hade on a badly-managed property of my own it
would have been permanently ruined. But with plenty of good kinds of shade
trees on the land you might even close the plantation gates, and abandon
the land, and, as long as cattle were kept out, return ten years
afterwards, saw down the coffee, grow suckers from the stumps, plant up
the land with young plants where vacancies had occurred, and in four or
five years the plantation would be as good as ever, and the land even
better, for it would not have been exhausted by crop, and the fallen
leaves from the shade trees would have enriched the soil. And if the old
trees were not in a condition, from old age, to grow suckers that would
develop into good trees, the whole land could be advantageously replanted.
But, as the reader will remember, I have said that the trees must be the
best kinds of shade trees, a subject that requires great study and
observation to master. Before beginning, however, it may be well to point
out those general principles which govern the whole subject, and which at
once show us the best kinds of trees to select, and what is nearly of as
great importance, how to manage them after they have been selected or
planted, and I would lay particular stress on the latter point, which has,
I may observe, been largely if not entirely misunderstood, simply because
the great governing principle has been neglected.

The governing principle, then, as regards shade for coffee is, that you
should have on the land the smallest number of boles, because the more you
multiply boles the more ground you waste; and the greater the number of
large trees there are, the greater, of course, will be the number of large
roots in the land, and the greater demand will there be on the resources
of the soil; the greater, too, will be the waste of manure put down by the
planter for the benefit of his coffee; and last, but by no means least,
the smaller will be the amount of leaf deposit. I have seen much shade so
managed as to give the greatest amount of boles with the smallest amount,
and spread of branches, whereas the object of the planter ought to be to
furnish the smallest number of boles with the greatest proportionate
amount and spread of branches and foliage. And this unfortunate error, the
evil of which will become more and more apparent as time advances, would
never have been committed, had the primary principle I have pointed out
been grasped at the outset.

Let us then keep