236 Coffee Planting. 



a milder course of treatment might have gradually 

 produced the desired result. The more weakly a 

 tree is, the less capable it is of undergoing a heavy 

 pruning, and the more healthy and well trained it 

 is, the less it will require such treatment. In fact, 

 I am opposed to heavy pruning at any time, and 

 could almost shudder when I look back upon the 

 ghastly spectacles I have seen in Ceylon and else- 

 where, where this sort of thing has been practised, 

 whole fields of fine trees having been reduced to 

 " bare poles and whips," poor skeletons of their 

 former selves. 



In beginning to prune a tree which has been 

 allowed to become an impenetrable thicket, the first 

 thing to be done is to open out the centre, that is to 

 say, as formerly explained, to remove all seconda- 

 ries within six or eight inches of the main trunk, 

 and to take off all " suckers " springing from the 

 main stem. It will, as a rule, be better to do nothing 

 more than this the first year. The year following, 

 * the open space having been meantime strictly pre- 

 served, the branches can be carefully examined, 

 and a liberal selection of wood made. This gradual 

 treatment will be positively as beneficial and 

 strengthening to the tree, as the old-fashioned cut- 

 ting up process would have been injurious. 



As a rule, primary branches must never be cut, 

 except in cases where they have become too long, 



