36 SHADE IN COFFEE CULTUKE. 



were at all favorable these were often unusually vigorous and healthy. 

 It was also observed that the trees along- the roadside like those shown 

 in Plate X were much larger and more leafy than those farther back 

 in the plantations. 



The Philippines also furnish an example of bad effects from a removal 

 of shade. A serious disease due to a longicorn beetle has ravaged the 

 coffee plantations, and the insects are found to be especially numerous 

 in plantations shaded by Gliricidia macidata, but during the season 

 when the leaves are wanting and the coffee is exposed to the full 

 sunlight. Although the report of Senor Sanchez indicates that the 

 damage is due to the fact that the beetles prefer the sunlight, it seems 

 by no means impossible that the change from dense shade to open 

 sun may affect the trees in such a way as to invite the attacks of the 

 insect. Coffee shaded by Erythrina indica and E. ovalifolia is said 

 to suffer to a much smaller extent, though these trees normally permit 

 more light to enter. 



METHODS OF APPLYING SHADE. 



The use of shade in coffee culture offers all the stages intermediate 

 between leaving of belts of forest or scattering trees as protection 

 against the wind and the provision of a succession of dense coverings 

 of bananas and other vegetation described as overshading. In some 

 localities of dry countries like Mexico shade or irrigation may be 

 necessary to enable the coffee to withstand the long diy season. Where 

 shade is thus indispensable the source of it may not appear to be a 

 matter of serious importance, and in Mexico coffee is often planted 

 under almost any trees already existing in gardens or cultivated 

 grounds. Dr. Edward Palmer reports having seen at Tampico in 1880 

 a considerable area of coffee shaded, not by trees at all, but by arbors 

 latticed with small sticks and brush. According to the same traveler, 

 shade and irrigation are used together in the State of Colima, and 

 even at Tepic, at the highest elevation where coffee is grown in Mexico, 

 shade is still employed. There seems to be no special discrimination 

 in favor of any single species, though the guafyrrhochil (Pithecolobium 

 didce) is used as often as an} T . This is a large leguminous tree com- 

 monly cultivated in Mexico for its edible fruit. 



In southern Mexico (Oaxaca and Chiapas), as well as in Central 

 America, there are man} T coffee-growing districts where shade is not 

 used, being considered quite unnecessary from the standpoint of 

 normal requirements of heat or moisture. This region also includes 

 some of the finest coffee soils in the world, loose volcanic debris, the 

 disintegration of which is believed to set free phosphoric acid and 

 other plant foods in quantities sufficient to maintain for decades the 

 vigorous growth and productiveness of the coffee. There are numer- 

 ous accounts of plantations averaging 3 pounds and upward per tree 



