186 MANURING COFFEE. 
What it cost at the islands I cannot tell you, but 
it has beensold in London at £4 to £5 per ton, and 
mixed with ammonia and potash it ought to be an 
excellent manure for coffee. Here it is used for 
superphosphate, but after all sulphuric acid only does 
quickly what dame nature does for us slowly and 
surely in her own way, and I am not sure that the 
advantage of using superphosphate with coffee, is as 
great as with annual crops of different kinds, when 
it may be required for use, and not for the two 
following, 
5. A Perfect Manure.—Ammonia, phosphoric acid 
and potash in some from or other and in due pro- 
portions, are what we have to combine to from a 
perfect manure, and the soil analysis is mainly 
valuable in indicating any partial weakness, which 
can be strengthened accordingly. Mr. Hughes is, I 
believe, mistaken [as Mr. Cochran justly points out 
in his letter of 20th June] in considering any of the 
soils in Ceylon, the analysis of which you have pub- 
lished, sufficiently rich in potash to dispense with 
its liberal use in manure, and if the Indian goils I 
quoted, with double the potash of your Dimbula 
and Haputale soils, require 10 per cent of potash 
in a proper manure, according to Dr. Voelecker and 
Mr. Dyer, it appears to me folly to give less or 
more to the Jatter. Doctors may differ, it is true, 
but I think that in this case the more experienced 
practitioners are the safest to follow. As men of 
business, itis our province to ascertain how we can 
best work out their prescriptions practically, and I 
am confident that not only is there no necessity to 
pay high prices for quack remedies, but that coffee 
can be much better manured for R30 per acre that 
it is now in many cases for double and trouble the 
money. Good farming does not consist in squander- 
ing money, but in getting the utmost benefit at 
the least cost. 
6. Leaf Disease.—After all that has been written 
on this subject, I see no reason to believe otherwise 
than that leaf disease is nothing but nature’s own 
punishment for our neglect of her laws and our folly 
in looking for miraculous growth of coffee when year 
after year we have been eating up our soil capital 
just as the southeners have eaten up Virginia and 
others of their most fertile states. Sulphuring is an 
old and very doubtful remedy for a similar disease 
in hogs, and no doubt about as useful as it is in 
certain forms of skin disease; it may palliate, but 
if we want to effect a cure we must stick to constitu- 
tional treatment, and nothing else will serve our pur- 
