324 Coffee Culture on tbe Soutbetn Coast of Cbiapas. 



for this operation, the trees will have the advantage of the whole of the 

 rainy season, and will yield their first crop in September of the follow- 

 ing year, unless the plants were very young at the time of transplanting 

 and weeding was neglected. The time occupied in the cultivation of 

 the coffee-trees, then, in the sense in which the word is used here, will 

 be from sixteen to seventeen months, during which the chief work will 

 be the weeding. 



The chief labor in the cultivation of coffee will be the frequent 

 weeding of the ground for the purpose of destroying all the vegetation 

 that may spring up in it. The secret of success in coffee culture con- 

 sists in allowing no other vegetation to remain in the ground where 

 coffee is planted. 



If the plantation is not weeded, the weeds will choke the coffee 

 plants; and if the weedings are not performed with the required fre- 

 quency, the crops will be very scanty. 



b. Manner of Weeding. Thus far no machine or implement to 

 facilitate weeding has been used that has not injured the plant. In 

 some of the plantations of Guatemala clutivators or ploughs are used 

 for weeding, but aside from the fact that these implements can be used 

 only on level ground, many are of opinion that they injure the tender 

 roots which the coffee plant sends out near the surface of the ground, 

 for which reason these implements are very little used. Besides which, 

 three or four years after transplanting, the branches of the trees will 

 have spread so much that it would be impossible for the mules or oxen 

 drawing the plough to pass under them without injuring them greatly. 



For the reasons above mentioned the hoe is little used in weeding, 

 for, in addition to cutting the young roots of the coffee-tree, it loosens 

 the soil, thus exposing it to be washed away by the rains a very serious 

 objection in hilly ground. For these reasons, as a general rule, only 

 the machete is used in weeding. In Ceylon a means has been dis- 

 covered of preventing the rains from washing the earth away in hilly 

 ground, as will be seen farther on. 



c. Number of Weedings to be Made during the Year. In the first 

 year after transplanting the ground must be frequently weeded, for, as 

 from their diminutive size, the plants cast scarcely any shade, the 

 ground is almost completely exposed to the sun, and this causes it to 

 produce abundantly all sorts of weeds. As the plant grows it casts 

 more and more shade, and the greater the shade the smaller the area 

 of ground exposed to the fecundating action of the sun, and conse- 

 quently, the fewer will be the weeds. 



The number of weedings which the plantation is to receive during 

 the first year and subsequent years will depend upon various circum- 

 stances, such as the altitude of the ground, its temperature, the nature 

 of the soil, whether it has been virgin soil or soil that had been already 



