1 70 Coffee Planting. 



the sea-coast, I believe) is " Cabook " or Laterite. 

 This seems to be a kind of decomposed rock, or it 

 may perhaps be better described as a clayey 

 composition, which has the convenient faculty of 

 becoming readily hard by exposure to the atmo- 

 sphere. It is cut out some six to ten feet below 

 the surface in blocks or bricks about 1 5 inches in 

 length, by 9 by 6, with an axe or spade ; these 

 bricks becoming hard, in a few days make neat 

 as well as substantial walls. 



ROOFING may be variously made from thatch- 

 grass or straw, " cadjans " (the plaited leaves of the 

 cocoa-nut tree), shingles, tiles, or iron sheets, whether 

 plain or corrugated. 



A roof of thatch is generally the most ready 

 to hand on a coffee estate, and as it makes the 

 coolest house in hot weather, the warmest in cold, 

 and is extremely healthful, it is the one most 

 generally adopted. Like most other things, how- 

 ever, thatch, however excellent, is not without its 

 disadvantages, amongst which are its liability to 

 combustion, and the necessity of constant renewal 

 and repair ; the latter consideration rendering it by 

 no means the least expensive in the long-run. 



" Cadjans " make a very cool, water-tight, and 

 on the whole neat-looking thatch, but are not 

 much used except in the immediate neighbourhood 

 of cocoa-nut plantations ; neither these nor straw, 



