128 COFFKE CULTIVATION AND MANURING. 
I am in favour of surface manuring to a depth of 2 
or 3 inches for all stimulating or artificial manures 
easily dissolved; for it stands to reason that, where 
the land is protected from wash, manure thrown on 
the surface, if it does not wash off the soil, must 
wash into it. Bulky substances ought to be placed 
deeper to facilitate decomposition, leaving it to the 
power of the sun’s rays to bring their nutritous quali-- 
ties to the surface to be carried down into the soil 
again by the first rays and taken up by the feeding roots.” 
Another gentleman, of much experience in cultivation 
generally, stated :— 
‘‘Jt took fruit-growers, in other parts of the world, 
much longer time than that to find out their great 
mistake in deep manuring. It’s only within 10 or 15 
years the fruit-growers in England have found out by 
experience that surface and not sub-soil manuring is 
what suits their interests best. The system which 
they practice is to cover the ground around their 
trees with cattle dung in autumn, thereby serving 
the double purpose of protection from the winter’s frost 
and enriching the surface soil. In spring the manure 
is removed to be replaced by a fresh supply or dug 
with a digging fork according as their trees require 
it. And every precaution is used to prevent the trees 
making tap or sub-soil roots (the handle of Mr. Ward’s 
theory), and, before planting, the hole dug for the 
tree is half filled with stones or concrete. In some 
cases the bottom is laid with slate as close and regu- 
lar as they are laid on the roof of a house, to pre- 
vent the possibility of a single root getting beyond 
the depth allowed. Mr. Ward appeals to Nature giv- 
ing the tree a tap-root, as a reason why it should be 
manured, Looking at the coffee trees on our estates, 
can any one say that they are left in a state of na- 
ture? Is it natural for coffee to have its top lopped 
off when it reaches 3 ft. high, or to have its branches 
pruned and handled two or three times every year. 
Then, if we outrage Nature so much above ground, 
why should we follow a-tap root 2 feet below ground 
for no better reason than that Nature put it there? 
Much better treat the roots at hand well than go 
digging down encouraging the tap-root to send out 
lateral roots into holes dug by its side which (in 
higher wet districts with a retentive sub-soil especially) 
are simply recipients for water where dryness is most 
needed, and when a tap-root would be better dis- 
pensed with altogether. If more were done to pre- 
vent the roots going below half the depth proposed 
for the manure to be put, and as carefully tended as 
the branches are, there would be less need for man. 
ure and fewer short crops. But if the deep manuring 
