on, but the Government will make no
reduction in the case of pieces of land, which are in the plantation,
being thrown out of cultivation. I have said that the pieces of inferior
land which may be occasionally found in the good coffee should certainly
be kept up; but there are, in the case of steep lands, sometimes pieces of
land at the heads of slopes, and next to the fence, where, from
injudicious management, the soil has gradually worked down the hill, and
in such cases a strip of the barest land near the head of the slope may
with advantage be thrown out of cultivation, and the abandoned land should
be thickly planted with trees, the leaves of which will be shed downwards
amongst the coffee. And in planting such abandoned strips with trees an
addition will be made to the value of the estate, as wood, as elsewhere
pointed out, soon becomes scarce in any country that is taken up for
coffee.

The next source of loss which calls for observation is that arising from
the system of giving advances to labourers and to maistries--the name for
a class of men who take large sums to advance to coolies, and are paid a
commission on the number they bring in. The planters have lost large sums
from this pernicious and troublesome system, and in the remarks previously
made on planters' grievances, the reader will find allusions to the
existing legislation on the subject, and the need for fresh legislation to
grapple with the evils arising out of giving advances for labour.
Sometimes the coolies die, and the money is lost altogether; sometimes,
and not unfrequently, they abscond, and in the latter case it is such a
difficult matter to trace them that the planter simply resigns himself to
the loss of the money. Then as regards money advanced to maistries to
bring coolies, somewhat similar difficulties occur. The maistry may die,
he may abscond, and sometimes he advances to coolies who decamp and take
advances from another planter or his maistry. In short, whether the
planter advances directly to coolies, or to maistries to bring coolies, he
finds himself involved in a mixture of losses and worries and uncertainty
as to getting through his various works at the proper time.

Now nearly every human system is calculated to serve some purpose, and
arises out of a greater or lesser degree of necessity. But it sometimes
happens that the original causes for the system have either disappeared or
very largely vanished, and that the system goes