PRUNINa. 
thing was this topping with saws. Thirty or forty 
trees per man per day was good work — whereas, had 
it been done when the tree was young, a top with 
the knife wonld have been sufficient and 300 or 400 
trees easy work, nor was this all the expense, for 
of course, after this saw- topping the whole estate, the 
rows w^as obstructed with the tops so cut off. Coolies 
could not weed, pick, or do anything ; every row was 
filled up with these tops. So men had to be put oh 
with catties or knives to chop up all these tops -or 
carry them away — burn or bury them ; if this was not 
done speedily, tlte weeds grew up through ther , -orm- 
ing a tangled net-woi k of weeds in the row^s. so that 
it was almost impossible to pull them up. As many 
had to top down their trees with the saw trom the 
mistake of allowing them to grow too high, so also 
ijome, after topping their trees at two and a half or 
three feet, regretted it, and wished them to grow 
higher again. They thought they could very easily 
do this by allowing a sucker to grow up fiom the 
apparent primary ; this I believe was eventually found 
to be a mistake, for, besides utterly disfi{.,uring the 
trees, the sucker has never, or seldom, been found 
to answer the purpose of tiie original stem. What 
bunches of suckers the trees used to throw out, after 
being topped with the saw ! And if, as was very 
often the case, labour could not be prepared to take 
them off, what a ludicrous appearance the estate pre- 
aente*^, if one could possibly call such a melancholy 
sight ludicrous. The tree was quite lost in, or hidden 
by, the bunch of sucke rs at the top. Vt^y probably 
the weeds were as high as the bunch of suckers con- 
cealing the coffee tree : so that, at a little distance off, 
the clusters of suckers seemed growing out of a mass 
of white weed and Spanish needle. Many may ex- 
claim, This is rather over-drawn, this is a touch of 
the long bow.” To such 1 would say, ‘‘ May you never 
see the sight !” 
The suckers would get sometimes so strong as to 
require a knife or saw to take them off. The idea 
of pulling them off with the hand, why, it would 
destroy the tree ! Take a very fine old strong sucker, 
give it a sharp pull down, and very likely you will 
split down the tree: cut it with the knife without 
taking out the eye, and half-a dozen at least would 
take its place. When suckers got very bad, they would 
be temporarily kept under, something on the same 
principle as beating down weeds to save the trees. 
Coolies would be put on who would make a grab or 
tear at them, pulling them down : some would come 
off, others would hang on the tree, the small ones re- 
maining untouched, speedily to come on with re- 
