11 COFFEE 97 



Lining.— The land having been cleared, the next thing is 

 to line it out, pickets or stakes being placed at each spot 

 that is to be occupied by a coffee tree. Care should be taken straight 

 to get the lines symmetrical, for a badly lined estate is an advisable, 

 offence to the eye, and it causes much trouble in giving tasks 

 and in picking the crops. On the small properties of 

 peasant proprietors where coffee is cultivated, the trees 

 are sometimes so overcrowded as to injure each other and 

 to diminish the crops. It is a mistake to imagine that the Overcrowd- 

 greater the number of trees on a given piece of land, the IJfesto be 

 greater will be the return in crops. As we have seen in the avoided, 

 first part of this book, the atmosphere and sun and rain have 

 a great deal to do with plant growth : and, in order for these 

 important agencies to work properly, there must be sufficient 

 space around a tree for the air to circulate freely and for the 

 sunlight to enter. Crowding of plants prevents this and does 

 much harm in other ways. The roots intertwine and rob one 

 another of the available plant food, which as we know now 

 exists in the soil in a soluble condition. This plant food is 

 abstracted from the land in order to build up the many woody 

 stems and sterile branches of the crowded trees, whereas, if 

 the plants were put in at proper distances, the food in the 

 soil would be taken up to produce, not a number of useless 

 stems, but a quantity of fruitful branches on well-formed trees. 

 It so happens that larger crops are obtained from the fewer 

 trees, and the known facts concerning plant life fully explain 

 why this takes place. 



A good way to line out the land is to get a number of long How to line, 

 stout cords, and to stretch them over the field at regular 

 distances. A similar cord held by a person at each end is 

 then stretched across all the other cords ; and, where the 

 single cord touches all the others, pickets are put in. In 

 this way the lines will be perfectly straight, and the distance 

 of the pickets from each other can be made to suit the desire 

 of the planter. 



The distances at which coffee trees should be planted will Distances. 



