134 COFFEE: ITS CULTIVATION AND PROFIT. 



is the same. It generally comes on after several 

 days of continuous rain, and lasts as long as the 

 weather is at all rainy or moist, and does a 

 great deal of damage to the foliage and crop 

 while it lasts. The disease goes up the stem of 

 the Coffee and along every branch in the form of 

 a thin cobwebby string, which as soon as it reaches 

 the leaves covers all the under surface with stuff 

 resembling tissue paper, or say a cobweb with 

 the meshes so close as to look like extremely 

 fine muslin. This layer chokes the leaves and 

 kills them effectually. The disease when in a 

 bad form, after killing the oldest leaves, goes right 

 into the top pair of the youngest leaves, and 

 even kills them, leaving the bough entirely denuded 

 of all foliage. Should it come across the berries 

 it surrounds them with the cobweb, and dries 

 them up, making those beans light and worthless. 

 Should the bean happen to be ripe there is a 

 difficulty in pulping it, and the pulper generally 

 takes off pulp and parchment together. After the 

 fine weather sets in the disease apparently dis- 

 appears and sets in again the next rains. Fortu- 

 nately Coffee planted on slopes does not suffer so 

 much as that on flats and close to jungle ; Coffee 

 also at lower elevations than 1,000 feet escapes 

 to a great extent. 



