out thirty feet apart,
should shade twenty acres.

I now proceed to consider the methods that are adopted for planting under
shade in Mysore. The first is to clear down and burn the entire forest,
and then plant shade trees along with the coffee. The second is to clear
and burn the underwood, and a certain portion of the forest trees, leaving
the remainder for shade, and the third is (a system which I have myself
adopted in the case of land lying in ravines) to clear off and burn the
entire underwood and trees of the lower part of the ravines, leaving the
upper portions of them, and the remainder of the land to be cleared and
planted, under the original forest trees, as in the second method
mentioned.

There can be no doubt that the first-named method is the easiest. I am
aware that it has been adopted by some very experienced planters, and it
has been partially adopted by myself in the case of all my land in the
lower part of ravines. I am well able to judge of the advantages and
disadvantages of both systems, as I have them under observation and
treatment side by side. On the whole, I think there can be no doubt that
the balance of advantage lies much in favour of land that has not had the
forest cleared wholly and burnt off. It is true that by a wholesale
clearance you at once kill the vast mass of live forest tree roots in the
land, but, on the other hand, you at the same time destroy a store of
slowly-decaying vegetable matter, which is of vast importance, not only in
feeding the coffee, but in maintaining the physical condition of the soil,
and so making it more, easily, and therefore cheaply, workable, and a
better agent for preserving the health of the tree. And as a proof of the
actual loss incurred, I may observe that Colonel C. I. Taylor, in his book
on "The Borer in Coorg, Munzerabad and Nuggar," mentions that an iron peg
driven into the ground so that not a part of it protruded, was found,
after the cleared jungle had been burned, to be no less than six inches
out of the ground. There seems to be a general opinion too that land that
has not been burnt will last far longer, and one experienced planter, Mr.
Brooke Mockett, attributes the circumstances of all the most ancient
estates in Mysore being still in existence to the fact that the land has
never been burnt. Mr. Mockett also informs me that in good land, where
there has been no burn, he has never had Borer severely, though for a time
there was no shad