January 2, 1888.] THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST 
437 
by all means have both. When, after due consider- 
ation, you decide upon what tields of coffee to plant 
with tea, lop your primaries, leaving only 2 sots on. 
Line carefully, take only one crop off your coffee, 
and uproot it. A wavering policy here is fatal to 
both coffee and tea. Make up your mind which 
you are going to have and stick to it. Our ex- 
perience, and certainly mine, for some years, now, 
has shown mc this advice cannot be too often re- 
peated. Tea to pay must have the ground to itself, 
coffee the same. 
Tipping, Topping, and Pkuning. — Before telling 
you what to do, it is best I should tell you what 
not to do. Do not let your young bush grow away 
unnoticed, and think you are acting kindly by it 
in allowing it to " form root." How often do we 
not hear this expression made use of. Watch it 
carefully, and when you find the majority have 
reached 30 in. "tip" back everything that will 
make tea, at above '24 in., using a measuring 
stick with a cross piece at 24 in. aa a guide. 
After this pluck away in the usual manner, always 
above your first level, 24 in. up, until your bush 
get3 a little topheavy, or at four to six months 
from "tipping;" " top " with the knife at 15 in. 
to 18 in. according to jat and elevation, cutting 
straight across your bush with a level surface, 
and touching nothing below this. Your bushes 
will now carry you on with regular rounds of 
pluoking for 12 to 15 months, not longer, 
when they are ready for their first pruning. Prun- 
ing is a most important work, although most simple 
—and here again it is best I should tell you how 
not to do it. Our good friend Ramasamy is a 
capital coffee pruner, and he thinks tea should be 
pruned in the same way, and some of us agree 
with him. Do we not see every day a most elabor- 
ately pruned tea bush, centres all well cleared out, 
laterals stretching their long (too long) lean arms 
all round the bush as if we were trying to grow 
fishing rods, and do we not for a short season feel 
proud of our neat pruning and great stretch of 
bush ? " That is the way to get a cover, my boy ! " 
and so it is, but not leaf. It will be found but 
too soon these long lean primaries give us a 
bunch of shoots that don't hurry themselves to be 
plucked in the least degree. The deluded pruner 
blames the weather : too much ruin, too much 6un, 
those cold nights, that dry wind, anything but 
his system, and this system, too much thin- 
ning out, and too much stretoh, it is 
difficult to break Ramasamy of, who approvos 
of it, and who, when he thinks he is right, is 
obstinate, our difficulty with our pruner is then 
to get him to leave on the wood and not to 
out it off. 
How to Prune. — Give your pruner a measuring 
Htick at 8 in. to 3 .J in. long. Let him plaoe this in the 
cfntre of the bush at the shoulder of the shoot 
starling from last year's cut, and cut straight across 
his bush at this level,— 3 in. higher than last cut, 
which was say at 18 in. — our surfaoe is now level at 
21 in., tip back with the knife all laterals below this 
surfaco, into the same style of wood if possible 
as is at the surface, reduciug proportionately the 
girth of our bush from our surface level to the 
lowest lateral, endeavouring to cover it with the 
name strength of wood as far as is possible ; in any 
case always cut to ono eye below green wood. 
Flavin- cut our surface to a given level,— from the 
centre outwards, moving round the bush as we cut,— 
and tippod or cut hack all the side branches, we next 
proced to "handle out" from off the old primaries 
all their woody gr wth that has not devolopod into 
laterals sufficiently strong to be cnt baok. Do not 
allow the liuili to be overitripped. i( in doubt, allow 
the wnedy shoot to remain, anothor season wil 
prove its talue Iboyond doubt. Do not strip off 
any leaves below Uie prune 1 surface, and do not 
aim at making the bush too thin. Cut below 
a "crow's foot" always, but with careful pluck- 
ing these will not be found at our pruning level. 
This is all. Proceed thus, rising 3 in. to 3J in. 
for at 4 to 5 prunings. -I say advisedly prunings, 
not years, as an annual pruning is not necessary — 
which will have brought up our bush to at 30 in. 
to 33 in. Our pruning after this is a cutting down 
again to at 18 in. to 24 in. according to jat and style 
of growth on the bush. It is impossible to give a 
fixed height as much depends on the bush that 
is operated on. Suffice it to say it should not be 
lower than 18 in. n >x higher than 21 in. Herea 0 'ain 
curtail your bush proportionately all over from the 
surface to the lowest lateral, leaving on here also 
the same style of wood all over, this time all old 
hard wood, and gradually bring up our bush at 
each pruning as before, till 33 in. i3 reached, only 
let the first pruning be at 4 in. above the "cut- 
ting down" level, as the eyes, with shoot3 given 
by such hard wood as we will have pruned into, 
will be further apart than is the case with the 
first flush from younger wood, aud we should aim 
at having two to three eyes to give out shoots. 
The Best Season to Piiune. — So far as my 
knowledge of your climate goes, and I have 
had considerable experience of tea in Dimbula, 
your pruning should be done between the 
months of June to September. Your bent plucking 
months are October, November and sometimes 
December and March to May, sometimes June, 
always dependent upon the weather, a month 
earlier or later according to the severity of the 
S.-W. rains, and the temperature during the N.-E., 
December to February. In taking pruning in hand 
the one object to keep in view is to bring our 
bush into the best flushing condition for the best 
months, and sacrifice yield (as we must, when 
we get it all the year round) during the worst. 
After the first pruning after topping, a twelve- 
monthly pruning is not necessary, and here comes 
the difficulty, how to run our bushes with the 
least loss 1 We must sacrifice a little in order to 
gain much. Let me give you an example, always 
open to exception dependent on condition of wood 
which again is dependent on the weather. Say 
planting in the S.-W., "tipping" takes place the 
following S.-W., topping had bejt be done in 
February following, towards the end. March and 
April will develop our bush well, which is all we 
seek for at this period ; our first pruning would 
take place in May year, say the loth month from 
topping, thu3 getting the full benefit of March to 
middle of May. Our second pruning would take 
place during August year, thus running our bushes 
about another 15 months, October bringing forward 
our bearing wood for us. The third pruning might 
bo done September-October, equal thirteen to 
fourteen months. The fourth pruning, July-August, 
equal ton to eleven months. Our fifth pruning iu 
the same mouths, equal twelve months, if the 
bushes do not require cutting down, which will 
at this 6tage be found necessary sometimes. 
If they do, then bogin this in June, when 
with a good hybrid jit and with careful 
plucking it will be found they will run two full 
years. We thus run our bushes from the 
first pruning for five years and seven mouths be- 
fore cutting down, and again for six years and 
seven mouths to the next cutting down, and 
on thus. Above example is not to bo consi- 
dered a rule. No r- locaii bo laid down except when 
not to prune iu Dimbula, so much depends on jat, 
oil, aspect and plucking. However, with a good 
medium hybrid aud careful plucking, above example 
