58 COCONUT PLANTER'S MANUAL: 



When illuk lias got a firm hold of the soil and a large area is 

 involved, the simplest and cheapest plan of dealing with it is, in my 

 opinion, to open lanes 10 feet wide along the rows of palms, thus : — 



Rows of coconut. 

 10 ft. lane. 



Spaces of Illuk 1 5 ft. wide. 



Rows of Coconut. 

 10 ft. lane. 



Spaces of Illuk 15 ft. wide. 



Rows of Coconut. 

 10 ft. lane. 



and to keep the lanes clean and free of illuk and other miscellaneous 

 weeds by digging or weeding them as often as may be necessary, but 

 the growth of ordinary grass herbage should be encouraged until a 

 close sward is established. The best way to open lanes where the 

 growth of illuk is strong, is to first sickle it down close to the roots, 

 remove the grass and lay it on the intervening spaces, then dig and 

 turn up the ground to the full depth of a mamoty. If Crotalaria is 

 thickly sown in the lanes immediately after the fast digging it will 

 shade the ground completely and help to suppress the growth of illuk, 

 besides enriching the soil. The improvement effected by such a course 

 of treatment on the condition of young palms which had been pre- 

 viously stunted in growth and almost killed out by illuk was simply 

 marvellous. By the sixth month they begin to make vigorous growth, 

 and in eighteen months they are often far and away finer and bigger 

 plants than those of the same age growing in land free of illuk. By 

 this time the illuk, also, will have disappeared along two-thirds of the 

 lanes and given place to a close sward, and it may be confidently ex- 

 pected that by the end of the second year all the land (in one case over 

 an area of 217 acres) will be absolutely free of illuk. As for the 

 strips of illuk, between the lanes, it soon becomes apparent that con 

 fining the weed grass to a space 15 feet wide has the effect of con- 

 siderably weakening its growth, and it has been further noticed that a 



