90 TROPICAL AGRICULTURE chap, i 



Careless for a carelcss planter deserves to fail, and he will probably 

 diStrous. "^eet with disaster. For instance, if with great care and at 

 considerable expense a large number of seedlings of cacao 

 or coffee have been raised, and they are planted out in the 

 fields in a careless way, they will probably die in large 

 quantities, and the results of all the previous work and expen- 

 diture will be liable to be swept away by inattention to what, 

 to the inexperienced, may appear to be trifling details. 

 Writers on agricultural subjects have always urged the 

 necessity of care and forethought in planting ; and Mr. Morris, 

 the distinguished Assistant Director of the Royal Gardens 

 at Kew, whilst in charge of the Botanic Gardens of Jamaica, 

 wrote as follows : — "All the operations connected with plant- 

 ing are of so important a character, that too much care 

 and attention cannot possibly be given to them. On the mode 

 in which the plants are put in, and the plantation started, 

 depends the whole success of the undertaking, and to 

 realise these conditions in their fullest sense may very fitly 

 be termed the essential elements in the character of a good 

 and successful planter." 

 Nature to be A planter is simply one who copies nature and natural 

 copied. processes in order to get a large return from the soil. 



Nature, as we have seen, proceeds by slow . and careful 

 means, the smallest operation being done with exactly the 

 same careful wisdom as the most gigantic one, and all things 

 working together in obedience to natural laws, produce the 

 wonderful world around us. A planter, who deserves the 

 name, must humbly copy nature, not only in its indications 

 for the treatment of plant life, but also in the careful and 

 laborious way in which all things are done. 



