onsidered a ruinous visitation. I hope the lesson will
not be lost on him.

In Jamaica it is found necessary to prune the coffee trees yearly,
which is done with as much care as gooseberry or currant bushes in
England; but, notwithstanding this, I remember a friend of mine in
Jamaica telling me of the extraordinary difference on his coffee
plantation under the management of a person who understood and
attended more particularly to the pruning of his trees.

Lunan, in his 'Hortus Jamaicensis,' published in 1814, gives a very
elaborate article on the cacao, although its cultivation was almost
extinct in his day in that island. He, however, appears to have
derived his information chiefly from Blume, who wrote a short
account of Jamaica, in 1672, at which time cacao was the chief
export of the island. Lunan attributes its downfall to heavy
ministerial exaction, which was then, he says, upwards of 480 per
cent. on its marketable value. Speaking of the average weight of
cacao per tree, he has the following:--'The produce of one tree is
generally estimated at about 20 lbs. of nuts. The produce per acre
in Jamaica has been rated at 1,000 lbs. weight per annum, allowing
for bad years. In poor soils, and under bad management, the produce
of the tree rarely exceeds 8 lbs. weight.' He also says--'When the
cacao plants are six months old, the planter from this period must
not be too fond of cleaning the plantation from grass and herbage,
because they keep the ground cool; but all creeping, climbing
plants, and such weeds as grow high enough to overtop the cacao,
should be destroyed.' He gives the distance from tree to tree at 18
feet. I have long since been of opinion that it is of less
consequence to clean the ground beneath the trees than to attend to
the top-pruning of the shade trees, as well as to the cacao
(although the former is very desirable, it is nevertheless a
subordinate consideration). Under the present mode of cultivation
the ground-cleaning is the only one at all attended to, and that
badly.

A very important economy might also be made in the curing of the
cacao, by which much time would be saved, and consequently expense,
by adopting the same method as is used in Jamaica for drying coffee,
namely, floorings of cement, or, as they are called, barbecues. At
convenient d