This Attack Is Usually Of About Two Years' Duration; After Which Time The Tree Loses Its Blackened Appearance, Which Peels Off The Surface Of The Leaves Like Gold-Beaters' Skin, -And They Appear In Their Natural Color.

Coffee plants of young growth are liable to complete destruction if severely attacked by " bug."

Rats are also very destructive to an estate ; they are great adepts at pruning, and completely strip the trees of their young shoots, thus utterly destroying a crop. These vermin are more easily guarded against than the insect tribe, and should be destroyed by poison. Hog's lard, ground cocoa-nut and phosphorus form the most certain bait and poison combined.

These are some of the drawbacks to coffee-planting, to say nothing of bad seasons and fluctuating prices, which, if properly calculated, considerably lessen the average profits of an estate, as it must be remembered that while a crop is reduced in quantity, the expenses continue at the usual rate, and are severely felt when consecutive years bring no produce to meet them.

Were it not for the poverty of the soil, the stock of cattle required on a coffee estate for the purpose of manure might be made extremely profitable, and the gain upon fatted stock would pay for the expense of manuring the estate. This would be the first and most reasonable idea to occur to an agriculturist - "buy poor cattle at a low price, fatten them for the butcher, and they give both profit and manure."

Unfortunately, the natural pasturage is not sufficiently good to fatten beasts indiscriminately. There are some few out of a herd of a hundred who will grow fat upon anything, but the generality will not improve to any great degree. This accounts for the scarcity of fine meat throughout Ceylon. Were the soil only tolerably good, so that oats, vetches, turnips and mangel wurtzel could be could be grown on virgin land without manure, beasts might be stall-fed, the manure doubled by that method, and a profit made on the animals. Pigs are now kept extensively on coffee estates for the sake of their manure, and being fed on Mauritius grass (a coarse description of gigantic " couch") and a liberal allowance of cocoa-nut oil cake ("poonac"), are found to succeed, although the manure is somewhat costly.

English or Australian sheep have hitherto been untried - for what reason I cannot imagine, unless from the expense of their prime cost, which is about two pounds per head. These thrive to such perfection at Newera Ellia, and also in Kandy, that they should succeed in a high degree in the medium altitudes of the coffee estates. There are immense tracts of country peculiarly adapted for sheep-farming throughout the highlands of Ceylon, especially in the neighborhood of the coffee estates. There are two enemies, however, against which they would have to contend - viz., "leopards" and "leeches." The former are so destructive that the shepherd could never lose sight of his flock without great risk; but the latter, although troublesome, are not to be so much dreaded as people suppose.

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