Robusta coffee has also been successfully interplanted with coconuts. In this case the palms and coffee should of course be planted at the same time, the palms perhaps not closer than 9 to 10 meters apart, the coffee to be used as a "filler" between the coconuts. In this connection it is perhaps well to state that in Java robusta coffee is very frequently planted as a "catch crop" in the Hevea rubber plantations. Among the shade plants available to the Philippine planter, malaganit, dapdap, and "guango," or raintree (Pithecolobium saman), have given the best results in Java for the robusta with the following ratio yield of coffee: 4.75, 4.10, and 3.06. Cultivation.--On level and well-cleared land, close attention should be paid to keeping the coffee plantation free from weeds during the first year or two by means of animal-drawn shallow cultivators, supplemented with hand-hoeing. Where the topography of the land or the presence of stumps renders this impossible the weeding must of course be done by hand. All weeds should be left in the field where they serve both as a mulch in preserving the moisture and to enrich the soil. As soon as the plants begin to shade the land they thereby aid in the weed eradication, and weeding then becomes less expensive. Pruning.--If the trees are allowed to grow without pruning they become too tall (robusta coffee attains a height of 6 meters or more), and the topmost berries are then difficult to pick. Furthermore unpruned coffee trees (including robusta), have the peculiar habit of bearing their branches near the ground and at the top, leaving the middle bare or nearly so which decreases the producing capacity of the plant. On this account up-to-date planters have generally adopted a system of pruning by which the coffee trees are headed low, giving a maximum yield coupled with easy access to the berries. The pruning consists of topping the robusta trees when they are from 2 to 2.5 meters tall and of subsequent pruning to keep the trees at this height. This work should preferably be done while the plants are of the proper height and the green shoots easily broken off, and not after the trees have exceeded the height limit by several decimeters. The plant, if allowed to do so, usually sends up a large number of suckers from the base, which constitute a drain on the vitality of the plant. Therefore, all superfluous suckers should be removed and not more than 2 to 3 stems to a plant should be permitted to develop. Occasionally robusta plants appear that are more than ordinarily subject to blight, and these should be at once pulled up and burned.