TRANSPLANTING.
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 1-1/2
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:--
“The Transplanter has, in working, proved to be a complete success.
Almost all the remaining seedlings have been transplanted by the
aid of your instrument, without the slightest injury to their roots
or check to their growth. The fact is, the young plants do not know
that they have been transplanted, and now that sunshine has succeeded
the late very heavy rains, new and vigorous growth is ‘bursting
out’ from all the seedlings that were transplanted by means of your
Transplanter. No manager of a Tea or Coffee plantation, who had once
seen this instrument at work, would ever again be likely to recur
to transplanting by hand, and not a single seedling should die when
removed from the nursery and carried to its place of ultimate growth
by means of your Transplanter. Your transplanting apparatus is better
than baskets, and has moreover the great recommendation of being very
economical. Your Transplanter will, with moderate care, last for many
years, and combines thorough economy with thorough efficiency.”
I am glad to give the above extract, for I look on the invention, if
successful, as a most important one.