i O4 Coffee Planting . 



and regularity of planting can hardly be secured 

 unless the ground is tolerably well cleared in the 

 first instance. I have somewhere seen it suggested, 

 that the fallen timber and brushwood should be 

 piled up in rows, and left to decay, the coffee plants 

 being placed in lines intervening, but this would be 

 impracticable. In the first place, strongholds would 

 thus be formed, of which all manner of weeds and 

 green jungle would at once take possession, and 

 which it would be impossible to eradicate. 



Should the fire not have cleared the land suffi- 

 ciently, the superabundant timber, branches, &c., 

 will have to be cut up, piled in heaps and refired. 



The injury done to the surface soil by burning, 

 could to a great extent be obviated by " lining " 

 and "pitting" the land before the forest is felled. 

 By this means the surface soil would be, in great 

 measure, covered over with the earth taken out of 

 the pits, and thus protected from the fire. On the 

 other hand, of course, the lines cannot be marked 

 out with mathematical accuracy or regularity, and 

 the estate will subsequently suffer to some extent 

 in appearance, though it is a question how far this 

 drawback is worth considering, compared with the 

 advantage gained. 



I remember once, when in Ceylon, lending a 

 neighbouring planter some spare labourers to line 

 and pit for him in an uncleared forest. The coolies, 



