i f 6 Coffee Planting. 



termed, is less necessary, though it is always 

 desirable. 



There is some diversity of opinion as to the size 

 and age at which nursery plants are best suited for 

 being put out. It is not, however, a question that 

 can be settled by any fixed rule. Much must 

 depend upon the conditions of time and place and 

 climate. In Ceylon, for example, where the plant- 

 ing season is frequently interrupted by bursts of 

 sunshine, entire nursery plants are usually looked 

 upon as somewhat precarious, and they should 

 never be put in without a good ball of earth round 

 the roots. This, again, makes putting them out 

 a slow and tedious operation, during the course of 

 which favourable weather may slip away, and an 

 opportunity of getting a large area planted up be 

 lost. Ceylon planters consequently, in general 

 prefer stumps, which can bear being kept longer 

 out of the ground, and are less likely, provided the 

 ground itself be moist, to be injured by the appear- 

 ance of sunshine immediately after they have been 

 put in. 



When dull, rainy weather can be depended on as 

 a continuance for some little time, nursery plants 

 of the second year are the most satisfactory, and if 

 quickly put in undfer the system above recom- 

 mended, " with ball," will hardly appear to suffer 

 any check from being transplanted. Should a few 



