COFFEE CULTIVATION AND MANURING. 107 
Master :—Starvation, say you! how can that be? 
have I not sent people and put food for you in a 
hole so deep that neither mamoties nor scrapers can 
take it from you? but still you don’t thrive, and J 
am beginning to think you are ungrateful and alto- 
gether unworthy of being taken care of. 
TREE :—I am very sorry you have so bad an opi- 
nion of me, but I tell you again, that my not thriv- 
ing is all your own fault. It is true you have put 
food in a hole for me, but in making the hole your 
people cut a large quantity of my roots, and I could 
not make use of the food until I had made new 
roots, and by that time the food had gone too low 
in the ground for me to get at it. 
Master :—But have you none but surface roots ? 
TREE :—None that will put fruit on my branches. 
Lay food for me on the surface of the ground, so that 
I can get at it without forcing my roots against their 
nature to seek for food you put in a hole, and you 
will soon see not only good vigorous wood on me, 
but plenty of fruit too, and in place of your going 
into debt, you will soon be out of your agent’s hands 
if you will only take my advice. 
Master :—But most people who have the care of 
you are afraid to feed you in that way for fear the 
sun would dry the good out of your food one part 
of the year, and the rain would wash it away from 
you the other part. 
TREE :—Well! if people won’t understand my nature 
I can’t help it, and I shall just go on as usual until 
you change your system of feeding me, but after this 
don’t blame me. I have told you what I want you 
to do, and if you are afraid to do as I want you, 
you must take the consequences and continue to go 
into debt, deeper, and yet deeper still; but if I was 
in your place, I think I could find some means of 
preventing either sun or rain from injuring the food | 
lnid on the surface. I could make drains in the first 
place right across the hills and so close together that 
there should be no very large accumulation of water. 
Next I would dig holes betwe n every four trees in 
the centre, between the four so as not to cut off the 
feeding roots which are nearer the stems. Next I 
would lay the fuod for the tree round the stem and 
cover it with the earth taken out of the hole, and what 
with the drains and the hole in thecentre, it would 
be hard to wash away food laid for me near my stem. 
Master :—Do you think this system would answer 
on very steep land? 
TREE :—Yes, all you have to do is to make your 
drains a little closer together on steep land and don’t 
send mamoties or scrapers there for the future. 
