COFFEE PLANTERS’ MANUAL. 33 
‘itself, they will find that although nature throws 
*‘out the secondaries in pairs, almost invariably one is 
** stronger than the other; and by a little care the strong 
**ones can be left and the weak ones taken off. It is 
‘better to look to the strength of the wood than the 
“quantity of it. As secondaries lefton too near the stem 
“tend to weaken the primaries, so do they when left in 
‘*pairs, cramping as it were that expansion, which takes 
**place under the treatment I advise. ‘lo those who 
“wish to leave everything on for the virgin-crop, 1 
““would say that I have known coffee trained under 
“the above system give a virgin crop of seven cwts. 
‘per acre.” This is a very good description of the 
whole process of handling out the tree: but the por- 
tion for which I mainly quoted it, and which fits in 
to my previous directions, is that which I have ital- 
icized. On this point, the late Mr. R. D. Gerard, 
who was a leading planter in his day, used to direct 
his superintendents ‘‘to leave not more than five se- 
condaries on cach primary.” That number he consi- 
dered as many as the tree could safely carry, and 
sufficient to produce all the crop the shrub was thought 
capable of yielding. This too, in experienced hands, 
I think was valuable advice. But inasmuch as a super- 
intendent who may have fifty or hundred men engaged. 
at one time in pruning a field cannot possibly at the 
same time have his eye on every one of them, watch- 
ing each cut of every knife, I am inclined to prefer 
the system of ‘‘W.” as being the one most easily taught 
to the coolies,—therefore most likely to be correctly 
carried out. Thus then we have pruned an estate 
which wasfound in tolerable order. Let us suppose the 
case of one found in very bad order as regards prun- 
ing: with trees growing as they liked, matted in the 
centre, umbrella-topped, exuberant in suckers, abound- 
ing in dead wood, and that have not been pruned 
for years. Trees in such condition [ would not attempt 
to reform all at once: because if I did I would have 
to cut off the most of the bearing wood, in divesting the 
trees of all that was unshapely, irregular, or not in 
accord with the natural expansion of the tree. And_ 
that would not pay—for by so doing I would get 
very little crop for two years. In such case I would 
begin with suckers, tearing out every one, so as to 
let me see the tree, and let the sun and air penetrate 
it. Then I would cut off all dead branches back to 
where there was life, then I would clear everything 
within a span of the centre. Then, how then ?—aye 
that is the difficulty, for where there is much vitali- 
ty, almost all wrongly-directed, it puzzles one to 
know what to cut and what to avoid. I would begin 
by training into shape the primaries. Supposing they 
