nues from, say, between two
and four in the afternoon. This it is important to block out with
occasional trees planted in the avenue, but it is only, of course, where
the land is exposed to the afternoon sun that the avenues should be
blocked with occasional trees. After fully considering the subject, I find
it impossible to say even approximately at what distance the lines of
trees should be planted, on account of the great variety in the gradients,
and the planter must here use his own judgment; and I can only say
generally that the lines of trees require to be much nearer each other on
a southerly than on a northerly aspect; nearly as close on a westerly
aspect as on a southerly; and on an easterly aspect, at a closer distance
than on a northerly one. Some guide toward the nearness of these lines
will afterwards be found in the remarks on the quantity of shade required
for the various aspects.

After having planted the young shade trees, then, there comes the question
of providing shade for them, for without it their growth will be very
slow, and the planter would have to wait a great many years before
obtaining such an amount of shade as would have an effect in lowering the
temperature of the plantation. He requires then some quick-growing tree as
a nurse for the good caste shade trees, and the only tree I know of that
is suitable for this purpose is the quick-growing charcoal tree (_Sponia
Wightii_)--Kanarese, _gorkul mara_--which springs up with the first rain
after the forest has been cleared and burnt. Planters, I am aware, have,
generally speaking, a great objection to this tree, and it is considered
by Mr. Graham Anderson (_vide_ his book previously quoted) as being
"generally regarded as prejudicial and useless." This conclusion has
probably arisen from the fact that it is certainly a bad thing to have a
rapid grower, and therefore a greedy feeder on the land, and hence it has
been found that the charcoal tree is bad when young. But when it has
attained its full height, which in ordinary circumstances is about thirty
feet (I have one specimen on my property about sixty feet high, the only
one of such a size I ever saw), coffee thrives well under it. This I found
to be the case on plantations on the slopes of the Nilgiri hills, where a
very experienced planter told me that the tree was bad when young for
coffee, but not so when old; and I there saw coffee thriving well under
the shade of old charcoal trees. On