INTRODUCTION. Ni 
‘to avoid them so long as tolerable soil is to be found. 
in places where there is less risk of fever. Some of 
the old chenas of the Western Province have very 
fair soil, but they are very dirty, and the better the 
soil, the dirtier they are. A running fire through heavy 
fallen forest has generally strength enough to de- 
“stroy the vitality of every plant on the land, but it 
is not so even with the oldest chena. The cost of 
‘felling and clearing may be from R10 to R15 per 
acre, but it is only when burnt off and cleared 
‘ap that the real battle begins ; the fire is too feeble 
‘to reach the seat of life of even small arboraceous 
plants, and there are many species of herbaceous 
piants, the seeds of which seem to remain in the soil 
for a long series of years, ready to avail themselves 
of the conditions. produced by clearing the jungle. 
Thus it only requires a few showers to cover a 
cleared chena of thirty years’ standing with annual 
or perennial herbaceous weeds, and no sooner is one 
“species mastered than another takes its place, so that 
an the very first season the full equivalent of 
cleaning a long neglected coffee estate has to be 
undertaken. In one case, felling and clearing cost 
R10 per acre, but in seven months rootiug and weed- 
ing cost R20 per acre, and still the land very far from. 
being as clean as old forest newly burned off. Be- 
sides the original cost of clearmg the land, there are 
several extra works on low-country as compared w'th 
mountain estates : on the former a fenceis an absolute 
‘necessity, and the levelling down of white ant hills 
will, in most localities, be an item of some importance | 
“On the other hand, there are several advantages that 
the low-country estates have over the highlands : not- 
ably, in transport of supplies, and material, in the 
cost of buildings, in a paying market for timber, where 
‘any timber, is ;in the greater number of products that 
may be cultivated, and probably five cents aday saved. 
in the all-round pay of the coolies. I do not see, 
however, that a low-country estate} can be fairly es- 
timated to cost much less at the end of the fourth 
year than one on the mountains, butit is the duty 
of every one engaged in such an enterprise to do 
everything as cheaply as may be consistent with 
good work. 
