MANUAL OP THE NILAGIRI DISTRICT. 493 



hopeless to expect to get the estates thoroughly clean. Indeed, CH. XXVIII. 

 some go so far as to say, cut down the weeds once or twice a year, coffee 

 and for the rest trust to manuring and pruning ; but it seems to Cultivation. 

 me a fatal mistake to disregard weed, though at the same time 

 I would never allow a mamoty to be used for the purpose. 

 Digging up and loosening the soil is a very good thing on very 

 gentle slopes, but in my opinion, in the majority of cases, the less 

 the soil is touched the better, as the great majority of coffee 

 plantations are on very steep inclines, and the wash and loss of soil 

 is very great- 



A great variety of weeds are to be found on a coffee plantation 

 — ferns, goat-weed or ageratum, Spanish needle, a thorn called the 

 wild brinja], the Sisapara creeper, the jungle sand-paper or fig 

 (which, if allowed, grows into a tree), and a number of varieties 

 of grasses, the Hurriali, the thatching grass, Dubber-ooloo, and a 

 creeping grass of whose name I am ignorant, which last forms 

 a regular mat on the surface of the soil, and is, in my opinion, 

 the most pernicious of all. According to Dr. Bidie, the most 

 hurtful weed is the goat-weed, which is said to take up all the 

 ingredients which coffee requires. 



As almost all coffee plantations are situated on steep slopes, —drainage. 

 the object of drainage is not so much to get rid of superfluous 

 water as to prevent its carrying away soil in its rush. 1 am not 

 a believer in an elaborate system of main and catch drains, which, 

 as far as I have seen, are continually filling up, overflowing, and 

 end in cutting dreadful chasms. If stones are abundant, as is 

 often the case, the best plan, I think, is to revet or build 

 round the lower surface of each tree ; and if this is carefully done, 

 the tree finally stands in a kind of natural flower-pot, and the 

 lower surface instead of being sloped with the slope of the hill 

 (thus exposing the roots) is flush with the upper surface. Reno- 

 vation pits or trenches 8 or 4 feet long by 1 foot broad and 2 

 feet deep should be dug between each alternate group of four 

 trees, and these pits not only serve to catch the soil which is 

 washed down, but act as receptacles for weeds. Some planters 

 make use of them as manure pits. As soon as these pits are 

 filled up fresh pits between the alternate groups of four trees 

 should be dug, and when the time comes round for the first pits 

 to be opened the soil in them can be heaped up round the roots 

 of the trees. Were it not for the constant and unceasing washing 

 down of the soil that goes on, this heaping up of earth round the 

 root of the trees would very likely cause rot, canker, and disease ; 

 but as it is, it only replaces what is being constantly washed away. 

 A cooly can dig twenty-five to thirty of these renovation pits. Some 

 planters, I believe, build terraces, but not having tried this plan 



