The culture requisite is, in the first instance, to afford shade to the young plants; many consider that this shelter should be continued during the whole period of their culture; but this is somewhat doubtful, as it has been found that plants so protected are not such good bearers as those which are exposed.  The best plants for this purpose are tall, wide-branching trees or shrubs, without much underwood.  The other culture requisite is only to keep the ground tolerably clean from weeds, for which one cooly on from five to ten biggahs is sufficient.  He should also prune off decayed or dead branches.  This treatment must be continued until the fourth year, when the trees will first begin bearing, and, after the gathering of each crop, the trees will require to be thinned out from the superabundant branches, their extremities stopped, and the tops reduced to prevent their growing above seven or eight feet in height; the stems, also, should be kept free from shoots or suckers for the height of at least one foot, as well as clear from weeds.

Irrigation must be frequent during the first year that the plants are removed to the plantation, and may be afterwards advantageously continued at intervals during the dry and hot weather, as a very hot season is found unfavorable to the plant, drying up and destroying the top branches and the extremities of the side shoots; whilst, on the other hand, a very long rain destroys the fruit by swelling it out and rotting it before it can be ripened:  hence it is necessary to attend to a good drainage of the plantation, that no water be anywhere allowed to lodge, as certain loss will ensue, not only of the crop of the current year, but most frequently of the trees also, as their roots require to be rather dry than otherwise.

The crop will be ready to gather from October to January, when the ripe berries should be carefully picked from the trees by hand every morning, and dried in the shade, the sun being apt to make them too brittle; they must be carefully turned to prevent fermentation, and when sufficiently dry the husks must be removed, and the clean coffee separated from the broken berries.  After being picked out and put aside, and then again dried, it is fit to pack.  The first year’s crop will be less than the succeeding ones, in which the produce will range from 1/2 a lb. to 1 lb. in each year.—­(Simmonds’s “Colonial Magazine,” vol. xv.)

Ceylon.—­Coffee is stated to have been introduced into this island from Java, somewhere about the year 1730.  It was extensively diffused over the country by the agency of birds and jackalls.  In 1821 its cultivation may be said to have partially commenced, and in 1836, it had become widely extended through the Kandyan provinces.

In 1839 not a tree had been felled on the wide range of the Himasgaria mountains.  In 1840 a small plantation was, for the first time, formed.  In 1846 there were fifty estates, then averaging, each, 200 acres of planted land, and yielding an average crop of 80,000 cwt. of coffee.  Every acre is now purchased in that locality, and in large tracts, or there would have been twice the number of estates in cultivation.  In 1848, the Galgawatte estate, situate in this range, at an elevation of 4,000 feet, containing 246 acres, of which 72 were planted, was purchased by Mr. R.D.  Gerard, for L1,600.