250 Coffee Planting. 



or five tubs or pits, fitted with boarded coverings 

 to facilitate fermentation. These tubs or pits 

 should of course be water-tight, and there should 

 be five, in order that the liquid may be left un- 

 disturbed in each to ferment for four weeks, one 

 being closed up every week. Every evening water 

 is let into the gutter, and in the morning the cattle- 

 keeper carefully mixes with it the excrement that 

 has fallen during the night, breaking up all lumps, 

 and working the whole into a liquid of uniform 

 density : on the manner in which this part of the 

 operation is done mainly depends the quality of 

 the manure. The mixture may contain three parts 

 of water to one of excrement. 



This liquid is now fit for use, or may be poured 

 over the bedding in the general collecting pit. 



Dr. Shortt, in his work on Coffee Culture, recom- 

 mends a pit communicating with the cattle-shed, 

 into which the product of the shed, and all the 

 rubbish, ashes, offal, &c., of the bungalow, lines, &c., 

 should be thrown ; a layer of lime being once a 

 week sprinkled over the whole, followed by an inch 

 thickness of earth. A rich compost would thus no 

 doubt be created. 



A Ceylon planter of my acquaintance used to 

 adopt the following plan : the cattle-shed, an oblong 

 building with a properly plastered (or asphalted) 

 floor sloping towards one side at about six inches 



