December i, 1882.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



4R7 



2. — I should gather from " W."'s remarks that he 

 is in favor of early pruning, which term I think is 

 generally understood to mean immediately affer crop, 

 i. e., for the majority of estates from the beginning 

 of January and on to the end of March. 



3. — " W." says the hot weather of this time, com- 

 bined, as I undfrstiind him, toith the pruning, has a 

 tendency to check growth. " W. J). B." ani he seem 

 also to be agreed on this poinl. 



4. — I presume they are both alluding to the same 

 kind of pruning, /. e.j branch pruning ; and the ques 

 tion I should like to see answered .authoritatively is 

 this : Does the pruning away of branch and foliage 

 check growth in any other sense than that it de- 

 prives the tree of what was in process of growth ? 

 I do not of course refer to the pruning away of 

 dead wood. 



5, — I grant that the first effect of pruning may 

 be to throw back and concentrate the sap after the 

 wounds caused by the pruning are healed ; but it 

 has always appeared to me that the tirBt visible 

 effect of the operation is the effort of the tree to 

 replace the woud and foliage of which pruning de- 

 prives it in a new and more vigorous form. 



6. — The new wood tlius formed, however, cannot 

 be expected to be capable of maturing fruit within 

 6 months afterwards at the least, and therefore, unless 

 the pruning has the effect, besides stimulating the 

 growth of new wood, favourably to influence the 

 contemporaneous formation of blossoms, it cannot be 

 looked on as a means of enhancing the crop to be 

 looked for from those blossoms. 



7. — Then comes the further question : how does the 

 effort to form new wood and foliage affect the form- 

 ation of blossoms ? 



8. — If the season at this time is wet the effect 

 of pruning is immediately visible in the formation 

 of new foliage, and planters are wont to say " that 

 blossoms are gone to leaf." They say it is "the 

 abnormal weather." The effect of the pruning seems 

 now to be questioned, 



9. — In a dry season there is usually a greater show 

 of blossoms ; but surely pruning is not to be credited 

 with the effect of weather, and even after a dry 

 season one hears it eaid '" my blossoms were equal 

 to 10 cwt an acre, but I only gathered 4, and yet 

 my pruning was all linished by the middle of March !" 



10, — Now in olden days— in the days of short 

 labour supply — I should like to know how many 

 men had finished their pruning by the middle of 

 March, compared with the number that were well 

 contented if they could get round by the end of June 

 or even July, and yet we are accustomed to look 

 back to those times regretfully as the times when 

 our trees produced so much crop that we had not 

 the labor to gather it ! 



11. — Is branch pruning an operation that should be 

 carried on at the time that our frees are preparing 

 to blossom ? 



12. — Koot pruning is another matter, and I must 

 leave that for another letter. — I am, dear sir yours 

 faithfully, L. M. S. 



COFFEE FUNGUS : THE AILMENT AND THE 

 REMEDY. 



•27th Oct. 1882. 

 Sir,— As held by " \V.," coffee leaf-disease and the 

 infertility of the tree are separate existences;* they, 

 acting in ominous concord, have issued in the present 

 collapse of the general prosperity. Such mysterious 

 visitations cannot be maledictions of creative power, 

 and their advent are not nowadays accepted with 



*" Not proven" : what is obvious is that the infertil- 

 ity of the tree is mainly the consequeuce of a pest which 

 by constant attacks on the lungs of the tree disorders and de- 

 bilitates its whole system and fuB$tiOi>i*i — Ho, 



the abnegation of man's reason. A search for cause 

 is prudent, such often leading to the discovery that 

 the presence of a misfortune is conditional, and in- 

 dicative of some powerful, though common but com- 

 batable, deficiencies, and are recurrent under like 

 conditions, but often unrecognizable, when affected by a 

 change of agency. Our misfortune may have happened 

 from some such cause, aud, if recognized, it may permit 

 of an alleviation of our hardships being made, while 

 proving a useful and effective lesson to jjlanters of 

 all products, and an encouragement againsi despon- 

 dency and stimulant to both Government and people, 

 to set about a hopeful but assiduous resuscitation of 

 prosperity, concomitant wilh arboriculture, the natural 

 industry of the island, and referable principally to its 

 luoist and steady climate. The exposed planting of 

 fruiting trees especially, is proper, by which method 

 is obtained the fullest effects of elemental power, but 

 from the first it requires a constant conservating 

 care of the soil to effect its being a thriving and 

 entailable occupation of a population. Annual plants, 

 if not sufficiently productive one season, can in due 

 time be replaced by others, which encouraged by better 

 tillage will grow more vigorously. But with perennial 

 vegetation spasmodic cultivation does induce enfeeble- 

 ment. 



The revival of general prosperity will not be ex- 

 pected from the mere planting-up of decaying coffee 

 lands with new products, nor will any permanency 

 be effected without the principles of enforestatiun 

 being adopted, nor will it be wholly brought about 

 by the lucky selection of a few inches of fertile 

 mould, made by enterprizing planters of new products 

 amongst our crags aud peaks. Great success in op- 

 posing the denuding effects of the weather, and in 

 C'lmbating the gradual absorption of the materials of 

 growth from the soil, has been attained to, but per- 

 manency is not now calculated on by Europeans, 

 whose natural interest is in making the best of the 

 soil speedily, to enable them to return to their own 

 homes with more money, if possible, than they 

 brought with them into this, the land of their so- 

 journ. And nothing better can be done with the 

 retired mountain sides than to turn them into hast- 

 ened use, exercising as much conservative care of the 

 soil as increasing knowledge will shew is profitable. 



An inquiry into the causes producing the present de- 

 presaiou cannot be too late, whilst population is leaving 

 our shore, while a once flourishing revenue lies low 

 or tea aud cocoa grow. But let apathy rule and 

 twenty years hence, when the fertile mould now 

 around new products, will lie atop of the once lii tie 

 oared for coffee soil, now alas ! in the hollows of 

 the deep, poverty-induced parasites of strange growths 

 will, without searching back through the book of 

 Fate, afford a sufficient subject for contemplaliou to 

 the studious cryptogamist aud reduced planter of 

 these days. It would therefore be better to learn 

 the lesson now, and, while stately products are young, 

 dreams of marbled halls may be more safely indulged 

 in. But yet like the careful watch at sea, snooze 

 with the weather-eye open. 



Plants have their troubles too, but while no sigh of 

 the weary comes from our stunted fields of coffee and 

 though these pictures of want may be less attractive 

 than the outlines of animals done on the same scale, 

 a general precept from experieuce has been learned 

 over again, that the profits yielded by lean cattle 

 and leaner pigs are no less sure than short crops 

 from starved trees. 



No practicable method can keep up an estate on 

 hilly Lnd to its original power, and- to a former 

 general lelief in the permanency of open forcing plant- 

 in^, on such ground, must be ascribed much of our 

 trouble. No planting without being enfostered can 

 protect itself, especially on steep slopes, aud Governor 



