160 PLANTING IN NATAL. 
‘COFFEE PLANTING IN NATAL. 
Some time has elapsed now since we received from 
the author, Mr. W. H. Middleton, of Snaresbrook 
Estate, Natal, a copy of his ‘‘ Manual of Coffee Plant- 
ing,” intended for the use-of planters in that Colony. 
It is a pamphlet made up in the form of letters on 
the cultivation of coffee, and as the author tells us 
‘‘ professes to be only a relation of the practical ex- 
perience and observations” of himself and a few friends 
who had given him information. The author accom- — 
panied the brochure with a private letter in which 
he was good enough to ask our advice with reference 
to a second edition, and especially on the value of 
a novel idea which had occurred to him as worthy of 
being recommended to Natal planters. The second 
edition has since been published, and a copy of the 
book has reached us which we will notice hereafter. 
Meantime, this second book having appeared, and the 
letter before us being dated 1866, there can be no 
breach of confidence im laying Mr. Middleton’s theory 
before our readers. It is as follows:—‘‘In Natal I 
find that the coffee tree bears most abundantly and 
with certainty for the first three or four years; but 
afterwards the crop is very uncertain both in quality 
(well-formed beans) and quantity, owing, I think, to 
a deficiency of good bearing wood. Perhaps this to 
a certain extent might be corrected by proper and 
careful pruning, but it is most difficult to obtain the 
skilled labour for this purpose either in number or 
efficiency. Now, would it not be better to carry out 
the following plan :—say, plant out the fields in rows 
9 or 10 feet by 5 or 6 feet, and in four years plant 
again between these rows. At the end of the 7th 
year cut down the first trees planted, the second planted 
will then be in bearing. After one year of fallow, 
replant in the rows where the first planted trees were 
placed. By this means there would always be a suc- 
cession of vigorous young bearing trees, which would 
require less labour (especially skilled) and return a 
better and more certain crop than if depending upon 
the old stock.” Coffee planting in Natal must offer 
a great contrast to the same pursuit in Ceylon to 
permit of Mr. Middleton suggesting even a mode of 
cultivation so impracticable and expensive! It must 
indeed be a poor look-out where the coffee shrub 
begins to languish in its seventh year, an age when 
it is usually in its prime, and whatever may have 
been the cost and scarcity of skilled labour for prun- 
ing, the Natal planters cannot fail to find the process 
of replanting recommended by our author much more 
-expensive and unsatisfactory. We handed the copy 
of the first edition of the Manual itself at the time 
