j 40 Coffee Planting . 



hundred go also to seed, then we may expect for 

 every hundred, ten thousand more ; and so on 

 until the surface is covered so closely that not an 

 inch of soil is to be seen. I have counted twenty 

 young "white-weed" plants in Ceylon spring up 

 on a single square inch of ground. Never was 

 there a subject to which the proverb about the 

 stitch in time might be applied with greater 

 appropriateness. 



In bamboo districts, where the prevailing weed- 

 pest takes the form of grass, matters are even 

 worse, this being propagated from the roots as 

 much as from seed ; and within an incredibly short 

 space of time, unless great care is taken, the planter 

 will find to his dismay, his estate turned into a 

 luxuriant hay-field, the coffee steadily waning 

 away under the influence of the irrepressible 

 invader. And here it may be remarked, that 

 seldom will finer hay crops be met with than are 

 sometimes to be seen covering estates in the 

 districts alluded to. The thing to be regretted is 

 their being so entirely in the wrong place. 



Of the different methods of disposing of weeds 

 above mentioned, each has to be adopted in turn 

 under particular circuriistances. 



Weeding by hand is par excellence the proper 

 method, and provided it be begun at the proper 

 time, and afterwards unremittingly followed up, no 



