494 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [December i, 1882. 



oeut of the plants having failed to gi'ow. This fact, 

 as well as the gi'owth made by one-year old plants, and 

 the luxuriance of the older tea, excited the admiration 

 of an experienced Indian tea planter who came especi- 

 ally to see the actual position of matters. His verdict 

 was " Finer tea and a better tea soil there could not be." 

 His admu'ation was shared by a couple of planters who 

 were encom-aged in their ovm operation of planting tea 

 at a high elevation. Special plants allowed to gi'ow as 

 seed-bearers, which had attained heights of 10 feet to 24, 

 were declared to equal anything seen in Assam, and one 

 astonishing plant excelled evei-ything the Indian planter 

 had seen or heard of so gi-eatly, that he said the di- 

 mensions, if published, would excite only incredulity- 

 Nevertheless I venture to state just the facts. 

 The tree which an-ested and fixed the amazed 

 attention of om- \-isitor, gi-ew by a path side at an ele- 

 vation of 5,000 feet- It was not the tree-like stem or 

 the height of the tea bush which astonished Mr. Came- 

 ron, but the vast area covered by its spreading branches. 

 Let the diameter 16J feet be trebled, and the circum- 

 ference obtained is 49J feet. 



THE WEEDING AND PKUNING OF 

 COFFEE. 



A discussion on the necessity for clean weeding of 

 plantations arises at regular intervals in our columns and 

 the subject has been acquiring a new practical ^in- 

 terest of late years, since scarcity of money has 

 made it so difficult to maintain the usual works 

 on estates. Our fear has always been that in the case 

 of Ceylon our soil, being as a rule inferior to that of 

 India, cannot bear both weeds and plants. There are 

 experienced planters, however, who think differently 



as witness Mr. O. F. HallUey and the WTiter who 



addresses us on page 497 froniDoombera — one of the dis- 

 tricts by the way, where a sutficient depth of good soil 

 exists to justify an experiment in cultivation after 

 the Indian fashion. In respect of pruning again, 

 the Ceylon custom is called in question especially by 

 Indian "tea authorities who have visited our planta- 

 tions and who find fault with " the waste of money in 

 weeding and to some extent in pruning." Curiously 

 enough, the minimum of pruning would appear to do 

 for Liberian coffee ; but in respect of the iVi-abian 

 kind, the preponderance of opinion among local coffee 

 planters of experience — more especially among those 

 who have secured the best average crops — is that far too 

 little attention as a rule is given to the compara- 

 tively expensive, but profitable work of timely prun- 

 Lntr. What is the proper " time " is a question still 

 asked, however, as witness a thoughtful letter in 

 our colunms a few weeks ago. 



Meantime, we observe a feeling growing up 

 amonc the younger generation of planters that 

 their" predecessors— the men of thu-ty years ago— 

 did not pay sufficient attention to the teachings of 

 experience, nor bring a proper amount of thoughtful 

 consideration to bear on their work at a time when 

 they had all the land before them where to choose, 

 in virgin forest and rich soil for their coffee plants. 

 It is well therefore to hear what one of the most 

 thoughtful of planters who dates from a byegone 

 generation has to say for himself and his fellows 

 and although the following paper was written at 

 our request, more than a year ago, it is fresh 

 and applicable to the "Weeding" discussion re- 

 cently started : — . „ • , 



'I oliserve, in the published opinions of certain plant- 

 ers of a new school, a reaction agninst the system of 

 treatiu" coffee, that has grown out of the experience 

 of 'tive°-atid-forty-years. Those fresh minds have 

 evolved from their inner consciousness that Weeding and 

 Pruniii" is » mistake, and in consecjuence thiit the 



planters of the past, were rather a poor lot — men 

 without originality, or sound judgment, who merely 

 dropped'into a groove, and bad not the pith to move out 

 of it, or the readiness of resource to choose another 

 course. Those new hands, in laying their views 

 before the public, only display their own ignor- 

 ance of the history of Coffee Planting ; else they would 

 have known that there is hardly a possible theory, 

 with regard to tlie treatment of coffee, that has not 

 been tested, again and again. But even with ignor- 

 ance of what has been done a little common 

 sense would have led them to consider that the omis- 

 sion, of two, out of the three, most costly and 

 exigent operations of coffee cultivation, was far too 

 obvious a bit of economy to escape the notice of 

 planters, who were economical by nature, or who 

 were forced into economy by circumstances, or who 

 had a theory to maintain. In point of fact, 

 monthly Weeding was a system of very slow growth, 

 and its economy was the chief quality that en- 

 abled it to make way : it was the least costly way 

 of dealing with weeds, and that under which 

 coffee continued most verdant and grew quickest. 

 Had the modern revivers of old theories ever seen 

 the effects on coffee, of cutting the weeds with 

 reaping hooks, once or twice a year, as I have, 

 they would probably have hesitated to commit 

 themselves, and expose their ignorance of the 

 subject they undertake to teach. As to Pruning 

 again, there are two ways which have something in 

 their favour, in various cases, and conditions. First, 

 let the plant grow as nature wills it, cut 

 nothing, and strip nothing, but take what 

 nature sends, and be thankful. But if you would 

 have a tree to yield the maximum crop on conven- 

 iently arranged wood, keep it down to a fixed height 

 and remove all superfluous and worn-out wood. 

 Coffee planting was ten years old in Cejlon before 

 Pruning went further than keeping down suckers, and 

 there are now perhaps planters of a dozen years' 

 standing that never saw a tree on tolerable soil so 

 treated for ten years. After the second crop, the whole 

 growth of the tree goes into the two highest pairs 

 of branches, which, dense and intricate, exclude light 

 and air from all behnv. The lower branches gradually 

 die and drop from the stem, and by the tenth year 

 nothing else remains, and the wood is so matted and 

 interlaced that one could walk without much dis- 

 comfort on the top of a line of coffee. Thus, both 

 the present system of Weeding and Pruning are the 

 progressive teachings of experience, and fell on minds 

 qui'e as acute and logical as any now coming into 

 play." 



-♦ 



THE COCOANUT TRADE OF TPJNIDAD. 

 (From the Oil and Paint Review, Oct. 3rd.) 



Trinidad, Sept. 4th, 1S82. 

 The Island of Trinidad, British West Indies, has 

 grown cocoanuls on the east coast since the last cen- 

 tury, but on account of the difficulty of shipping the 

 entire nuts ihey were all manufactured on the spot, 

 and the oil and fibers (in bales) being less bulky, 

 were shipped to Port of Spain chiefly for local con- 

 sumption. Some of the fibers were exported to Bar- 

 badnes, and even to England. The exports of nuts 

 dates not more than about 20 vears back, as follows, 

 the value being given in pounds sterling : 



Nuts. Value. Nuts. Value. 



1^63 22(i,791 — I 1878 4,241,270 £12,723 

 1865 419,752 — | 1879 5,039,070 



1S70 873,329 — | 1880 4,227.276 14,193 



1875 2,978,218 — I 1881 over 6,000,000 20,000 

 Most of these nuts went to England as dunnage 

 between sugar hogsheads, and lately as top cargoes 

 in vessels carrying asphalt. They are shipped as 



