OPENING AN ESTATE. 25 



nurseries.* Plants, indeed, which are too old to plant 

 out in the ordinary way make excellent stumps.f The 

 plants once put in, the roads previously marked and 

 traced out should be completed, and the estate should 

 be weeded, and from the day the coffee-trees are put 

 in no other green leaf should be seen in the estate, but 

 every weed should be pulled up before it is three 

 inches high. If this plan be pursued, the subsequent 

 cultivation will require very few hands, and the cost of 

 weeding will not be one quarter that incurred if the 

 weeds are once allowed to seed on the estate. When 

 the plants are about two years old, they will require to 

 be lopped i.e., the leading stem or shoot to be cut off. 

 The height at which this should be done must depend 

 on several circumstances ; if entirely neglected, the 

 trees are apt to become weak, tall bushes, with 

 irregular side-branches or primaries ; and in exposed, 

 windy situations they will be much shaken and broken 

 by the wind. The common practice is to keep the 

 trees at about four feet in height, but even this is too 

 high, unless the soil is very good and the situation 

 sheltered; three feet, or even two feet six inches, will 

 be found better in the majority of cases. 



The objects gained by topping are to keep the tree 



* Some planters cut down the plants in the nurseries, or " stump" 

 them, a month before they are required to plant out, and they will then 

 have acquired a second stem or sucker, before being planted out ; but 

 the plan is not to be recommended, as the young tender shoot is very 

 liable to damage in transplanting. 



f It may not be generally known that coffee propagates readily by 

 cuttings ; but if the cutting be taken from one of the side-branches, 

 it will never form a centre stem, but will always evince the peculiar 

 characteristics of the lateral branches j but if, on the other hand, a 

 sucker or shoot be planted, it will form a plant perfect in all respects 

 and in no way to be distinguished from a seedling. 



