the bottom of the stem, and the upper part of
it should have some kind of leaf tightly bound around it to prevent
the sap from escaping. When the coffee and dadap plants have thus been
put out, every fifth day the young plantation should be carefully
inspected, and a picket placed wherever there is a failure, as a mark
to the planter that a new plant is there required. This operation of
replacing failures is carried on all through the wet season, and the
dadaps which have not succeeded are at the same time changed.

_Keeping up the estate_.--In the first six months after planting, the
estate should be cleaned each fortnight with the hoe; the ground being
well moved and the weeds taken out. Those weeds which are too close to
the plants to be removed in this manner, must be pulled out with the
hand. When the plantation is thus wholly or partially cleaned, the
earth must be taken off the weeds, and they must be collected and
thrown on the pathways.

The weeding in this manner gives at first a great deal of trouble, but
it is most advantageous in the long run, as the weeds are thus easily
kept down.

Great care must be taken to do away with an old custom of burying the
weeds in large holes on the estates. It conduces to bad and slovenly
habits, such as cutting off the tops of the weeds by wholesale, and
thus giving the plantation an appearance of cleanliness, whilst it, in
fact, is as dirty as ever. This is soon discovered by the weeds
showing themselves again above ground in a very few days, and even if
they rot under ground, they breed insects which are very hurtful to
the bushes, and the seeds vegetate.

After the first six months, this weeding will be sufficient if it
takes places once a month, but this must be persevered in till the
third year, when there may be a much greater interval between the
weeding. When the trees are coming to full growth, the hoe should be
less frequently used in cleaning; the hand must be used to the full
extent to which the branches reach, as the roots of the tree spread to
a like distance, and if they are injured the growth of the tree is
prejudiced.

The well-being of an estate chiefly depends on frequent cleaning of
the plantation in the beginning. The idea of some persons that
cleaning in the dry season is of little consequence, must be given up,
as it is principally at that very time that it is extremely profitable
to remove and clear the ground round the trees in their growth. In