it is generally a case of seedlings and labour lost.

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:—

I am glad to give the above extract, for I look on the invention, if successful, as a most important one.