60 Coffee Planting. 



in addition to a large growth of timber, have a 

 dense close underwood, and which abound in creep- 

 ers, mosses, ferns, &c., it may be safely concluded 

 the soil is good. 



In making an excavation in land, it will be 

 generally noticed that the first stratum is of a dark 

 colour, and that the shade lightens as we proceed 

 in depth, until it gradually becomes a yellowish 

 composition of sand, gravel, or clay, as the case 

 may be ; the thickness, then, of the upper stratum, 

 which is the real soil, is the gauge of the probable 

 productiveness of the land. 



The practical cultivator on a large scale but 

 rarely possesses a knowledge of the chemical con- 

 stituents of soils, and often manages to get on tole- 

 rably well without it ; but the following remarks, 

 however, in reference to this subject from Mr. 

 Loudon's work on " Gardening " may probably be 

 found useful : 



"The leading soils for the cultivator are the 

 clayey, sandy, ferruginous, peaty, saline, moist or 

 aquatic, and dry. Plants are the most certain in- 

 dicators of the nature of a soil, for, while no prac- 

 tical cultivator would engage with land of which he 

 knew only the results of a chemical analysis . . . 

 yet every one who knew the sort of plants it pro- 

 duced would be at once able to decide as to its 

 value for cultivation. 



