n better maintained, and, in the opinion of one of our
most experienced planters, the coffee will be much less liable to attacks
of the Borer. The age of the plantation should next be inquired into, but
mere age, it must be remembered, though it may be of great importance, is
by no means always so. At first sight it would appear that a young
plantation, with its virgin soil, must be more valuable than an old one,
but I have in my mind's eye a plantation in Manjarabad, belonging to
friends of mine, and the planting of which was begun as far back as 1857.
Last year one of my friends took me over it, and a finer plantation it
would be impossible to find, and at the end of our walk he said to me,
"The place is better than you ever saw it." And so it most undoubtedly
was: and, as another planting friend once wrote to me, "All the old
established estates in Mysore are to the front still, and many of them
better than they ever were," and better because manuring and cultivation
have improved pieces of inferior land and ridges to such a degree as to
make them superior to what they were before the land was first cleared and
planted. One of the estates in question was opened about ninety-five years
ago, and yet contains as fine coffee as one could wish to see. All depends
upon the care with which the estate has been kept up, and into that the
valuator must specially inquire, and he must also specially inquire into
the age of the coffee trees, which, always supposing that the soil has
been well kept up, is of far more importance than the mere age of the
estate. My friends' estate, for instance, above alluded to, was an old
estate, but it was, comparatively speaking, a fresh plantation, for all
the old trees had been removed, and the whole property replanted with the
Coorg plant. So that, though the estate was old, the coffee was by no
means so.

From what I have hitherto said, it is evident that in many cases the
valuing of an estate presents to the mind an extremely complicated
problem, and there are so many exceptions and limitations, and so many
points of doubtful nature--the question of the age, for instance, at which
the coffee tree declines--that I cannot attempt to do more than indicate
those to which the valuator should turn his attention. There are, however,
points on which I can express a more decided opinion--the shade on an
estate, its kind, or kinds, and regulation.

After what has been previously written as to shade,