adopted country. He lays out his grounds with taste, and
plants groves of exquisite fruit trees, whose produce will, he hopes,
be tasted by his children and grandchildren. Accordingly, in a French
colony there is a tropical beauty in the cultivated trees and flowers
which is seldom seen in our possessions. The fruits are brought to
perfection, as there is the same care taken in pruning and grafting the
finest kinds as in our gardens in England.

A Frenchman is necessarily a better settler; everything is arranged for
permanency, from the building of a house to the cultivation of an
estate. He does not distress his land for immediate profit, but from
the very commencement he adopts a system of the highest cultivation.

The latter is now acknowledged as the most remunerative course in all
countries; and its good effects are already seen in Ceylon, where, for
some years past, much attention has been devoted to manuring on coffee
estates.

No crop has served to develop the natural poverty of the soil so much
as coffee; and there is no doubt that, were it possible to procure
manure in sufficient quantity, the holes should be well filled at the
time of planting. This would give an increased vigor to the young
plant that would bring the tree into bearing at an earlier date, as it
would the sooner arrive at perfection.

The present system of coffee-planting on a good estate is particularly
interesting. It has now been proved that the best elevation in Ceylon
to combine fine quality with large crops is from twenty-five hundred to
four thousand feet. At one time it was considered that the finest
quality was produced at the highest range; but the estates at an
elevation of five thousand feet are so long at arriving at perfection,
and the crop produced is so small, that the lower elevation is
preferred.

In the coffee districts of Ceylon there is little or no level ground to
be obtained, and the steep sides of the hills offer many objections to
cultivation. The soil, naturally light and poor, is washed by every
shower, and the more soluble portions, together with the salts of the
manure applied to the trees, are being continually robbed by the heavy
rains. Thus it is next to impossible to keep an estate in a high state
of cultivation, without an enormous expense in the constant application
of manure.

Many estates are peculiarly subject to landslips, which are likewise
produced by the violence of the rains. In thes