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.

If we can devise any means to avoid this delayed growth in the young seedling after it is transplanted, then the tap-root, before the drought of next spring, will have descended low enough to gather moisture for itself; that is, from lower depth than the greater number of the rootlets of the neighbouring big plants traverse. Could this be done, and if the means above detailed are resorted to, to prevent the young plants being injured when the gardens are dug, I see no reason why vacancies should not be successfully filled up. Then might be seen, what nowhere can be seen now, a Tea garden full of plants, that is, with no vacancies.

When it is considered that many gardens in all the districts have 30 or even 40 per cent. vacancies, none less than say 12 per cent., we may strike a fair average and roughly compute the vacancies in Tea gardens throughout the country at 20 per cent. In other words, the yield of Tea from India, with the same expenditure now incurred, would be one-fifth more were plantations full!

I have shown how the first evil can be obviated. I think the following will obviate the second.

Get earthen pots made 7½ inches diameter at the head and 7½ inches deep, like the commonest flower pots, only these should be nearly as wide at the bottom as at the top. A circular hole, 2 inches diameter, must be left in the bottom. Fill these with mould of the same nature as the soil of the garden where the vacancies exist. Put two or three seeds in each, all near the centre, and not more than half an inch below the surface. Place these pots, so filled, near water, and beneath artificial shade, as described in Chapter XIII.

When the seeds have germinated, and the seedlings have two or three leaves, so that you can judge which is the best class of seedlings in each pot,[29] root out all but one, the best one. Now remove the shade gradually, water from time to time, and let the seedlings grow in the pots till the rains. Having, before the rains, made the holes at the vacancies as before described, after the first fall carry the pots to the garden and place each one near a hole.

Then plant as follows. Stand the pot on the brink of the hole, having previously with a hammer broken the bottom. Then crack the sides also gently, and deposit pot and all in the hole at the proper depth. If not enough broken, the sides of the pot may now be further detached, nay, even partially removed. Now fill up with earth to the top. Pieces of the pot left in the hole will do no harm; but it, the pot, must be sufficiently broken at the bottom to allow of the free descent of the tap-root, as also enough broken at the sides to allow of the free spreading of the rootlets.

If all this has been carefully done, so that the mould in the pot shall not have been shaken free of the rootlets, the seedlings will not even know it has been transplanted. Its growth will not be delayed for a day, instead of two or three months; and by the time the dry season comes, the tap-root will have descended far enough to imbibe moisture.

Another plan to effect the same object. Instead of pots, use coarse bamboo open wicker-work baskets. The split bamboo forming the said wicker-work about half an inch wide, the interstices about one quarter of an inch square. Let the diameter of the basket be the same at top and bottom, viz., 9 inches; the depth of the basket 10 inches.

When the seedlings in the nursery are large enough to enable you to select a good class of plant, transplant one into each basket previously filled with soil.[30] This being done when the plants are very young, and there being then no difficulty in taking them up with earth attached to their short tap-roots and rootlets, they will scarcely be thrown back at all. Being near water they can also be well tended. Put basket and all into the vacant hole at the beginning of the rains, and fill up as directed for the pots. The interstices will allow the feeding rootlets to pass through, besides the basket rots quickly under ground, so quickly it cannot impede the plant.

Seed is not sown at once in the baskets as in the pots, because the baskets would not last so long. Even putting the seedling in it during (say) February, the basket, with the occasional watering necessary, will, more or less, have rotted before it is put into the hole.

I have concluded a contract for ten thousand pots and five thousand baskets at half an anna each for both kinds. Two pice, to ensure the filling up of a vacancy, is not a large outlay.

Since writing the above I have had experience of both the above plans. The pot system is far the better, and answers very well.[31] I am now trying to improve this still further by making the pots a little larger, and placing a thin inner lining of tin inside each about half an inch from the sides. This space is first filled with sand, then the pot is filled with mould, and the tin pulled out. The same tin will therefore do for any number of pots. The seed is then put in.

I think by this plan if, when about to plant, the mould in the pot is well wetted, that it, with the seedling, can be turned out whole in one piece, and then put in the hole without the pot.

The same pots would then answer year after year, and the expense would be quite nominal.

If well done, the seedling in this, as in the former case, would not even know it had been transplanted.[32]