72 CATCH-CROPS. 



from being interfered with by these roots, and it will be 

 also well 1r> isolate the young plant by surrounding it 

 with a ring trench, six to eight inches wide and one foot 

 deep. It is also desirable to put a basketful or so of new 

 soil from the first into the pit near the top, but where 

 this cannot be managed a few handfuls of manure should 

 be mixed with surface mould, for only strong, healthy 

 plants must be used for this purpose. Stumps are, by 

 some planters, considered more suitable than nursery 

 plants for supplying vacancies, as, being hardier, they 

 throw out from three to four " suckers," the best of 

 which are selected when they have attained a height of 

 from six to nine inches, the others being carefully pulled 

 off. Well-formed nursery plants, with three or four pairs 

 of primaries and about twelve to fifteen inches high, put 

 in just as they come from the beds with a good ball 

 around the roots, are to be preferred when steady wet 

 weather can be calculated on for some time, but in any 

 case supplies ought to be put in early in the wet season, 

 so as to give them every advantage ; they should also be 

 marked by a tall stake, and should be allowed to bear a 

 maiden crop before being topped or pruned. 



Much has been said for and against the growing of 

 other crops on the plantation among the Coffee shrubs. 

 In Java and other Coffee-growing countries of the East 

 it is grown between the rows. In Ceylon two catch- 

 crops were long in vogue, but they appear now to have 

 gone out of fashion, it being claimed that they exhausted 

 the soil and produced too much there. While in Mexico, 

 the West* Indies, Central and South America, the culture 

 of plantains, yams, cocoa and bananas was carried to 



