practices. For
instance, the growers of Areca nut palms, and pepper vines, make a mixture
of Kemmannu, or red, or rather pink hued soil, which looks like
recently-decomposed rock, black earth, and sheep dung, and apply the
compost to their palms and pepper-vines, and it would be interesting to
try such composts in the case of coffee. It would also be interesting to
experiment with ordinary good soil taken from the grass lands. I am
informed by a native farmer that the terraces on which ragi is grown, are
occasionally dressed with such soil, and that the manurial effect of it
lasts for two years, but no doubt the effect is much increased by the
physical effect caused by the addition of the soil. The more I have
studied these subjects the more am I convinced that the most, economical
way of keeping up coffee land from a physical and chemical point of view
is one of the many secrets yet to be discovered, and I would strongly urge
planters to experiment. There is a common saying amongst farmers and
planters that they cannot afford to make experiments. This is merely the
refuge of the indolent and the ignorant. Experiments may, of course, be
made on such a scale as to be hazardous or even ruinous, but they can be
made in such a way as to be neither the one nor the other.

FOOTNOTES:

[54] I am now so satisfied with the capacity of these soils to keep
themselves cool, that I am applying them as a top dressing to land
deficient in shade and dry ridges. Since writing the above, I have
ascertained from my manager the interesting fact that about seven weeks
after putting down the red earth, newly grown white roots were found to be
running all through this earth, though no rain had fallen from the time of
the application of the soil up to the time the growth of the rootlets was
observed. The adjacent land, to which virgin forest top soil had been
applied, had no such growth of new rootlets, nor had any of the adjacent
land, to which no top dressings had been applied. The red earth had
evidently the power of taking in sufficient moisture from the atmosphere
to stimulate a growth of young roots. The red earth was applied on
February 20th, and no rain fell till April 7th. This growth of new
rootlets, I may add, was also observed in another part of the plantation
to which, a top dressing of the red earth had been applied.

[55] The full analyses of these leaves and twigs are given in the Appendix
to Dr. Voelcker's work, "The Improve