December t, 1881.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
5 2 9 
this will reduce the number given by from 75 to 
25 per cent, according to the state of the coffee, &c : — 
I. — Not Manured. 
\ General type of 
tree selected. 
Number of clusters 
(double) on spike. 
Number of flowers 
fertilized. 
Number of berries! 
which fell early. I 
Number of berries' 
swollen. 
Per cent of suc- 
cessful flowers in 
May. 
Probable number of 
ripe berries picked 
(calculated). j 
Probable per cent 
of all failures (sup- 
posing 200 flowers 
per spike). 
Very thin .. 
10 
40 
38 
8 
17 V cent. 
4 
98 It*" cent. 
Very thin .. 
8 
2 
99 
POO! A thin 
9 
10 
97 „ 
9 
89 
47 
5-iffcent. 
21 
88 
Rather thin 
10 
92 
50 
42 
45 
20 
90 
Thin 
9 
82 
71 
11 
13 
8 
90 
Very poor... 
10 
46 
43 
3 
7 
99 
N.B. — The numbers in the 7 th column are least reli- 
able, having been calculated before all crop is ripe ; 
nevertheless, they are not too low for these and many 
other unman ured trees of 15 to 20 years in ordinary 
soil. At the same time, it will h« noted that even four 
cherries per shoot would mean 1,000 per tree, 
if regular on trees with "250 shoots. This over the 
whole acreage would mean 10 cwt. per acre, if the 
regularity were kept up. What must be the ir- 
regularity where 2 cwt. or eo result ! As already pointed 
out, however, these tables are only for illustration ; no 
exact calculations can be b;ised on the numbers without 
many more data. 
II— Manured Coffee. 
&4 
102(39 cent, 
84 49 
4045 
7 .:. r 
IP 
Verylarce&f 
no crop last yearl VI \ 
Luxuriant ... 11 
Bather thin ... 10 
Fine tree ... 9 
Thin ... 8 
Fine tree ... 11 
Thin and poor ... 12 
Luxuriant ... 14 
Fine treo ...| 10 I 
A few further il 
we afforded by fol 
the Kandy district 
•et on two branchc 
29th, 1831 :— 
Brunch. No. No. Approximate 
of double of flowers percentage if 
clusters, fertilized. 200 flowers 
per spike. 
A ... 11 ... 108 ... 54 
trations of the damage done 
I'iug figures. A gentleman in 
united the flowers which had 
and found as follows on March 
11 
i counting the s 
the following w 
all but 38. ai 
h promised to mt 
.Inly attack of 1 
106 ... 53 
ilusters on June 14 follow- 
io numbers .—A had drop- 
all but 52 of i ho berries, 
was, of course, befon 
lisease, ane a large reduction 
»ys occurs then from l.-afloss branches being unable 
mature the nearly ripe cherries. 
Since 201 flowers were lioro uctuiiUy fertilized, tho per- 
••W.lllitKt '"■ on th n i . n n, 1 . ■• ,,,slf.i.l ,,f 410 us 
othri-H. ll.T.i u,-.:iill. it 111.- tlvi-M were re, : nl,ir. til.--.' 
im im noitl.l !• pi.-., in, «i..rm«« . ci"p > ; l.nl th.v are n< it- 
■i- ill.' iinp...,iil,il t | > .1 , ,tiiimlm i; <-r..iis us Is sui.l t.i hav.- 
«""'• (.•rni.-rly. Il.ns.-v.-i-. il umbers f.iiiK illn-trul .• 
III.' d.-rr.-iiic .M-cui-M. us also Unit mot,- .Ih-i 1, . p. • 
1 011 Immured eonVu limn on tr.-.-i which huv.- nut 1,,-cu 
On September 13th, the branches were again examined, 
and the following report made :— One of the branches 
has lost all its leaves, and is blackening at the tip. 
In a week or so more, I expect to see the 'dying 
back' reach the crop, which in its turn will also die 
and drop off. The other branch is not so bad as the 
one mentioned, though it is fast following suit." 
I quote the following from a letter which I 
received from one of the oldest and most experienced 
men in Ceylon, in answer to my enquiries : — 
" I used to consider 10 to 12 berries from one ( ye 
good — say 20 to 24 in the double cluster, but I have 
seen a great many more. 12 berries — or 6 berries on 
each side of the branch — would no*v be v-ry good. 
It is thus we lose our crop now : a pretty regular 
blossom comes out, and every one says : ' Now we 
shall get a crop ;' but instead of having 6 to 12 berries 
in an eye* we have one, two and three 
I used to calculate that one measure of ripe cherries 
from a tree would give fully 5 cwt. per acre, after 
allowing 'for ordinary vacancies.' " 
Experiments have been made to answer several 
questions put forth from time to time by planters 
and other gentlemen on the following points : — 
1. Can the germinal tubes enter the leaf from above? 
No attempts to infect a leaf from above have 
succeeded, and I never find the mycelium originat- 
ing from tubes of the upper surface ; tbat this is 
because the dense epidermis of the upper surface 
protects the leaf, as is proved by the following 
experiments. Spores sown on a patch of the upper 
surface whence the epidermis was carefully removed 
with a sharp razor not only germinated, but com- 
menced to enter the leaf at once. Again, spores 
sown on the viscid surface of the stigma of the flower 
readily germinate, and the tubes commence to enter 
the tissues which are unprotected by epidermis. These 
tubes soon die, however, and never arrive far down 
the style. 
2. How do the spores reach the under surface of the 
leaf? J 
If a coffee tree he watched when blown by a 
steady high wind, a large portion of the leaves are 
seen to be turned half round on the axis of the 
leaf stalk, and in a such a manner that the lower 
side of the leaf is beaten obliquely by the wind; 
if such a leaf be compared with the glass slip in 
my experiments of July Stb and 9th, it will be 
evident that many spores may strike it, some of which 
will stick to the epidermis, which is probably never 
quite dry. If one watches a tree in still, rainy 
weather, when the fine rain falls straight down on 
to the qui.-t leaves, the rain-water is seen to be shed 
from the glossy upper surface of the leaf in small 
streams; still more careful examination demonstrates 
that some of the water flows to the tip of the leaf 
down the inclined mid-rib, while the rest (lows to 
tho edges along the depressed channels formed by 
the sinuous curving of the lateral parts. These small 
streamlets carry spores (which had been blown on 
to the upper surface) to the edges of the leaf; on 
arriving there, many of them stick just nnde- tho 
edge by capillary attraction while the water drips away, 
This may bo proved by supporting perfectly clean 
slips of glass in line rainy weather in the position 
of a cofToo leaf, and shaking a f w sports on its 
upper surface. It also explains why so many of the 
disease spots appear lirst at the tips and edg.-s of 
tho leaves. 
Various combinations of those circumstances of 
• /.f.— in tho single clust. r on one ridt of the twig; 
2 eyes tho " double cluster" referred to before, 
