It should be remembered that the ashes of the stem wood and thick branches are not nearly so valuable as those of young branches and twigs.  A good sample of the last-named contains 20-1/2 per cent. of potash and more than 30 per cent. of lime.  In many places in the vicinity of the estates much good manure might often be made by cutting down weeds and jungle plants of any kind, burning them, mixed with earth, slowly, and applying the mixture to the coffee.

I have only heard of one planter who used night soil.  He had planks pierced with the necessary apertures, underneath which buckets with some soil in each were placed; these were removed daily and emptied into renovation pits in the coffee.  Anybody depositing elsewhere was fined, and the fine given to the Toty, who had thus an interest in looking out for defaulters.  There can be no doubt that this is an excellent system, and obviously advantageous from a sanitary point of view, and that it could with, ease be carried out on an estate where all the coolies were of the lower castes, but it could not be carried out, and it would be very unwise to attempt it, in the case of an estate on which there are poor members of the better castes.  It is even important on such a property to see that no pieces of ordinary paper find their way on to the farmyard manure heap, as, when such has been detected on my property, the women of the better castes refused to carry out the manure.

We have now examined what I may call the local manurial resources, and I propose to consider in detail those manures which have to be imported into the coffee districts from various quarters.  Of these manures lime is one of the most important, and as three samples of soil from my property were all found to be very deficient in lime, it is probable that applications of lime are as desirable in Mysore generally as they are in the case of plantations on the Nilgiri slopes.  Limestone can be procured from the interior of Mysore, and also from the port of Mangalore.  It should always be burnt on the estate.  It is a cheaper plan than having it burnt before importing it, and we got, besides, the ashes of the wood used for burning the lime.  Lime is as valuable ground as burnt, and when it is ground is not so liable to suffer from rain as burnt lime is.  It must not be mixed with bonedust, oil-cake, or potash salts, but should be put down some weeks before these manures.  Lime should only be used in small quantities of half a ton or a ton an acre (it is usually used at the latter rate in Ceylon), as a free use of it would favour the escape of ammonia from the soil by too rapidly converting inert into active nitrogen, and, as a neighbour of mine once found, the result would probably be a heavy crop of coffee followed by exhaustion of the tree.  Lime might be advantageously used more often where the land is liable to be soured, or where much vegetable matter has accumulated.  It should be remembered that, as ashes contain about 30 per