COFFEA 



ARABICA 



Manures 



Advantages of 

 Mulching. 



Deep Digging. 



Manures. 



Chief Kinds. 



Farm-yard. 



Soil- 

 composition. 



Potash. 



THE COFFEE PLANT 



has been asked : " Can it be proved that these very plantations could 

 not have done better during the past?" or, "May they not, even now, be 

 approaching the exhaustion that led to the abandonment of many similar 

 and once fertile estates in that very province ? " It is doubtless true 

 that with rich primeval forest land, if well drained and carefully mulched, 

 exhaustion may not become manifest for many years. But it is equally 

 true that with indifferent soils or exhausted lands, mulching can never 

 take the place of tillage and manure. 



Lehmann concludes his very suggestive report a most valuable 

 paper even though its main contention may not be accepted as constantly 

 and universally applicable by the following statement of the advan- 

 tages of mulching : " The careful preservation of the natural mulch 

 on pieces on which the coffee has ' closed in ' : (a) saves the digging : 

 (6) leaves the soil in a better mechanical condition than the usual amount 

 of digging could do : (c) probably prolongs the life on an estate and in- 

 creases its general vigour and productiveness after the first year or two : 

 (d) will save a large portion, possibly all the expense of applying bulk 

 manure. Not digging an estate may have the following disadvantages : 

 (a) it is liable to reduce the crop for a year or two : (&) it has the tendency 

 to increase the risk of fire." 



A volume might be written in an attempt to review all the opinions 

 that have been published for and against the tillage of coffee lands. A 

 correspondent, for example, wrote to a Madras paper in 1895 regarding 

 South Coorg " The change that is worked in a sickly piece of coffee 

 by deep digging is little short of marvellous ; in a couple of weeks' time 

 one would hardly know it for the same piece of coffee." That sentence 

 is fully expressive of the opinions of the vast majority of planters. 



Manuring and Manures. Cameron (Rept. Offic. Visit to Coffee Dist., 

 Coorg, 1898) has much to say on the necessity for high cultivation 

 and the manures best suited for coffee. He discusses farm-yard manure ; 

 bone ; oilcake ; nitrogenous manures, and the fixation of free nitrogen by 

 the aid of leguminous catch crops ; lime ; phosphates ; potash ; green 

 manures, etc., etc., and commends the use of bracken fern for the litter 

 of cattle on account of its subsequent value as a manure. In his con- 

 cluding observations he remarks : " The application of proper manure in 

 correct quantity and at the most serviceable time, are things which should 

 be assiduously learned from practical experience." So again, one of the 

 most valuable contributions to our knowledge of the art of manuring 

 coffee is the series of studies conducted by the late Mr. William Pringle, 

 and published in pamphlet form by Messrs. Matheson & Co., of Madras. 

 While we have many similar technical reports, some of which will be 

 briefly mentioned below, very little of a practical nature has transpired of 

 the accumulated experience gained during the seventy odd years of Indian 

 coffee cultivation. The planters prefer, as a rule, farm-yard, or bulk 

 manure, as it is called, and are restricted in its use by the difficulty of 

 procuring enough. Lehmann has recently pointed out that the first 

 and foremost consideration is to see that all the essentials in soil-com- 

 position are present, in the right proportion and right condition. Ferti- 

 lisers may then be given in the direction of crop requirements. He, for 

 example, remarks that " the potash fertilisers have, I fear, not received 

 the attention they require. Judging from the analytical results I have 

 seen, most of your soils are rich in nitrogen but relatively poor in 



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