PREPARATION OF THE LAND 23 



stumping should be done at the outset; others 

 advocate a year or two after planting; whilst 

 some, on the score of expense, take the risk of 

 disease and allow the stumps to rot away. 



The ideal plantation is, of course, freed from 

 stumps and fallen timber before planting is 

 begun ; the real danger from disease is during 

 the first year. After that time the stumps 

 or timber have reached such a state of decay as 

 to be immune from the attacks of pests, except 

 beetles, and can then be left to rot away. 



Comparative estimates of clean-cleared and 

 non-clean-cleared estates put the latter at a 

 disadvantage in the first revenue years, and the 

 cumulative loss through non-clean clearing is 

 estimated at about 10 per cent., or in other 

 words, what the non-clean-cleared estate saved 

 in initial expenditure, it loses in revenue in the 

 early fruiting years, whereas the clean estate 

 recovers the first cost of stumping in extra 

 produce, and it is a year or two before it is 

 overtaken by the originally non-cleared estate. 



Lining. There are differences of opinion as 

 to distance at which trees should be planted, but 

 the popular space is a square of 30 feet by 30 feet, 

 which gives forty-eight trees to the acre. This 

 distance allows for the interplanting of catch 

 crops, and moreover, the palm branches, which 

 at maturity are 16 feet to 18 feet in length, 

 do not interfere to any extent with those of a 

 neighbouring tree. 



