PLANTING. IOI 



exercised in any case, for planting is one of the 

 most important operations we have to perform. 



When plants are well set in they should feel 

 firm to a gentle upward pull, should be buried to 

 about the same height they were in their seed beds, 

 and should not be in the centre of hollow depressions 

 likely to hold water in monsoons, and so drown the 

 shrubs. 



" Dibbling " is an indifferent method of planting 

 wherein the soil is only loosened by the pointed 

 end of an alavanga being worked round and round. 



As soon after clearings are planted as possible, 

 and particularly in the case of those deficient in 

 shelter, it will be time to fix supports to the young 

 transplanted Coffee trees of two years old, quickly 

 growing into considerable bushes with thick heads of 

 glossy dark green leaves. In spite of belts of jungle 

 left between the clearings, the plant feels the wind 

 more or less, and when the ground is wet it swings it 

 round and round, so that the stem works an open- 

 ing in the soil just where it comes above ground. 

 Then, if there should be any breeze on the next hot 

 day, when the ground is baked hard by the sun, the 

 plant chafes against this rim, cuts through its tender 

 young bark, and very speedily dies. So we have to 

 provide a support by driving in a three-foot stick, 

 sloping towards the plant from the direction of the 

 south-west monsoon, and firmly but gently tying 

 them together with a thin rattan fibre or any stringey 

 bark which grows wild in the jungles, the fibre being 



