228 Coffee Planting . 



ance. The sap is thus allowed to proceed uninter- 

 ruptedly along the primary to the point at which 

 the secondaries can be trained with advantage, and 

 (which is a further most important object), an open 

 space of at least one foot in diameter is preserved 

 down through the heart of the bush, for the free 

 admission of light and air ; without abundance of 

 both of which, healthy, vigorous, crop-bearing wood 

 cannot be produced. 



Begun at this early period, handling is a very 

 simple operation, and if systematically pursued with 

 sufficient frequency, will always continue so. On 

 the regularity with which it has been attended to 

 will depend the simplicity of knife pruning, which 

 must be resorted to after the first full crop, and 

 which may otherwise become a very complicated and 

 delicate operation. 



Before laying down rules for Pruning, it will 

 probably be advisable, with a view to making my 

 remarks as clearly intelligible to the reader as 

 possible, to describe the form and economy of the 

 plant at the stage of its history at which we have 

 now arrived. This I cannot do better than in the 

 words of a very much earlier coffee planter than 

 myself; I therefore borrow the following extract 

 from Laborie's interesting work, the " Coffee Planter 

 of St. Domingo : " 



" The sapling rises, always bearing leaves, and 



