nursery, as these trees run up quickly, and attain a great height.  The light, too, comes readily through them, so that their lateral shade is most desirable, and lateral shade, it must be remembered, allows the plants to benefit by the dew fall.  I may add that the height to which the trees grow enables the planter to grow them at such a distance from the beds as to be practically unable to reach them with their roots.

As regards the best time for putting down the seed, opinions and practice have varied considerably, but it is now generally admitted that seed put down at Christmas, which will give plants with ten leaves on them in June (the planting season) are the most suitable for new clearings.  Seed put down in September or October will give fine sturdy plants with one or two pairs of branches, and these are considered to be the most suitable for vacancies in old land.  In order to do full justice to the last-named plants, they should, three months before planting out, be transplanted into small circular baskets, about the size of a small flower pot, and with wide spaces between the wickerwork.  These baskets should be filled with a mixture of dried cattle dung and good soil; they should then be placed on the surface of the bed and touching each other, and, when the plants are put out, they should be put down with the basket, which will then be quite filled with a mass of fibrous roots all ready to extend themselves into the surrounding land.  When this course is pursued the plant receives no check, and its rapid growth is insured.  If this method is not adopted in the case of replanting old land, or filling up vacancies amongst old coffee, many plants are sure to perish, and the survivors will make but poor progress.  But in the case of virgin soil this course, though obviously a safe one, and freeing the planters from all anxiety as to a failure in the rains, may be dispensed with.  Where baskets are expensive, or difficult to procure, pieces of worn out gunny bags answer the purpose fairly well, and I have seen them used on the Nilgiri hills.

The pits for vacancy plants should be dug shortly after the monsoon, and filled in soon after being dug, when the soil is quite dry, with a mixture of jungle top soil, bone-meal, and ordinary soil, or old, well dried cattle manure mixed with some fine bone-meal and ordinary soil.  I have never used the nitrate of potash for manuring vacancy plants, but it has been used in Coorg with good effect, as may be readily understood by anyone who has had any experience of that valuable manure.

In conclusion, I may say that if the planter is not prepared to take all the steps necessary to insure the growth of vacancy plants in old land, he had far better not put down any at all, as he will find it to be a mere waste of money and labour, which is often more precious than money.