on the northern slopes full of health and life, while those on the southern ones are yellow, dried up, and sickly.  Even in parts of the district where coffee will not thrive without a considerable amount of shade, you will always find the plants thrive well (with little or even none) on a northern bank, and look much better than on a moderately shaded southern bank.  Nor in the nursery is the effect of aspect at all less striking.  A nursery on a northern slope will require far less water, and far less shade over the plants, than one with a southern exposure.  But the late Mr. MacIvor, superintendent of the Government Cinchona plantations on the Nilgiri hills, has tested the value of northern and southern aspects in a way which accurately judges their respective values.  He accordingly tells us that, “The reason why a northern exposure in these latitudes is beneficial is from the fact that it is much more moist during the dry season than a southern aspect, because the sun’s declension is southerly during the dry and cloudless season of the year, and thus, on the northern slopes, the rays of the sun do not penetrate and parch the soil.  A northern aspect has also the advantage of preserving a much more uniform temperature than a southern aspect, because the excessive radiation and evaporation in the southern slopes greatly reduces the temperature at night, while in the day they are heated to excess by the action of the sun’s rays striking the surface nearly at right angles.  The practical effects of aspect on the plants are so great that they cannot be overlooked with impunity, and, in order to impress this on the minds of all those who may have the selection of localities for cinchona cultivation, I may mention that the difference of temperature is almost incredible; for example, at this elevation (probably about 7,000 feet) a thermometer laid on the surface of the southern face of a hill exposed to the sun at 3 p.m., will frequently indicate from 130 deg. to 160 deg.  Fahr.; the same thermometer, if left in its position, and examined at 6 a.m., will generally be observed to indicate from 30 deg. to 40 deg., while on a similar slope, if selected with a northern aspect, the thermometer, under the same circumstances, at 3 p.m., will generally indicate from 70 deg. to 80 deg., and at 6 a.m. from 40 deg. to 50 deg..”

There is, then, about twice as much heat upon a southern as on a northern aspect, and, of course, a corresponding difference as regards the effect of sun and drought on plant and soil, and it is therefore obvious that our shade policy should be governed accordingly.

As regards the comparative heat on western and eastern exposures, Mr. MacIvor does not seem to have made any experiments with the thermometer, but where the slope is at all sharp the rays of the fierce western sun beat strongly into the soil, while it is quite off an easterly slope, of similar gradient, for the whole of the afternoon, and there is an enormous difference perceptible in the temperature.  The effect, however, is in some degree counterbalanced by the fact that the soil and the plants on the easterly slope are swept by the withering and desiccating winds which sweep over the arid plains of the interior.