16 COFFEE PLANTERS’ MANUAL. 
an incursion of rats when about eighteen months old. 
On the failure of certain succulent plants in the jun- 
gles, which occurs periodically, they leave their shelter 
in the forest and attack and sometimes over-run young 
clearings. Even old ones do not escape their visita- 
tion. But it is the young shoots or branches that are 
most acceptable to them. These they cut through to 
get at the pith, and the cut is sometimes so clean, 
that one would think it had been done with a knife. 
Traps are frequently set; and watchers with sticks 
appointed to go regularly ‘over the fields in rows, 
killing where they can the destructive vermin, the - 
watchers’ pay depending on the amount of the slaugh- 
ter. In this way I have known four thousand killed 
on one estate in three months, and it is well worth 
the expense, getting rid of the vermin. Shelter for. 
them on the land such as the mode of clearing re- 
ferred to affords, will most likely encourage these 
destructive raids. 
But I have not yet described the operation of Hot- 
inc. Here it is: Provide each man with a holing 
mamoty or hoe, and an alavanga or spade bar. Draw 
a circle round the peg to the breadth you intend your 
holes to be. Loosen or break the ground within the 
circle, and remove roots and stones with the spade 
bar, end cut clean, and clear out the earth with the 
mamoty to the depth required. In ordinary land 18 
inches broad and deep is considered a sufficient size. 
If the ground be very stiff this will be quite enough, 
while if it be soft and friable a foot will suffice, or 
even less, It has come considerably into vogue lately 
to make very small holes in free soil which may be 
9 to 12 inches each way, and of these sometimes 100. 
holes will be made by each man per day. Of 18 inch 
holes, however, 40 per man daily is about the aver- 
age task, and it is good work if they be made the 
full size. In very hard gravelly or clayey soils I 
have known only 25 per man made in a day. Some 
planters too are not satisfied with a hole of average 
size, and fix for their standard a two feet hole. In 
such cases 15 to 20 per man daily will be about all 
they can get done, which of course makes the work 
expensive and slow. 
DispBLInG, a practice which had long since been 
discarded, has of late been revived to a considerable 
extent. It is done either with the alavanga or a 
pointed stick, pushed into the ground to the depth 
of 12 or 18 inches, and wriggled about till the earth 
gives way. Then the plant is put in and the earth 
closed around. Another and no doubt a better mode 
is to make first tbe centre hole with the alavanga or. 
atick, then to make around it a circle of similar holes, 
