May r, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



865 



through being cleaned, but I will satisfy myself with 

 the Nanuoya estate, the estate that was the cause of 

 Dimbula being opened. When that was a weedy estate I 

 believe it used to give 14cwt. an acre. H,as it done so 

 since it has been made a clean estate ? If it did, 1 do 

 not think it would be kept dark. A writer in one of 

 the papers has likened weeds to a standing army. So 

 they are : they are King Coffee's standing army, and 

 like all others must be kept down and in order, but not 

 done away with. In a battle there are always two 

 armies : one for and the other against ; the weeds fight 

 the elements and protect the coffee. Coffee being a 

 surface feeder any intermediate crop for the benefit of 

 the coffee must also be a surface feeder. We have 

 been told what the white weed is and we have been 

 told to grow an intermediate crop, so that what better 

 or cheaper can we grow than the food for I he colfce ? 

 In the weedy days coffue used to give its 6, 8, 10, iind 

 15 cwt. an acre. Surely that ought to satisfy anyone. 

 There is nothing that cannot be overdone and there is no 

 doubt that weeding and pruning huve been over- 

 done. A tree can be weakened by over-prnuing quite as 

 much as it can by over bearing and does not laud kept 

 bare become barer or barren ? — Yours truly, 



G. F. HALLILEY. 



HEMILEIA IS ONLY MILDEW AND SUCCU- 

 LENT WEEDS AVERT MILDEW (?). 



Dear Sir, — It is now beyond a doubt that the so 

 called leaf-disease is nothing but mildew. By a book 

 kindly lent me by Mr. S. Green, entitled "Fungi, 

 Their Nature, Influence and Uses," among the numer- 

 ous varieties of mildew is mentioned Uemileia vast- 

 atrix, and from that book it appears tliat everything, 

 tree, plant or herb, has its especial variety of mildew, 

 or, as I said before, it adapts itself in a ditf'erent 

 form to the locality. Mr. Marshall Ward, I think, 

 told U3 that he could find no germ of the disease 

 in the sap of the tree. Now if he had found it in 

 the upward sap it would have been proof positive 

 that the mihlew was in the soil, and the cure would 

 have been ventilation of the soil and lime. Hi'd he 

 found any trnce of it in the downward sap, Dr. 

 Thwaitea' prediction would have come true and colfee 

 would now have been a thing of the past.* Mildew 

 must have attacked the fruits of the earth in the 

 time of Solomon. (8ee II. Chronicles vi. chap, and 

 28th V.) We know in fresh water there is no 

 trace of mildew, and we know that anything dump 

 under certain conditions gets attacked with mildew. 

 If a tree takes up too much moisture without a 

 sufhoieut tupply of essential food, as soon as tlie 

 weather changes to bright, hot sunshine tlie sap be- 

 comes disorganized and the result is mildew, so in 

 this ca»e tliere are two things required to prevent 

 mildew, aud they are a sutiiciint supply of essential 

 foodf and something to absorb the superabundance 

 of moisture. A tree also gets mildewed trom not 

 being able to take up a sufficient supply of food for 

 want of moisture, so that the more succulent the 

 weeds are kept the longer they will supply the coffie 

 with moisture in dry weather. In ornamental gardens 

 it is very well to keep them clear of weeds : these 

 gardens are meant to please the eve aud are constantly 

 being manured and in dry weather are watered niyhc 

 and morning. Now we have every proof that le.if- 



» Will Mr. Halliley read up and let us know whether 

 there is a single well-atthenticated case of the germs of 

 mildew being found in either the ascending or descending 

 sap of a plant V — Kd. 



t As a matter of fact, duly recorded by Marsliall \\'ard, 

 a supply of •• essential food " to the i)laut has been found 

 merely to feed a larger and more luxuriant crop than 

 ever of the fungus. — Ed. 



disease is nothing but mildew,* or how are we to 



account for its disappearing and at times suddenly 

 appearing almost in a night all over a district and 

 at other times only bursting out in a small patches 

 few and far between ? I have never seen it spread 

 from these patches, unless there was a sudden burst 

 of wet weather and then hot sunshine, when it was un- 

 doulitedly a fres-h attack, so thut the real and true 

 cause of leaf-disease aud all that ails our colfee is want 

 of means to cultitate and being obliged to follow the 

 fashion. — I remain, your truly, 



G. F. HALLILEY. 

 [On which we have to remark that never since coffee 

 was created was it better or more liberally cultivated 

 than at the period when this deadly blight burst out 

 to ruin the most luxuriant as well as the most ex- 

 hausted estates. One of the main remedies proposed 

 for the evil was tin- removal of those weeds for which 

 Mr. Halliley so enthusiastically pleads. Not only do 

 they rob the coffee trees of their "essential food," 

 but they fnrm a nidus for the spores of the fungus 

 or mildew. — Ed.] 



MILDEW AND WEEDS, ONCE MORE. 



Dear Sir, — Mildew, though so minute a gathering, 

 ia still the great agent to convert everything after 

 death to its original dust or ashes : as soon as a 

 thing gets sick or weakened, mildew sets in ready 

 to carry out its work, so that mildew is a natural 

 consequence. In man when he gets sick it appears 

 moat commonly as fur on the tongue, but, as soon 

 as he recovers, it disappears; so it is with plants and 

 trees : as soon as they get .Mck or weakened, mildew 

 appears, t when they recover it disapjieurs, but, if 

 the tree gets worse, the mildew follows up. Now, 

 ask some of your reader* that are near some shuck 

 and abandoned coffee, to see if they cannot find you 

 some branches that have a yellowish look about them 

 and see if it ia not the siime mildew fuUowino in 

 thH wake of death. When a tree takes up too much 

 moisture, does it not get sick ? Regarding yofir foot- 

 note, may I ask what good cm manure do without 

 moi-ture? If you put a plant into a pot of rich soil 

 that plant will die, unless it gets moisture. How can 

 weeds rob the coffee if they are returned to the 

 soil, and, are you certain that they derive all their 

 coustitutional lair] parts from the soil ? Now, suppose 

 you rill a liox with good soil, in one-half you plant 

 a few cabbage seed, aud in ibe other a few seed of 

 the deadly nightshade, when those seed grow into 

 plants, you would eat the cabbages without fear. 

 Would you eat the deadly nightshade as readily? 

 From whence do the deadly nightsliade derive their 

 poison? Not from the soil, or the cabbages would have 

 been poisonous, and, if the weeds contain the same 

 elements as tha coffee, why should they not be at- 

 tacked with the very same mildew as the coffee ? 

 You do not believe in shading ihesoil J : may I a^k 

 wiiat mulching is but snading the soil ? 



Now, I will show you my experience of moisture 

 in the soil. When I was S. D. on Barra estate, 

 when pruning came on, I asked my P. D. if I might 

 stump some coffee trees that had lost all but one 

 primary at the top, and hi' told m« not to ti.lk of 

 stumping, or I wotiid get the sack. I asked why; 

 and he pointed to a pi. ce on the top of the estate, 

 and Slid it wa< eleven acres, it had been stumped 

 a bedding of jungle stuff laid on the soil and over 

 that a dressing of earth, and not one of the stumps 



* No one, to our knowledge, ever denied that it belonged 

 to the great family of mildew, smut, blight, rust, fundus 

 —En. 



t /femiUia vustatrix impartially attacks the healthiest 

 an well as the sickliest trees. — En. 



t We certainly believe in shading the soil, but with 

 coffee, not with weeds. — Ed, 



