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The Shirč highlands (East Central Africa) as colony and mission
The Shir highlands as colony and mission - East Central Africa Author:John Buchanan Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 60 CHAPTER III. GARDENING AND AGRICULTURAL WORK AT BLANTYRE AND ZOMBA. Garden work begun, October 1876—Home vegetable seeds first sown—Tomatoes and peas... more » succeed—Melons fail—In 1877 garden terraced and irrigated—Fresh seeds from Grahamstown— In 1878 plants of coffee, tea, vine and fruit trees of eleven different sorts — Flowers, European and native — Vegetables— Avenue of Eucalyptus globulus—Fine cypresses—Experience at Mlungusi since 1881—Making of a sugar-mill of wood— Evaporating pots of clay—New wooden mill in 1883 makes two tons of sugar—Iron mill ordered in Glasgow in 1885—Coffee- plants raised from seed of one bush—Now twenty acres of coffee at Zomba—Coffee the chief hope of the Shire highlands. Appendix on Livingstone's work done for the Shire river and highlands from 1856 to 1863. It may be interesting to give a brief account of garden and agricultural work in the Shire highlands. On the arrival of the Mission party in October 1876, the first thing in the way of gardening was the selection of a small piece of ground in which to sow a small quantity of vegetable seeds. A gardener fresh from home is very apt to look for soil GARDENING BEGUN. 61 such as he has been accustomed to. He feels the need of a little leaf-mould, wonders if turf can't be had; and the compost to be completed would be all right if he only had a little of that silver sand he saw on the Zambesi and Shire. Let him at once give up the idea of expecting to find anything just so suitable, and make the best of what he has. Leaf-mould is to be had by collecting the decayed leaves and vegetation along the banks of streams; but it is often worthless stuff, with little or no strength in it, and parts readily with moisture. Turf is not to be had at all, as there is no such thing as permanent pa...« less