70 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[July i, 1882. 



''P. T. L." with regard to the advisability of planting 

 out jak trees as shade to coflee. 



The opinions I hold are uot by any means original, 

 but are common to most Coorg planters. In Coorg, 

 especially in the south, shade is an essential to coffee, 

 and, necessarily, Ihe great thing is to find a tree 

 which, on account of its loftiness or size of leaf, is 

 most beneficial to that plant. Opinions durir.g the 

 course of years have undergone many chuiges. For 

 instance, not very long ago, the great shade way 

 held to be "charcoal tree; " so much so that it was 

 planted out in the coffee .systematically. Now, how- 

 ever, it has quite lost favour, and is on manv 

 estates all being rung out, This is by no means the 

 only example, many tn es being considered Al, and 

 after thu lapse of a few months very much the rever.se. 



Latterly, however, the tree in question , the jak, has 

 stepped to the fore, so much so that most estates, 

 if the plants are available, put them out in the 

 coffee rows about ten trees apart. I myself have 

 seen invariably splendid coffee under jak, not, as 

 "P. T. L." has, all foliage and no crop, but the reverse. 

 The great thing in shade of all kinds is to keep it 

 when young well lopped up, say 20 ft. wiihout a branch, 

 and, I think, if "P. T. L." will always keep his jaks 

 well trimmed, they will not disappoint him. The 

 argument your corresponHent urges about ''the con- 

 stantly falling leaves" doing damage to drains by 

 stopping them up I cannot refute, as here we have 

 few or no no drains,' the land being fiat ; the more 

 leaves that fall the better always an addition to the 

 soil. I should not, however, think that the leaves 

 could do much harm; at any rate no more than 

 other trees that shed their leaves and certainly uot 

 so much as prunings. 



Natives also are very fond of jak, the etomach 

 having a great deal, I dare say, to do with it ; but 

 I have seen cardamoms growing luxuriantly and 

 cropping well in a clearing, the majority of the sLiade 

 being j:ik. ''P. T. L." seems to iufer that it is a 

 surface feeder by his paragraph beginning " but after 

 that period (*. c. two years) has become incorporated 

 with tiie past and their roots begin lo know their 

 way ahout, look our for your coffee," etc. That this 

 is iueorrt-d, to say the least of it, must be well known 

 to those who have planted it out, it being a most 

 difficult tree to transplant, owing to the tremendous 

 length its tap root uttiiins, even after a few months' 

 growth. A great thing also in its favour is that it 

 nearly always looks and is healthy : you seldom 

 see a blighted jak. — Yours faithfully, L. I. P. 



COCOA /ND INSECT ENEMIES. 



Colombo, 8th June 18S2. 



Sir, — Allow me, througlj the medium of your paper 

 to enquire from cocoa planters, if they h^ive ever tii'-d 

 a handlul or two of powdered castiiir cake mixed with 

 the soil prepared to receive the cocoa plant : if so, if it 

 is a successful remedy against the attacks of white ants. 



Is j.akwood sawdust placed round the stem of the 

 plant als) effectual in keeping off white ants ? Thee 

 and other insects seem to be the greatest difficulty 

 we liave 10 contend with in the low-conutry in pushing 

 this product forward. 



Again ; is it necessary to keep the land planted with 

 cocoa throughlyweeded, andfreefrom all grass and quite 

 bare— and to treat it in the same way as you do cott'eej? 



Any sugge-tions gained from practical experience 

 will be thankfully received by 



COCOA PLANTEKS. 



* The climate is a dry one, and the experience is very 

 ditlercut from the heavy rainfall and wash experienced in 

 Oeylon.— Ed. 



PLANTING IN MYSORE :— JAK SHADE FOR 



COFFEE ; SHADE NO PREVENTIVE OF LEAF- 



FUNGTJ>! ; THE NALKNAAD COFFEE ; DENSE 



SHADE FOR CARDAAIOMS ; CINCHONA 



CULTIVATION. 



Igoor, Munzerabad. 

 The Editor of the " Tropical Agriculturist." 



Dear Str, — I notice several subjects of interest in 

 your last issue that seem to require further ventil- 

 ating, and so I am induced to offer you a few remarks 

 thereon should yon think them worthy of insertion 

 in your ensuing number. 



Your correspoudent, " P. T. L.," I conclude, has 

 never wandered out into this part of the world, for 

 in Mysore the jak tree is considered about the very 

 best tree where shade for coffee is necessary. Under 

 its protection and for some little distance around the 

 coffee is almost invariably more vigorous than else- 

 where, especially in seasons of great drought, and 

 gives, as a rule, fair average crops, and frequently 

 bumper ones. Unless there is an excess of them 

 to-ether, scarcely a planter here would cut one down 

 iu preference to any other caste of tree. Even in 

 neglected and unmanured portions of poorly cultiv.ated 

 estates, a distinct ring of healthy-looking coffee in 

 the midst of a sea of shuck plants is generally ob- 

 servable at all seasons, and more peculiarly so, the 

 older the coffee is ; to my own actual knowledge, 

 this is the case up to the age of 40 years. The 

 only coffee I have seen where it has looked some- 

 what less promising than under other shade has been 

 now and then where the old coffee has been grubbed 

 up and replanted with Coorg plants ; but then, these, 

 I am convinced, thrive best for the first three or four 

 years without any shade at all, and the dense folia'j-e 

 of the Jak retards their growth. 



I quite agree with the notion that has lately been 

 receiving the attention of Ceylon planters, namely, plant- 

 ing out a new variety of coflee plant more capable 

 of resisting the ejfectn of leaf-disease ; but I am inclined 

 to think that the Nalknaad seed is usurping a credit 

 that is not at present its ascertained due, and is 

 wearing the spurs won by the seed from cuffee gener- 

 ally grown iu Coorg. I think I am correct iu statiuf 

 that, until some 11 j'ears since, no seed coffee for 

 sowing had been exported from Coorg, about which 

 time my late brother and myself were so thoroughly 

 salisfieil of the much greater hardiness of the ordinary, 

 then called horizontals, compared with the chicks, an 

 opportunity of observing the two varieties growing 

 intermixed having occurred, we not only imported 

 some seed of the former, hut preached up its good 

 qualities, that gradually each planter in Mysore be- 

 came convinced, and no one dreams now of putting 

 down any but Coorg seed. 'i he seed that has been 

 so brought in has grown into the most vigorous plants, 

 and it has been the valuahle means of renewing our 

 worn-out properties (as far as the coffee trees went), 

 and actually saving many of us from absolute ruin. 

 The Nalknaad so-called variety, as far as I am aware, 

 has not been cultivated much, if at all, outside its 

 own native area, until w-ithin at most the last three 

 or four years — a uot sufiicieutly long period to give 

 plants of an age as yet, to determine whether, tchen 

 in full bearing, they are more capable of resisting the 

 ravages of Hemileia than the rest of the coffee grown 

 in Coorg. I am inclined to suppose that its immunity 

 from it in Nalknaad itself is, perhaps, more due to 

 some advantages of locality or treatment than from 

 its being a different variety, and that, when removed 

 from those specially favourable circumstances, it will 

 prov- no more disease-rrsisting than such seed as 

 we have been growing for nearly a dozen years and 

 picked from the estates of Messrs. Mangles, J. P. 



