74 



COFFEE. 



character of the ground rendering this possible. Holes, 20 inches by 

 20 inches, and 18 inches deep, are dug in rows 8 feet apart, the holes 

 in the rows being only half that distance from each other. 



" These distances are now considered to be too small, and 10 by 9 

 and 9 by 9 will in future be adopted. The young plants, if grown in a 

 nursery, are then very carefully removed, along with the soil they have 

 grown in, which is taken up in cubes some 6 inches each way, and 

 planted out by women at the rate of sixty or seventy a day, care being 

 taken to cut the tap-root at the point where it emerges from the lump 

 of soil. These plants, when removed, are generally about six months 

 old, at which period they are about 12 inches high, and their growth 

 afterwards is so extremely rapid that many that I saw, though only 

 nine months in the ground, were from 2 to 3 feet in height, and 

 covered vdth blossom ; others only twenty months old were 6 and 

 8 feet high, and capable of bearing J lb. coffee (prepared) per tree. 

 The system of nursery planting is here considered to be a very 

 expensive one, as the beans have to be planted at regular intervals in 

 the nurseries, and small pieces of bamboo put in to mark where each 

 plant is expected to appear. Besides this, the plants have to be regu- 

 larly watered and kept under shade, and the number that can be put 

 into the ground by each woman, when the clearing is being planted, 

 is only sixty or seventy a day. The other system is to gather the 

 casual plants from gardens on the hills, the plants being removed by 

 loosening the soil with a knife, and then pulling them up by the roots 

 and carrying them away in bundles. They have then their tap-root 

 cut to a length of about 6 or 8 inches, and are planted frequently in 

 the hills by merely making a hole with a stick and pushing in the 

 roots, but sometimes in holes 6 inches square and deep, or else in 

 ordinary 20-inch holes. 



" The gi-owth of these plants is considered to be much slower than is 

 the case with nursery plants, but they produce much more hardy and 

 lasting trees. At the same time that the coffee plants are put into 

 the ground, a row of dadap or silk cotton trees is planted between 

 every second row of coffee trees, the intermediate space being occupied 

 by a small drain, not so much to prevent wash as to relieve the soil 

 from too much water. All plantations have this rapid-growing soft- 

 wood tree, and the appearance they present is totally different from 

 that to which one gets accustomed in Ceylon. 



"In future the Albizzia moluccana, now referred to the Acacias 

 (A. JuUhrissin, Willd.), will probably be largely planted, as it is a 

 very fast growing tree, and has other advantages over the dadap. 



" Indigo is very frequently planted among the yomig coffee plants, 

 chiefly in order to keep down the alang-alang, but also to be used as a 

 manure for weakly trees, if there are any on the estate. As the tree 

 progresses no attempt is made to check its luxuriance, and it grows 

 up with several small stems from the ground into a native coffee tree, 

 8 or 10 feet high. It is only pruned when branches show signs of decay, 

 or when the borer, which is very destructive, compels the planter to 

 cut down the stems attacked. The weeds are dug up with mammoties, 

 to a depth of 6 inches, and piled in rows between the shade trees parallel 

 to the lines of coffee. These weeds, among which is the alang-alang, 



