PROBABLE LIFE OF A TREE 39 



is to be maintained. This is the problem con- 

 fronting the planter who is desirous of making his 

 Coffee plantation a permanent one. Nature solves 

 it by extension of the axis of the tree with new 

 branches, and discarding the old worn out ones. 

 The planter endeavours to accomplish the same 

 result while preventing any extension of axis, by 

 compelling new branches to spring from the old 

 ones, using year after year the same area of axis 

 which nature uses only once. Such a departure 

 from the natural growth can, of course, only be 

 maintained artificially and by constant inter- 

 ference with the growth of the tree. 



The tree bears the first crop on the primary 

 branches for a considerable distance along them. 

 The next crop has then to be borne on the exten- 

 sion of the primary and on secondary branches. 

 By the time the primary branch has borne its 

 second crop it is unduly long, and weak in growth, 

 and it bears very little more. Its place is then 

 taken by one or more secondaries, which in turn 

 are displaced as the bearing branches by tertiaries. 



The trees will generally throw out more 

 secondary and tertiary growths than are required 

 to replace the primaries, and if some are removed 



