28 COFFEE PLANTERS’ MANUAL. 
mence weeding, immediately after you have burned 
off, which is the plan I would always recommend,, 
there will be only a weed here and there—easily picked 
up: and you will have no difficulty in getting this. 
done either by contract or daily labor at a cost not 
exceeding 1/6 per acre ; and if you continue this prac- 
tice monthly, you will not, over the year, have to 
spend more than 18s, which amount per acre per 
annum will weed the estate afterwards. If however 
you have been unable to put ona force to weed im- 
mediately after you burn, a rush of weeds will soon 
cover the ground. If there be no weedy estate ad- 
joining you, and your estate has been opened out 
of forest, the first cover of weeds will be chiefly 
jungle stuff, which does not flower and will be easily 
pulled upat acost for the first weeding of probably 5s 
per acre. If you follow up this weeding quickly with 
another, and another you will reduceit in two or three 
weedings to the normal figure. Then continue weed- 
ing monthly, even if you can only see a weed here 
and there. Go over the ground regularly, and you 
will prevent their spread, and do your weeding cheap. 
It is a very false economy, as most old planters now 
know to their cost, to leave over your weeding for 
another month; because you hardly see a weed. 
Doubtless there are a few, although you have not 
discovered them: and one flowering weed will be a 
nursery for your estate, and will soon cover the fields 
with myriads of its progeny. If you have been un- 
fortunate enough to get into this state, and can spare 
the men and the money to make your estate again 
clean, you can do so by going over it twice a month 
for the first three months or so, then weeding it 
once a month afterwards. It may be again rendered 
clean in about two years; this will be costly, but it 
will well repay itself. I have said in another place 
that the cost of weeding ranges from £1 to £3 per 
acre. You will see therefore what you will save if 
you can do it on the £1 scale. EHven less it is some- 
times done for, as I have also shewn elsewhere. If 
your estate be weedy, and you, having given up all 
idea of making it clean, are satisfied with six or 
eight weedings a year, you may keep it clean enough 
to prevent it doing much harm to the coffee. In this way 
you will have perbaps one expensive weeding after crop, 
whico may cost you 5s or 6s per acre: and afterwards 
you may doit for 4s 6d to 4s, or even 3s 6d accord- 
ing to your elevation, soil, climate, &c., while if 
you can do it ten or twelve times you may doit forfrom 
2s 6d to 3s 6d per aere each time, according to the same 
circumstances. The tools you will use for this work 
will be the mamoty or hoe, if your estate be weedy. 
