ROADS AND DRAINING. TEMPERATURE AND RAINFALL. 25 



which are made in the bark of the trees, and the diseases thereby 

 induced. Good roads should lie at short distances apart and 

 --animals should never be allowed among the trees. 



The distance at which roads should be made will have to be 



determined entirely by the lay or aspect of the plantation. In 

 flat land any distance from 4 to 8 chains may be used ; the richer 

 the soil the nearer the roads should be together. 



In Draining, as in Pruning and Road-making, only general 

 {principles can be laid down. All land of course requires draining 

 of some kind or another, but no one can give definite instructions 

 for draining an area until it is understood what amount of 

 drainage that particular area requires. Land situated at a low 

 level will of course require much more attention to rid it of 

 superabundant water than will hill-side land, and each area 

 must therefore be treated according to its own requirements. 



The object of drainage is, to rid a Cacao estate of stagnant 

 or superabundant moisture. Flood waters from a river, so long 

 -as they do not cover an estate for too long a period, do but little 

 practical harm, indeed in some districts they are lookod upon as 



doing a large amount of good, by bringing down and depositing 

 upon the surface a certain amount of manurial constituents. 



Drains made in any kind of cultivation should always be 

 made V shaped with a narrow bottom. The practice of making 

 drains with upright sides, which fall in and choke the drain, 

 cannot be too strongly condemned, and in no case can they be 

 recommended ; and the depth and width of the drains should be 

 regulated by the circumstances of soil and situation. 



Drains should never be made straight in coming downhill, 

 as when so made the wash becomes enormous, especially if the 

 descent approaches in any way an angle of 35 degrees, but in 

 flat land the straighter they are made the better. 



The site for a plantation should aVways be selected where 

 there is a good natural main outlcC for drainage waters. 



Under draining with pipe, rubble, x>r bush draining is I 

 consider utterly useless in Cacao cultivation, as it stands to 

 reason that such drains must very early be filled by the roots of 

 the trees (both Cacao and shade trees) and that the action of 

 the drains after the first few months will be stopped by the 

 roots finding their way into them in search of moisture. The 

 theory is good, but the practice is ^uite UQSQUP.u with regard to 



