AT JAPAN AND JAVA. 89 



In cases where the brown part of the shoot cannot be pinched 

 off, a knife or a pair of scissars may be used. 



At Java the seed is sown in the month of November 

 when the ground has become somewhat compact after rain. 

 In plantations where the shrubs are regularly stopped, headed 

 back, and cut round, — in short where the leaves are cultivated to 

 the prejudice of the fruit, — little or no seed is produced. 

 It therefore becomes necessary to set apart a portion of the 

 plantation for this object. In such cases the bushes are placed 

 five or six feet apart and left to their natural growth, and the 

 leaves not gathered. After the third year, the plants should be 

 manured, and the manuring repeated every second year. 



Should the bushes thus appropriated to the cultivation 

 of seed exhibit symptoms of exhaustion, which they sometimes 

 do after the third year, then they must be cut down to about 

 a foot and a half from the ground. In about five or six 

 weeks the shrubs shoot out leaves which may be gathered for 

 the harvest. On the other hand, an equal number of bushes 

 cultivated for leaf, must now be left to their natural growth, 

 and the leaves not gathered. In about twelve or fifteen months 

 they will produce seed. In this way the seed garden may be 

 changed when desirable. 



Besides the topping or stopping of the young seedlings, the 

 productive bushes require regular prunitig. By pruning is 

 here meant cutting and heading back, and freeing the shrubs 

 from dirt, dust and larvae of insects,, and dead leaves. It is only 

 the work of two minutes for each bush. 



The mode of doing it is, by taking as many branches as 

 the left hand can compass, even a hundred, then with the 

 knife to cut upwards, and reduce the bush to the height of the 

 knee, or tw r o feet from the ground. Branches which run along 

 the ground, must be removed ; knotty distorted branches growing 

 within the shrubs must be cut out to within one foot from the 

 ground. Lateral branches should be cut within two feet from 

 their point of junction with the parent stem ; and all short 

 branches reduced until only one or two eyes or buds be left on 

 each. 



After some years the bushes form thick and strong branches 

 low down, and the shrubs consequently decline. In such cases 



