Browsing by Author "Savile, A.H."
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Item Essays in Applied Pedology: III-Bukoba: High and Low Fertility on a Laterised Soil and including a Note on Soil Fertility at Nyakato(1938) Milne, G.; Savile, A.H.; East African Agricultural Research Station, Amani. Department of Agriculture, Tanganyika TerritoryBukoba is a small township and lake port in Tanganyika Territory, on the west coast of the Victoria Nyanza, twenty-eight miles south of the point of entry of one of the principal Nile Head-Waters, the Kagera River. The name is also that of an administrative district, which lies between the Uganda border on the north and Biharamulo District on the south and runs west to the Belgian mandated territory of Ruanda, adjoining it along the middle course of the Kagera. Bukoba District thus includes in its western half the long low-lying valley of the Mwisha River and the highland of Karagwe. The easternmost part of the district is however the part with which the present essay is mainly concerned: a strip of humid ridge-and-valley country twelve to sixteen miles wide running down the lake coast from latitude 1 S. to 2 S., ie for about seventy. miles. This area of about a thousand square miles, comparable in size with one of the smaller English counties, contains 230,000 rural inhabitants. The only townfolk, those in Bukoba itself, number less than 2,000. The density of population reaches 1,230 per square mile in one of the sub-chiefdoms. In five others it exceeds 400 and over the remainder of the area it averages 180. Thus, in the most crowded parts each family, reckoned at five persons, is supported by only 2.6 acres, and in the least crowded parts by 17.8 acres on the average. For East Africa such figures represent very close settlement. The people are the Bahaya, bananaeaters and to a limited extent cattlekeepers. They live in family units on permanent heritable holdings, each house and attached quarters for cattle standing hidden in its banana-grove. A group of adjoining holdings is marked as a feature in the landscape by its aggregate stand of bananas, sharply limited against surrounding larger stretches of unenclosed treeless grassland. These banana-grove" villages" may partly fill a valley alongside a stream, or may form the skyline on a high ridge, or may occupy middle positions on slopes, with open. ground above and below. The intervening lands are mostly grazing commons, but patches of them are tilled. Many of the ridges' end in sandstone bluffs and scree: slopes, and these outcrops of rock render a proportion of the land agriculturally untenable. The main river-valleys and valley junctions contain considerable areas of permanent swamp, some parts of which are papyrus, some are tussocky grassland on peat, and some carry blocks of dense evergreen swamp-forest. There are small remnants of rain-forest on the steep sides of certain ridges.Item Fallow-Farming in Queensland(1953) Savile, A.H.The following notes on dry-farming methods which have proved successful in Queensland have been written in order to provide food for thought for farmers and agricultural workers living in low rainfall areas in East Africa. Recently I had the opportunity of studying farming conditions in Central Queensland with particular regard to the possibility of growing sorghum or other food crops in this area of low rainfall. Past attempts at producing sorghum had been unsatisfactory, failures being invariably attributed to neglect on the part of the Providence to supply perfect farming weather. Each season's crop failures were due to such time-honored excuses as heatwaves, unseasonal rain, insufficient rain, unusual frosts, etc. In fact after reading all these convincing reasons for man's inability to battle against such climatic odds one felt sure that the only thing to do would be to put the land down to grass and use it for cattle and sheep ranching. As we went round the country we saw thousands of acres or sorghum, some of it farmed under a quasi-Government organization, some of it grown by private enterprise but all of it a dismal failure by any standard. Of course, all was explained by the fact that there had been an unprecedented period of dry weather and heat-waves during the proper planting season with the result that all the sorghum had been dry-sown late in the season and then there had only been six inches of effective rainfall during the growing season. It was obviously impossible to expect farmers to produce sorghum under such an erratic rainfall. We then came to a property with over 8,000 acres under sorghum. On one field known as the Boundary Paddock the sorghum might have run out at t cwt. per acre. On the other side of the fence in the Upper Dalwood paddock there was an exceptionally good crop of dwarf sorghum. The rain gauge at the farm homestead showed that the rainfall during the growing season had been just over six inches, which might have been sufficient to account for the failure of the sorghum in the Boundary Paddock but would not have been sufficient in itself to produce a crop in the adjacent paddock, the yield of which subsequently ranged from 7t cwt. to 21 cwt. per acre over an area of 5,000 acres.Item Iii-Bukoba: High and Low Fertility on a Laterese'd Soil(1938) Milne, G.; Savile, A.H.Soil conditions in the humid eastern part of Bukoba District, on the west side of Lake Victoria, are examined, first in the light of the natural factors in soil formation, which have led to laterization and general poverty in plant nutrients, but with local inequalities due to the parent rocks; and secondly in the light of the effects of human occupation, which have been to accentuate the local inequalities, so that the environs of villages are productive but the inter-village lands are infertile.Item Notes on Kenya Agriculture I - Cereal Crops(1957/1958) Savile, A.H.; Thorpe, H.C.; Callings, W.L.J.; Peers, A.W.Item Notes on Kenya Agriculture Iii. Oil Seeds, Pulses, Legumes, and Root Crops(1958/1959) Wright, W.A.; Savile, A.H.Item Notes on Kenya Agriculture V-Plantation Crops(1959) Hanger, B.F.; Savile, A.H.; Bennison, R.H.; Wright, W.A.; Kroll, U.; Lerche, K.; Gill, S.S.; Gamble, G.; East African Tobacco Company Limited; Empire Cotton Growing Corporation; Department of Agriculture, KenyaPROPAGATION AND ESTABLISHMENT The Seed.—Only seed from selected mother trees (ie clonal trees raised by vegetative propagation) should be used. Clonal seed supplies are available from Coffee Research Station, Ruiru. Seed taken from seedling trees produces sizeable minority of inferior plants. Sow seed immediately it is available to avoid decline in viability. Seed should have moisture content of 15-18 per cent.Item Notes on the Use of the Striding Level When Laying Out Contour Banks(1939) Savile, A.H.; C.D.A., A.I.C.T.A., Tanganyika TerritoryAll farmers who are contemplating the growing of flax during the 1940 season, when a considerable increase in the area under the crop is to be expected, should make arrangements to terrace this land beforehand, during the 1939-40 dry season. In this connexion, farmers are referred to the bulletin of the United States Department of Agriculture on Terracing for Soil and Water Conservation, and to the leaflet prepared by the Soil Conservation Service of Kenya Colony. Flax-growers are reminded that the department of Agriculture is anxious to assist them in the solution of erosion control problems on their farms.Item A Study Of Recent Alterations In The Flood Regimes Of Three Important Rivers In Tanganyika(1945) Savile, A.H.; C.D.A., A.I.C.T.A, Tanganyika TerritoryThe Rufiji, Ruvu and Wami river systems drain an area of approximately 93,500 square miles, equal to more than one-quarter of the total area of Tanganyika. The drainage basins of these three rivers are shown on the accompanying map compiled by the Survey Division of the Department of Lands and Mines. When it is realized that these three drainage basins include much of the Territory's best watered and most productive country, it will be appreciated that the maintenance of ample perennial flow in these rivers is of great importance to the welfare of the Territory as a whole.
