pose are tall, wide-branching trees or shrubs, without much
underwood. The other culture requisite is only to keep the ground
tolerably clean from weeds, for which one cooly on from five to ten
biggahs is sufficient. He should also prune off decayed or dead
branches. This treatment must be continued until the fourth year, when
the trees will first begin bearing, and, after the gathering of each
crop, the trees will require to be thinned out from the superabundant
branches, their extremities stopped, and the tops reduced to prevent
their growing above seven or eight feet in height; the stems, also,
should be kept free from shoots or suckers for the height of at least
one foot, as well as clear from weeds.

Irrigation must be frequent during the first year that the plants are
removed to the plantation, and may be afterwards advantageously
continued at intervals during the dry and hot weather, as a very hot
season is found unfavorable to the plant, drying up and destroying the
top branches and the extremities of the side shoots; whilst, on the
other hand, a very long rain destroys the fruit by swelling it out and
rotting it before it can be ripened: hence it is necessary to attend
to a good drainage of the plantation, that no water be anywhere
allowed to lodge, as certain loss will ensue, not only of the crop of
the current year, but most frequently of the trees also, as their
roots require to be rather dry than otherwise.

The crop will be ready to gather from October to January, when the
ripe berries should be carefully picked from the trees by hand every
morning, and dried in the shade, the sun being apt to make them too
brittle; they must be carefully turned to prevent fermentation, and
when sufficiently dry the husks must be removed, and the clean coffee
separated from the broken berries. After being picked out and put
aside, and then again dried, it is fit to pack. The first year's crop
will be less than the succeeding ones, in which the produce will range
from 1/2 a lb. to 1 lb. in each year.--(Simmonds's "Colonial Magazine,"
vol. xv.)

_Ceylon_.--Coffee is stated to have been introduced into this island
from Java, somewhere about the year 1730. It was extensively diffused
over the country by the agency of birds and jackalls. In 1821 its
cultivation may be said to have partially commenced, and in 1836, it
had become widely extended through the Kandyan provinces.

In 1839 not a tree had been felled on the wide ra