I now proceed to consider the methods that are adopted for planting under shade in Mysore. The first is to clear down and burn the entire forest, and then plant shade trees along with the coffee. The second is to clear and burn the underwood, and a certain portion of the forest trees, leaving the remainder for shade, and the third is (a system which I have myself adopted in the case of land lying in ravines) to clear off and burn the entire underwood and trees of the lower part of the ravines, leaving the upper portions of them, and the remainder of the land to be cleared and planted, under the original forest trees, as in the second method mentioned.
There can be no doubt that the first-named method is the easiest. I am aware that it has been adopted by some very experienced planters, and it has been partially adopted by myself in the case of all my land in the lower part of ravines. I am well able to judge of the advantages and disadvantages of both systems, as I have them under observation and treatment side by side. On the whole, I think there can be no doubt that the balance of advantage lies much in favour of land that has not had the forest cleared wholly and burnt off. It is true that by a wholesale clearance you at once kill the vast mass of live forest tree roots in the land, but, on the other hand, you at the same time destroy a store of slowly-decaying vegetable matter, which is of vast importance, not only in feeding the coffee, but in maintaining the physical condition of the soil, and so making it more, easily, and therefore cheaply, workable, and a better agent for preserving the health of the tree. And as a proof of the actual loss incurred, I may observe that Colonel C. I. Taylor, in his book on "The Borer in Coorg, Munzerabad and Nuggar," mentions that an iron peg driven into the ground so that not a part of it protruded, was found, after the cleared jungle had been burned, to be no less than six inches out of the ground. There seems to be a general opinion too that land that has not been burnt will last far longer, and one experienced planter, Mr. Brooke Mockett, attributes the circumstances of all the most ancient estates in Mysore being still in existence to the fact that the land has never been burnt. Mr. Mockett also informs me that in good land, where there has been no burn, he has never had Borer severely, though for a time there was no shade over it, as he cleared down ultimately all the old forest trees that had been left for shade, and planted fresh shade. I may mention, too, that I was lately shown an estate in Coorg which had been partially cleared down and burnt off, and partly planted under the shade of the old forest trees. In the latter case the plants had never suffered from Borer or leaf disease and were always healthy, while the coffee in the former case had suffered from both, and there was certainly a most marked difference perceptible in favour of the coffee planted in the unburnt land.
There is also a great difference in my own property in favour of the coffee planted under the original forest shade as compared with the coffee on the land that was cleared down and burnt off, notwithstanding that in the latter case the most approved kinds of shade trees were afterwards planted, and that the land is now admirably shaded. It is highly important to notice these facts, both as a guide to those who have land to open, and also as regards the value of any property that may be for sale, for, after what I have mentioned, it is clear that a property planted under original forest shade, where the land has not been burnt off (for it is quite possible gradually to remove all the old forest trees and replace them with newly planted shade), must be much more valuable than one where the entire forest has been cleared down and burnt off. I now proceed to remark (1) on the course that should be pursued in the case of clearing down and burning the whole jungle and planting fresh shade, and (2) when planting under the original shade.
After the land is ready for planting the coffee, and as early as possible in the monsoon, the young shade trees should be planted in lines or avenues running from east to west, and the trees should be planted so close that they may in five or six years touch each other, and thus form what looks like a series of hedges in parallel lines. The object of this formation is that as the declination of the sun is southerly during our non-cloudy or clear sky season, a close shadow may be cast from the south to the north, so that the spaces between the lines may have a lateral shade cast on them. When the trees begin to crowd each other every other one should of course be taken, out, and this may be repeated a second time if necessary. But, besides the southerly, we have also to consider the hot westerly sun, which will strike down the avenues from, say, between two and four in the afternoon. This it is important to block out with occasional trees planted in the avenue, but it is only, of course, where the land is exposed to the afternoon sun that the avenues should be blocked with occasional trees. After fully considering the subject, I find it impossible to say even approximately at what distance the lines of trees should be planted, on account of the great variety in the gradients, and the planter must here use his own judgment; and I can only say generally that the lines of trees require to be much nearer each other on a southerly than on a northerly aspect; nearly as close on a westerly aspect as on a southerly; and on an easterly aspect, at a closer distance than on a northerly one. Some guide toward the nearness of these lines will afterwards be found in the remarks on the quantity of shade required for the various aspects.
After having planted the young shade trees, then, there comes the question of providing shade for them, for without it their growth will be very slow, and the planter would have to wait a great many years before obtaining such an amount of shade as would have an effect in lowering the temperature of the plantation. He requires then some quick-growing tree as a nurse for the good caste shade trees, and the only tree I know of that is suitable for this purpose is the quick-growing charcoal tree (Sponia Wightii)—Kanarese, gorkul mara—which springs up with the first rain after the forest has been cleared and burnt. Planters, I am aware, have, generally speaking, a great objection to this tree, and it is considered by Mr. Graham Anderson (vide his book previously quoted) as being "generally regarded as prejudicial and useless." This conclusion has probably arisen from the fact that it is certainly a bad thing to have a rapid grower, and therefore a greedy feeder on the land, and hence it has been found that the charcoal tree is bad when young. But when it has attained its full height, which in ordinary circumstances is about thirty feet (I have one specimen on my property about sixty feet high, the only one of such a size I ever saw), coffee thrives well under it. This I found to be the case on plantations on the slopes of the Nilgiri hills, where a very experienced planter told me that the tree was bad when young for coffee, but not so when old; and I there saw coffee thriving well under the shade of old charcoal trees. On my oldest plantation we only preserved one of the species (all the others having been cut down, as their good offices as nurses to better trees were no longer required), and the coffee always throve under it remarkably well. Where, too, the shade has subsequently become deficient we always plant charcoal as a nurse for the more desirable trees, and have never observed that it is injurious to coffee. On the whole, after a very long experience and observation of this tree, I have no hesitation in recommending it as a nurse to be thinly distributed amongst the newly-planted shade trees. It is, I may observe, too, a tree with very light branches, which, of course, can easily be removed without injury to the coffee, and its branches should be thinned away when they crowd the young shade trees, and when these have been sufficiently drawn up and expanded the charcoal tree should be entirely removed.
