plains of the interior of India, and to prevent the drying up of the land.  And is it not perfectly obvious that if we trim up the trees so as to produce a long stem with a small crown, the parching winds will sweep unchecked over plants and soil?  There is, however, the usual proverbial exception, and that is in the case of trees growing near the bottoms of ravines with steep sides to them, and where you often want a drawn up stem and crown to cast a shadow on to a hot western or southern bank, and in such cases, of course, trimming up is necessary.  Having thus discussed the planting of coffee where the forest has been cut wholly down and burnt, we will now turn to planting under the shade of the original forest trees.

In opening, then, a plantation which is to be shaded by preserving a portion of the original forest trees, the first thing to be done is to clear a wide track through the underwood from one end of the block of forest to the other, and as many tracks at right angles to the line as may facilitate your getting about and thoroughly inspecting the land to be cleared.  The next thing to be done is to cut a wide track round the entire portion to be cleared, leaving a belt of from fifteen to twenty yards as a margin between the land to be cleared and the grassland lying outside the forest.  This marginal belt will often be found useful for shelter in many cases, and it must be borne in mind, too, that the margins of jungles are generally composed of land into which the forest has more recently extended itself, and are therefore poorer than the interior portion of the forest, and consequently less adapted to the growth of the coffee.  Another advantage of this marginal belt is that it will prevent fires spreading from the grasslands, and that by planting thorny climbing plants on its outer edge a good fence may be formed.  Another very great advantage I have found from such belts is that valuable top soil may be taken from them to manure the adjacent coffee, and especially to afford a supply of rich virgin soil when filling up vacancies in the old coffee.  This last use of the marginal belt is particularly valuable, as it is both troublesome and expensive to lay down either cattle manure or top soil brought from a distance in those odd corners here and there in the plantations where vacancies are apt to occur.

After the above suggested preliminary tracks have been opened out, the whole underwood should be cleared and piled in heaps, and as far as possible, of course, from the trees which are most desirable for shade.  Then the trees positively injurious to coffee should be cut down and their branches lopped and piled on the stumps of the objectionable trees, and after this a certain proportion of the less desirable kinds should be felled.  All burning should be carried on in separate piles, as a running fire through the clearing would be fatal to the standing trees, and, when firing the piles they should be burnt off in detail at as great a distance from each other as possible, as the bark of many of the forest trees is easily injured by the heat arising from many blazing piles in their neighbourhood.  The land having thus been thoroughly cleared, should be planted.