June $0, 1887. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
525 
as they require more room at the roots, and the plants be grown as 
standards, pyramids, bushes, or trained to a flat upright trellis rounded on 
tlm top. For large plants the latter is the most convenient mode of 
training, inasmuch as the plants can be placed in better positions : 
against the glass at the ends of the houses, where they will not only look 
well but flower well. We have a few plants of this description in 14-inch 
pots occupying similar positions, which, together with several miniature 
bushes and a few scores of plants in 3-inch pots of this agreeably 
scented plant on the side stages and shelves in intermediate houses, 
yielded us a good return during the autumn, winter, and spring months 
for the care bestowed upon them. We give our plants liquid manure at 
the roots a few times in the week, which has a good effect upon them. 
Until lately there was a plant of Heliotrope here growing in a border under 
the flagged pathway and staging, and trained against the back wall of 
an.old lean-to house, which was said to be about “three score and ten ” 
years old at the time of its death through old age.—H. W. Ward. 
INDIAN EXPERIENCES. 
(Continued from page 4 SO.) 
A few remarks on the artificial supply of water to the roots of the 
Coffee tree during seasons of protracted drought for the purpose of 
forcing out the blossom and setting the fruit may not be uninteresting. 
I have already mentioned that estates on Bamboo land in the Wynaad 
district lying far to the east or on the confines of the Mysore territory 
frequently suffered to a very great extent from want of moisture and 
the long-delayed spring showers. To such an extent indeed did this 
climatic privation extend that a total loss of crop over many hundred 
aeres-was frequently the result. A magnificent show of blossom bud 
in the early part of the season, giving promise of an abundant crop, 
would not unfrequently end in no crop at all, and so the planter had to 
toil on for another year. Without the aid of precedents to guide him 
in his calling, the planter had, in a great measure, to grope his way in 
the dark with regard to all matters of cultivation, or if he had any guide 
at all it was merely that of his neighbours’ opinion, derived not from any 
act- or acts of intelligent experiment or course of study, but simply 
opinions handed down from one generation of planters to another, and 
how derived no one knew nor cared. Among other beliefs obtaining 
was the one that irrigation was of no use, in fact was positively inju¬ 
rious when applied to Coffee, and was much better left alone. If a 
young planter happened to state that he intended some day to try the 
experiment he was put down immediately as a person that should be 
kept under restraint ; the consequence was that for many years planters 
in these arid districts who had invested their money were content to 
abide by the opinion of the majority, and go on toiling year by year, 
r.eaping crops in abundance of fever and disappointment, but very little 
Coffee. 
The first time I saw the blossom of the Coffee tree was in the 
height of the dry season on an adjoining estate to the one I had charge 
of. The propretor had cut a drain or water lead from a ravine in the 
jungle through his Coffee fields to his pulping and curing works, wind¬ 
ing along the hillsides all the way. The water had percolated through 
the loose soil on the under side of the drain to a distance of one line of 
.Coffee trees, reaching their roots and bringing out a splendid blossom 
throughout the whole length of this artificial channel. I shall ever 
remember that sight, the surpassing beauty of the rolls of white blossom 
highly scented and intermixed with the bright and polished green 
leaves when all else around was drooping and seemingly perishing in 
the hot midday sun. Few shrubs can, I imagine, rival the Coffee in 
beauty when seen in full flower. By the way, I think it a great pity 
that it is not more frequently grown as an ornamental plant in 
England. It is very easily raised from seed, and as easily grown after¬ 
wards ; it is always beautiful in flower or otherwise, and would amply 
repay any little care bestowed on it. The proprietor of the estate in 
question on seeing so many of his trees in full blossom greatly deplored 
the circumstance, and almost seemed to think that the trees would be 
ruined in consequence ; but the grounds for his opinion he failed to give, 
except that the bringing out of the blossom in this unnatural way was 
sure to weaken the tree and engender disease. As time went on, and 
crops and planters’ patience began seriously to lessen, opinions began 
gradually to change with regard to irrigation, until at last someone 
fairly broke the ice, and towards the end of an exceptionally parching 
season set to work, cut drains, and utilised every available drop of water 
on his plantation for the purpose of forcing out the blossom on at least 
part of his estate and setting his crop. This was done with the most 
happy results. A heavy crop on the irrigated portion of the property 
was secured, whilst the other portions shared the too usual fate of total 
failure or only partial crop. The neighbouring planters were not slow to 
take the hint, and the following year every stream in the district avail¬ 
able was made use of, and water was brought in channels from the 
neighbouring jungles, in some instances at great expense. Existing 
■ estates, however, were so situated as to preclude the possibility of their 
whole area being irrigated, so planters had to be content to water as 
large an area as possible, and the remainder had to take its chance of 
the spring showers, come when they might. In course of time as land 
was required for the cultivation of Coffee, great pains was taken to 
select blocks only which could be brought under the influence of 
irrigation either by streams existing on the particular block selected, or 
if it were so situated so as to be capable of being watered by some distant 
stream or river. There can be no doubt that in India, to allow the 
Coffee plant to pass through a succession of long seasons of drought is 
trying to the plant in the extreme, and superinduces decay, so that any 
assistance in the shape of water at the right period not only secured the 
crop of berries, but kept the trees in health and vigour also. One draw¬ 
back was that as the blossoms, owing to the general limited supply of 
water on most estates, could only be brought out in small patches at a 
time with short intervals between, so that the crop did not ripen equally, 
and consequently gathering was a matter of greater expense than when 
the blossom was brought out by natural showers. When these came in 
due season every pip of bloom on an estate expanded in one day and 
the crop ripened in the same manner, rendering the harvesting of crop 
a very simple matter in this respect. South Indian planters had a great 
advantage over their brethren of Ceylon. In that island, I believe, 
rain falls more or less durinj every month of the year, bringing out 
small patches of blossom, and of course the fruit will ripen accordingly, 
which causes great trouble and inconvenience, especially during the 
heavy south-west monsoon rains. 