The subsequent treatment of the shade trees is of great importance. Their lower branches in the early years of their growth are commonly thin and weakly, and thus, of course, droop close over the coffee, and often touch it. Then the inexperienced shade tree grower begins to lop off the lower branches, with the result that he injures and bleeds the young tree, and deprives it of the nutriment it would otherwise derive from its full allowance of foliage. Some carry this trimming up to a very injurious extent, and the result is that they grow young trees with long stems and poor foliage, and a narrow spread of branches, and thus require many more trees in the land than they would if they exercised a little more patience at first. But if the tree is only left alone the evil of branches drooping downwards on to the coffee will soon disappear, as these branches will not only rise with the rising stem, but will thicken and grow upwards, instead of drooping as they did when young and weakly. And some planters, I observe, are by no means satisfied with lopping the lower boughs, but trim off branches fifteen feet from the ground. Under such a system the number of shade trees required is enormous, and the evils arising from the number of boles with their vast mass of large roots will only be the more severely apparent as time advances. By one shade planter in Coorg I have been told that coffee there has already been suffering much from the quantity of boles and tree roots in the land, in consequence of the trimming up system and the quantity of trees required in consequence. It should also be remembered that we require our shade not only to protect our coffee from the sun's rays, but to shield it from those parching winds which sweep across the arid plains of the interior of India, and to prevent the drying up of the land. And is it not perfectly obvious that if we trim up the trees so as to produce a long stem with a small crown, the parching winds will sweep unchecked over plants and soil? There is, however, the usual proverbial exception, and that is in the case of trees growing near the bottoms of ravines with steep sides to them, and where you often want a drawn up stem and crown to cast a shadow on to a hot western or southern bank, and in such cases, of course, trimming up is necessary. Having thus discussed the planting of coffee where the forest has been cut wholly down and burnt, we will now turn to planting under the shade of the original forest trees.
In opening, then, a plantation which is to be shaded by preserving a portion of the original forest trees, the first thing to be done is to clear a wide track through the underwood from one end of the block of forest to the other, and as many tracks at right angles to the line as may facilitate your getting about and thoroughly inspecting the land to be cleared. The next thing to be done is to cut a wide track round the entire portion to be cleared, leaving a belt of from fifteen to twenty yards as a margin between the land to be cleared and the grassland lying outside the forest. This marginal belt will often be found useful for shelter in many cases, and it must be borne in mind, too, that the margins of jungles are generally composed of land into which the forest has more recently extended itself, and are therefore poorer than the interior portion of the forest, and consequently less adapted to the growth of the coffee. Another advantage of this marginal belt is that it will prevent fires spreading from the grasslands, and that by planting thorny climbing plants on its outer edge a good fence may be formed. Another very great advantage I have found from such belts is that valuable top soil may be taken from them to manure the adjacent coffee, and especially to afford a supply of rich virgin soil when filling up vacancies in the old coffee. This last use of the marginal belt is particularly valuable, as it is both troublesome and expensive to lay down either cattle manure or top soil brought from a distance in those odd corners here and there in the plantations where vacancies are apt to occur.
After the above suggested preliminary tracks have been opened out, the whole underwood should be cleared and piled in heaps, and as far as possible, of course, from the trees which are most desirable for shade. Then the trees positively injurious to coffee should be cut down and their branches lopped and piled on the stumps of the objectionable trees, and after this a certain proportion of the less desirable kinds should be felled. All burning should be carried on in separate piles, as a running fire through the clearing would be fatal to the standing trees, and, when firing the piles they should be burnt off in detail at as great a distance from each other as possible, as the bark of many of the forest trees is easily injured by the heat arising from many blazing piles in their neighbourhood. The land having thus been thoroughly cleared, should be planted.
But by the process I have recommended much more shade will be left than will ultimately be required, and I have found that it is impossible to clear down at once all the trees you wish to get rid of, as, if you did, you would be sure to require such a number of piles as would, when they were burnt, be sure to injure the trees to be preserved. It is therefore necessary to complete the clearing during the season following. Such trees, then, as you may wish further to remove may be thrown down between the rows of coffee, and others which may be likely to do much damage, either to the coffee or to the shade trees to be preserved, may be lopped and barked, and they should be barked as high up as a man can reach, as we have found that trees barked close to the ground die slowly.
It sometimes, however, happens that the forest land is much cut up with narrow and deep ravines, and in that case the bottoms of such ravines should be cleared off entirely, and this can be done without injury to the standing trees above, as, when the wood in the bottom of the ravine is being burnt the flames will be too distant to inflict any injury to the trees left for shade higher up the slopes, but, as I have said, great care must be taken to prevent any running fire through the shaded land; and I can speak of the effect of such a fire from a melancholy experience. In the event of bottoms of ravines being thus cleared down, it may afterwards be found desirable to supply fresh shade on the southern and western slopes, and this can easily be done on the system recommended previously for lands which have been entirely cleared down.