COFFEA 



ARABICA 



Nitrification 



Ammonia, 



Nitrogen 

 Hunger. 



Janse's 

 Discoveries. 



Too highly 

 manured. 



Pruning. 



THE COFFEE PLANT 



of the vital activity of certain organisms, chiefly bacteria. Ammonia 

 compounds are found by the agency of uro-bacteria and other putrefactive 

 organisms before the nitrates are produced. Dr. A. B. Frank (Lehrb. der 

 Botanik, 1892, i., 259-75) gives details of some studies of symbiotic 

 fungi found on the roots of certain plants, such as on a few species of 

 Ctrpiiliferfc and Orch-idacete. These would seem to aid in nitrification. 

 A long series of articles from the pen of Mr. H. B. Evans will be found in 

 Planting Opinion of 1900, in which he advocates that " Nitrogen Hunger " 

 is one of the chief maladies of the coffee plant. He seems to have assumed 

 that the nitrogen of the soil and of the manures of coffee estates does not 

 exist in an assimilable condition. In other words, that the agents of 

 nitrification are absent to a ruinous extent. This, he would further believe, 

 proceeds from the deficiency of a necessary symbiotic fungus, the function 

 of which (Evans affirms) is the transmission of nitrogen from the soil 

 to the roots of the coffee. Should the existence of a symbiotic fungus be 

 actually established for coffee, the conditions that would favour its ex- 

 tended production might become of supreme importance. But the issue, 

 so far as present knowledge goes, is a pure hypothesis. The presence of a 

 fungus on the superficial roots of the coffee was discovered by Janse in 

 Java. [Cf. Ann. du Jard. Bot. de Buiten., xiv., 113-8.] That fungus was 

 most prevalent in soils rich in humus, and was also found on the roots 

 ramifying among the litter of dead leaves on the surface. But no one has 

 as yet proved that Janse's fungus is actually beneficial to the coffee plant, 

 and Janse himself, like all other investigators, failed to specially cultivate 

 it. Although there are possibilities in this direction, the subject is infinitely 

 less known than the action of the bacteria contained in the root tubercles 

 of the leguminous plants indicated above. [Cf. Percival, Agri. Bot., 1902, 

 764-6.] 



Concluding this brief review of coffee manures, it may be remarked that 

 Voelcker observes very truly that " a sure sign of the land being too 

 highly manured is the appearance of shoots all up the stem. The indication 

 of a good bush is, on the contrary, the healthy growth of new wood on the 

 branches." [Cf. Wall, Manuring^of Coffee Estates ; Burgess-Brown, Coffee 

 Planting (17 years' experience in Ceylon), 1877 ; Hughes, Ceylon Coffee 

 Soils and Manures, 1879 ; Munro, Soils and Manures ; Lawes, Corresp. 

 regarding Coffee Manures, in Planting Opinion, Aiig. 1896 ; Kramer, 

 Mededeelingen PI. Java, 1899, 3, 73; 1900, 64; 1901, 1, 56; Clarke, 

 Prize Essay, Management of Soils under Coffee, 1883 ; Elliot, I.e. 350-82 ; 

 Pringle, Madras Mail, 1891 ; Revue des Cult. Colon., 1901, viii., 198, 294 ; 

 Lehmann, Lect. before N. Mysore Planters' Assoc. (reprinted in Planting 

 Opinion), Nov. 1900; also subsequent lecture in Planting Opinion, Aug. 

 1903 ; Cultura Rational du Cafeeiro, in Journ. dos Agri. Rio., 1902, ii., 57 ; 

 Sao Paulo, Boletin da Agri., Jan. 1902.] 



Pruning. Within the past few years, thanks to the enlightened energy 

 of Mr. Leeming of Scotforth, Shevaroys, there has come into existence 

 two diametrically opposite schools. These may be characterised as the 

 non-pruning and the severe-pruning systems. Having studied the latter 

 for some time, and formed the opinion that certain departures were urgently 

 needed, I became a partial convert to the non-pruning system so ably 

 advocated by Leeming. It would seem, at all events, very possibly 

 preferable to the system of severe pruning that presently prevails. Judged 

 of from the purely botanical standard of the state of health and vigour of 



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