In the Wynaad irrigation was undertaken something after the follow¬ 
ing fashion :—Main channels were cut from the streams at regular in¬ 
tervals over the estate, and from these, when the time arrived, small 
runulets were led to the roots of the trees. In the first instance—viz., 
the cutting of the main channels, a good deal of expense was frequently 
incurred, but the actual work of watering the shrubs was not an ex¬ 
pensive one. The Mysore cooly was usually very expert at this work, 
and it was quite wonderful to see what a number of trees he could get 
over in a day, and quite as marvellous to see with what rapidity the 
trees sprang into leaf and flower in that tropical climate through the 
influence of a very little quantity of the life-restoring element. Th# 
mamoty or large hoe was alone used, but it is the tool used by the 
Mysore peasant for ages, and one he can use with great dexterity as a 
spade in digging the soil, as an axe in cutting roots, and as a shovel in 
filling baskets with earth, and in heaping it or throwing it to a distance. 
With the corner of this hoe he would form small channels from the 
main drain to the roots of the trees very quickly and cleverly, the water 
following him as the channel was formed, and he had generally a vei'y 
good idea when a tree had sufficient to do the work required of it. It 
was light work too, and on that account one the Mysore labourer dearly 
loved. Given light work where some dexterity was necessary in its per¬ 
formance, and there was little fear of his shirking his task ; but if the 
work was heavy and uninteresting sleepnsually overtook him long e’er 
his task was completed. 
By irrigation, even on the limited scale described, much crop and 
consequently money was saved to the planter, and one cannot help 
thinking that had the work been systematically undertaken at a much 
earlier stage of the Coffee planting industry in South India such in¬ 
dustry would have been established on a firmer and more secure basis, 
and its existence been of much greater permanency. 
With plantations in perfect order and crowded with blossom bud 
waiting the advent of a single shower to expand it into rare beauty and 
profit, planters had to wait patiently through the long hot dreary 
months, anxiously hoping that the one shower would fall before the 
blossom bud was entirely ruined ; but this hope was too often deferred, 
and the heart grew sick indeed as day by day, week by week, and month 
by month the sun shone on in a brazen sky, giving no sign of the slight¬ 
est moisture till too late, or the blossom bud had become like so many 
black specks, dropping and sanding the parched earth with every puff 
of wind. That this had a most depressing effect upon the planter, after 
undergoing numerous privations, and expending all his energies in 
bringing his estate into a high state of cultivation, can be easily imagined, 
and in many cases led to very disastrous results. 
It was always an open secret that the Government of India, although 
not actually prohibiting Europeans settling in the country for agri¬ 
cultural purposes, at the same time almost invariably showed a passive 
unconcern as to their interests and success, and certainly did not extend 
to them that assistance and encouragement their energy and courage 
deserved. Anything to help the planter in his calling, or to facilitate 
the carriage of his crops to the place of shipment, or that of material of 
various kinds requisite for the cultivation of his property, had generally 
to be wrung from the Madras Government through the medium of the 
Planters’ Association and other bodies, which was, of course, a most 
unsatisfactory state of things. The result of all this lukewarm action 
on the part of the Government was the waste of tens of thousands 
of pounds of English capital; the destruction of thousands of acres of 
magnificent forest; the permanent ruin of as many acres of splendid 
land, only now capable of supporting Lantana and other thorny and 
pestilential scrub. At the dawn of Coffee planting in the Wynaad the 
country was a magnificent one. An unbroken line of forest clothing 
the Ghaut range on the western side, falling away into an equally un¬ 
broken sea of beautiful Bamboo jungle on the east, covering land that 
had been untouched for ages, and stocked with wild beasts in great 
numbers, from the huge elephant down to the tiny mouse, deer, and hare, 
and teeming with birds of gorgeous and varied plumage. 
Better by far had the Government, at the outset, when it was proved 
by some adventurous Englishman that the Coffee bean could be produced 
in the district of excellent quality, refused permission to Englishmen 
and native alike to destroy the forest for the purpose of Coffee planting 
till such time as all reliable and trustworthy information had been 
gained with reference to the capabilities of the district by the investi¬ 
gations of capable and responsible agents for the guidance of the 
planter in all his future operations. A foundation might thus have 
been laid for instituting and upholding, on a permanent basis, of a 
