ch the trees grow enables the planter to grow them at
such a distance from the beds as to be practically unable to reach them
with their roots.

As regards the best time for putting down the seed, opinions and practice
have varied considerably, but it is now generally admitted that seed put
down at Christmas, which will give plants with ten leaves on them in June
(the planting season) are the most suitable for new clearings. Seed put
down in September or October will give fine sturdy plants with one or two
pairs of branches, and these are considered to be the most suitable for
vacancies in old land. In order to do full justice to the last-named
plants, they should, three months before planting out, be transplanted
into small circular baskets, about the size of a small flower pot, and
with wide spaces between the wickerwork. These baskets should be filled
with a mixture of dried cattle dung and good soil; they should then be
placed on the surface of the bed and touching each other, and, when the
plants are put out, they should be put down with the basket, which will
then be quite filled with a mass of fibrous roots all ready to extend
themselves into the surrounding land. When this course is pursued the
plant receives no check, and its rapid growth is insured. If this method
is not adopted in the case of replanting old land, or filling up vacancies
amongst old coffee, many plants are sure to perish, and the survivors will
make but poor progress. But in the case of virgin soil this course, though
obviously a safe one, and freeing the planters from all anxiety as to a
failure in the rains, may be dispensed with. Where baskets are expensive,
or difficult to procure, pieces of worn out gunny bags answer the purpose
fairly well, and I have seen them used on the Nilgiri hills.

The pits for vacancy plants should be dug shortly after the monsoon, and
filled in soon after being dug, when the soil is quite dry, with a mixture
of jungle top soil, bone-meal, and ordinary soil, or old, well dried
cattle manure mixed with some fine bone-meal and ordinary soil. I have
never used the nitrate of potash for manuring vacancy plants, but it has
been used in Coorg with good effect, as may be readily understood by
anyone who has had any experience of that valuable manure.

In conclusion, I may say that if the planter is not prepared to take all
the steps necessary to insure the growth of vacancy plants in old land, he
had far better not put