H4 COFFEE: ITS CULTIVATION AND PROFIT. 



after crop, and the lightness or heaviness of the 

 operation, that opinions vary. 



Mr. W. D. Bosanquet, a well-known Ceylon 

 planter, has recently made some sensible remarks 

 on the subject, which we think deserve quotation : 



" In high districts Coffee wood takes from nine months 

 to a year, sometimes even more, to arrive at maturity. In 

 the days before leaf disease, the difference of opinion was 

 one between pruning before or after the blossoming season, 

 with the object of assisting the wood either to increase its 

 blossom, or else to bring its crop on after the blossom had set. 

 Now our main endeavour is to help the trees to set their 

 blossom, and if this is attained we can help the trees by the 

 aid of manure. The effect of pruning is to cause the tree to 

 throw out a fresh flush of wood, and from this wood is selected 

 in the ordinary course that which is to bear the following crop. 



" Now if your pruning is done early i.e., before the i5th 

 say of April and your wood is accustomed to mature in nine 

 months, you are really just at the right time, whereas by 

 pruning after the blossoms are over the wood subsequently 

 formed would still be green in the beginning of the following 

 year. If a late pruning is adopted systematically then it must 

 be necessary at the time of pruning to leave on the trees such 

 wood as has formed before the blossoming season commenced, 

 as in an ordinary blossoming season the formation of new 

 wood should be checked, and the old wood be hardening : 

 your late pruning is therefore adopted with the view of giving 

 your wood at least twelve months in which to mature. In the 

 majority of cases I should give my verdict for early pruning, 

 and for this reason, that where Coffee is intended by nature to 

 grow there it will in ordinary seasons mature its wood in nine 

 months at the most ; still if I had to deal with an estate where 

 the longer period was required I should then prune late, but, 

 guided by the balance of probability, I should at the same 

 time hasten to substitute for the Coffee some cultivation better 

 suited to the climate. 



