COFFEE PLANTERS’ MANUAL. 7 
by stopping felling at say 2 o’clock every afternoon, 
and insist‘ng on each man then changing his axe for 
-a catty; or by having a party of catty men follow- 
ing close upon the fellers, and not more than a day 
betind them. In lopping, all the branches are cut off 
and strewed on the ground. If only partially cut, 
or not well scattered, you may get a bad burn, as 
the linbs of a gigantic tree will not dry nearly so 
fast attached to the tree as separate; besides heaps 
of sood collect about those branchy trees and form 
nests for vermin and nurseries for weeds. Separate 
the branches therefore, and strew them about. They 
wiil then dry sufficiently in about a month; after 
which apply your torch at different poin's, and you 
will soon see the whole field in one glorious blaze. 
If your lopping has been well done, and fairly dried, 
there will be nothing left after the burn but charred 
logs and wood ashes. The former will waste away 
in time. The latter act as a manure as long as they 
remain on the ground. But if the land be steep, they 
are soon washed away by the heavy rains of the South- 
West monsoon. It would be better doubtless for the 
land if the burning could bedispensed with. But where 
the land is so heavily timbered, as it generally is 
in Ceylon, the work of clearing up without burning, 
would be too great and costly to be adopted on any 
large scale, although some small clearings have been 
done in that way to the satisfaction of the parties in- 
terested in the work. The proper time to begin to 
fell is about October. And felling should be finished 
by the end of January, or at all events not later than 
the 10th February. By the 12th to 15th March you 
should be ready to burn off. After that date, al- 
though it may sometimes be done successfully, it is 
never safe ; as showers frequently fall about the 20th 
to 22nd, sometimes even earlier. If these be heavy 
enough to cause the dry leaves to drop from the 
scattered branches, and soak the logs the.nselves, it 
makes a burn difticult—sometimes impossible. And 
as I have already shewn when a good burn is not 
got, it enhances considerably the cost of the clear- 
ing. These remarks about the felling and clearing 
refer of course to the opening of a plantation from 
forest land. Sometimes, however, they are opened 
out of chena scrub, a small kind of jungle of differ- 
ent sizes and ages, which is not primitive forest, but 
land that has been cleared and cultivated with grain 
within the memory of man. As a rule, such land 
~ af not exhausted, is considerably weakened by the 
successive crops it has borne, and requires renova- 
tion by manure. This kind of land can be got of 
ell ages from a year to thirty years old. After 
