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clean weeded, or a suitable leguminous cover crop 
established. In cases where planting is carried out 
on undulating land, steps should be taken to prevent 
soil wash, which is best done by (a) planting low- 
growing cover crops, (b) silt-pitting, or (c) ter- 
racing, all of which tend to arrest the erosion of 
the surface soil by diminishing the force of rain 
water which carries away the finer particles of the 
surface soil. 
Although catch crops are not generally recom- 
mended, those of a temporary nature are sometimes 
cultivated in the early stages of development in 
order to provide a certain amount of revenue. On 
areas where the soil is suitable for the cultivation 
of coffee, Kobusta or its hybrid varieties may be 
grown with a certain degree of success. 
When the palms come into bearing, at the end of 
the 3rd. or 4th. year after planting out in the field, 
it will be necessary to commence a regular system 
of priming the lehves at the base of the palm. The 
leaves immediately below the growing bunches of 
fruit should not be removed until the fruit is almost 
ripe and ready for harvesting. The pruning opera- 
tion should be carefully carried out, since the total 
fruit production of heavily pruned trees decreases 
very rapidly when compared with those primed 
normally. Pruning is now practically restricted to 
cutting off those leaves which have a ripe bunch in 
their axils. 
Pollination . — Observations on young or isolated 
palms have shown that natural pollination does not 
always take place, which has led to experiments 
4 * 
