57 



break the rootlets of the plants when taken up for trans- 

 planting. The ground being laid out in beds, is sometimes 

 sown broadcast with coffee-seed, which only requires to be 

 most lightly covered with a little sifted mould, or the seeds 

 are pressed in, in rows, with the finger. Sometimes small 

 seedlings, with two leaves and the seed leaves, are brought 

 from another nursery, or from beneath the coffee-bushes of a 

 plantation or native garden, and lined out into beds about 

 six inches apart ; these make by far the best and hardiest 

 plants for planting out into the fields. 



We must not omit to notice the necessity for carefully re- 

 placing, with as little delay as possible, all failures in the 

 planting. The longer this is delayed the more difficult does 

 it become to do it well ; and when neglected, besides making 

 the fields appear irregular and unsightly, the gaps left 

 become weed beds, and so much of the bearing space of the 

 acre being lost, the crop is affected in proportion. 



When stumps are planted, a number of buds or suckers 

 make their appearance on the root; one of these only 

 should be left, and the others carefully rubbed off with 

 the finger, as often as the weeding party goes over the 

 field. 



The sprout from the bud which is left grows up and 

 becomes the stem of a tree, and throws out its laterals 

 somewhat higher than the tree grown from a nursery 

 plant. The stump generally produces its first crop a little 

 out of season ; for planting up failures, stumps give the least 

 trouble. 



Next to lining and careful planting, nothing enhances the 

 good appearance of a plantation so much as the workmanlike 

 formntion of the roads and buildings. It is, therefore, de- 

 sirable, by the use of a theodolite, to trace the roads accu- 

 rately before cutting them out. Formerly it was frequently 

 the practice to take the road by the eye from point to point, 



