130 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Avc., 1899. 
connection with the plantation, from the felling of the virgin scrub to the 
present day, besides providing shade for the young trees. This, I think, should 
be a sufficient rebuttal of the idea that only rich men should tackle coffee. Tt 
ig a. poor man’s crop, and a crop that will make him wealthy and rich. Coffee is 
very simple in culture. You can take the seed and plant in April or May; 
in six: weeks’ time it comes out of the ground, when it behoves you to shade 
your coffee. About January or February the trees are strong enough to be 
transplanted, they being then about from 8 to 10 inches high. The proper 
time to transplant in North Queensland would be from the end of January to 
the end of May. Jam transplanting some myself at the present time, but stil] 
the period I have mentioned is, I think, the best, and that is during the whole 
of the rainy season. Between from 7 to 9 feet is the best distance apart to 
plant the trees. If the ground is hilly or not level, or not too rich, I should 
not put them nearer than 7 feet 6 inches. Butif the land is flat and rich I 
would advise a distance apart of from 9 to 10 feet. Ona flat near the Barron 
River, four years ago, I planted coffee-trees 10 feet apart, and they are now 
touching one another, and if I had not stopped them growing they would have 
been 8 feet high. They are, as a matter of fact, 6 feet in height, that being the 
highest you can pick from. Three years after you have planted them you will 
have your first crop. The maiden crop will not yield more than 4 ewt. to the 
acre, supposing the trees. are planted 8 feet apart. The next crop would be a 
fair one. Then you get between 6 and 7 ewt. to the acre. Jn the fourth year 
the crop reaches 10 cwt. I have 2 acres on a flat near the tidal waters of a 
river, from which I got over 12 ewt. per acre last year. There is very little 
. labour connected with coffee. You need not till the soil so carefully as for, 
say, maize or rice. As long as you keep the weeds down the coffee-plant will 
never suffer. Neither the harrow nor plough is needed. After a year or two 
you can use the scythe, provided you hoe the ground 3 or 4 feet round the plants 
in a circle. When hoeing the weeds near the plant be careful not to cut the 
ground too deeply, say more than 1 inch or 14 inches, because the roots 
spread very close to the surface. With the exception of the tap root, they 
seldom go deeper than 6 inches, the bulk being within an inch or two of the 
top of the ground. Another good plan is to mulch the plants, and that is a 
reason why | grow rice among the coffee. I use the straw of the paddy after 
the grain has been taken off to mulch the trees, mulching all round where the 
land has been hoed. Ido not remove the mulch at all, and during the rainy 
season it becomes rotten. To touch the ground then would be dangerous, so I 
simply stick a fresh mulch on to it. rom this it will be seen that there is very 
little labour in connection with coffee, and I am happy to say there will never 
be any dispute as to what kind of labour we are to employ. As to the treat- 
ment of the plant JI shall not speak, as we have now in the service of the 
Government a Coffee Expert, but there is very little trouble and expense in 
connection with it. The blossoming starts in August or September, and the 
blossoms fall off in November, or just after the beginning of the rainy seaaon. 
The fruit ripens from the 1st of April to the Ist of August. It may be said 
that it must be very inconvenient to have the time of ripening extend over so 
long a period of time, but | consider it a blessing. The older the plant gets, the 
later will its crop ripen, and this is another wise provision of Nature. I find 
the first year’s crop ripens in March and April, or just in the thick of the rainy 
season, when there is a difficulty*in drying the berry. ‘The same plants 
after a few more years will not ripen their fruit until June and July, the wet 
season being thus avoided. It may be here stated that in Brazil they are 
greatly hampered owing to the rainy season. There, it occurs just while the 
coffee is ripening, and to overcome the difficulty the coffee is dried by the aid of 
furnaces. In this particular case, at any rate, Queensland is the home of 
coffee. Weather cannot kill coffee, and 1 have had trees burned by bush fires 
which have recovered without any apparent ill-effects. Some time ago I put in 
40,000 plants, and 1 do not believe that 200 of them died. As for picking, it 
is very easy work, and any child over seven or eight years of age can do it. 
