ts). These pits are not filled up to the
brim, but the manure is placed in the bottom of them, and is then covered
with soil, so that the pit is about one-half filled up. The soil taken out
is heaped in a curve above the pit so as to prevent heavy rain washing
down into the pit. When more manure is required to be added--say
bone-meal--it is scattered on the soil in the pit, or the top soil in it
is scraped off and the manure scattered and then covered up.

I now propose to consider our manurial resources in detail, and shall
begin with the first stay of all agriculture, farmyard manure, as to the
value of which for coffee I have never met with any difference of opinion.
But there are many objections to relying on farmyard manure, or, at least,
to applying it on a large scale, as, if the planter keeps many cattle of
his own, he runs great risk of his herd being invaded by disease, and the
difficulty and expense of feeding a large number of cattle is very
considerable. In some cases it is possible to hire cattle from the
natives, and this is done occasionally, and at the rate of 15 rupees a
month for 100 head, but here again risk from disease is often incurred,
and if it broke out, the natives would withdraw their cattle. The question
then naturally arises whether, considering the great cost and trouble
attendant on manufacturing cattle manure on a large scale, we cannot find
some substitute that would diminish the quantity now required. And here it
is important to ask what farmyard manure consists of. It consists, then,
of the excreta of animals, and the vegetable matter used as litter. From a
chemical point of view it mainly provides, in addition to the organic
matter, in a slowly-acting form, lime, nitrogen, potash, and phosphoric
acid, and from a physical point of view it furnishes a padding to maintain
the texture of the soil, or, in other words, to keep it in a loose and
friable condition. And with reference to this last very important point, I
may remind the reader that Sir John Lawes has well pointed out that "All
our experiments tend to show that it is the physical condition of the
soil, its capacity for absorbing and retaining moisture, its permeability
to roots, and its capacity for absorbing and radiating heat, that is of
more importance than its strictly-speaking chemical composition." Now as
regards the chemical aspect of the manurial question, if we assume, as we
have every reason to do from the small quantit