84 COFFEE I ITS CULTIVATION AND PROFIT. 



perform it, there are many others who give a vast 

 amount of trouble by making pits out of the straight 

 line, or just too small to pass muster the regulation 

 size being two feet deep by eighteen inches square, 

 measured across from the level of the surface of the 

 ground. The holes should have right-angled corners, 

 as if a tree be set in a circular hole, the roots follow 

 the limits of the soil which has been disturbed, and 

 become as much " pot-bound " as though they grew 

 in stone jars ; but when the pit is square the roots 

 grow into the angles, and, finding themselves faced 

 by walls of earth, are obliged to penetrate them 

 and spread into the surrounding soil. By the time 

 the pits begin to be numbered by thousands, the 

 ground also presents a curious aspect something 

 as if the jungle had been overrun by monstrous 

 land-crabs, which had dug out their underground 

 houses in every direction ; but the walking is better 

 than usual, owing to the pits being in straight lines 

 and the timber still standing. 



After all this careful labour, the novice will look 

 with something akin to consternation on the suc- 

 ceeding operation necessary in " pitting before the 

 burn." Extravagant as it may appear, the next 

 thing to be done, after having carefully dug these 

 twenty- two thousand pits, is to fill them up again ! 

 The truth is, the forest under which we have so 

 industriously scratched these holes has now to be 

 felled and burnt, and the sufficient reason for re- 

 filling the pits is that the valuable top soil, which 



