244 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 



[September i, 1882. 



the stem fifteen inches in circumference at 9 inches from 

 the ground, and above the five feet height it is very 

 bushy. This tree has been kept for seed and not been 



manured or had any extra care bestowed on it. 



Yours faithfully, J. HOLLOWAY. 



P. S.— Having a read a good deal about papaw 

 trees of late in your T. A,, I had a fruit plucked 

 the other day weighing two-and-a-half pounds !— J. H. 



WHAT AILS OUR COFFEE TREES? 



Sib,— There are, it appears, still amongst us some 

 planters who believe that Hemikia has been the 

 primary and potential cause of the fatal decline of our 

 coflfee crops during the Last ten years ; and, nothing 

 daunted by past failures and discouragemeuts, they are 

 about tu make renewed efforts to discover a cure. 



Setting aside the question as to whether or not a 

 cure for the pest be practicable, let us consider the 

 larger, and f«r more importan t question, as to whether 

 or not Hemileia has really been the primary cause 

 of the sad loss of fruit- bearing jjower in our cofi'ee 

 trees. The evidences to the contrary seem to me to be 

 both cumulative and conclusive. 



Firslly. The first general disaster to our crops 

 was in 1871, when the crop of the island fell suddenly 

 to little more than half the previous average. Like 

 its successors, this first misforune was universal, 

 and affected cofi'ee, more or less, in every district, of 

 all ages, and regardless of soil, aspect, or any special 

 conditions. As yet, however, Hemiteia was hanlly 

 known. It had been observed in only two or three 

 districts, had visited only a very few estates, and had 

 affected but a few groups of trees. Here then is 

 clear proof that adverse conditions had previously set 

 in ; and that the fruit-bearing powers of our coffee 

 trees were already seriously impaired before Hemileia 

 could possibly have had any material or general 

 influince. 



Secondhj, In the succeeding years, up to 1876, 

 our coffee crops alternated ; but there was no altern- 

 ation in the progress of the peet, which spread steadily 

 and with fatal rapidity. In 1876 the fungus may, I 

 think safely, be said to have attained its utmost force. 

 It had by that time, afi'eoted every coffee estate in 

 the island, and I believe there was hardly a tree 

 that had escaped its ravages. Moreover, it had in- 

 creased in virulence as much as in the universality of 

 of its attacks. Yet the crop of that year was one of 

 the largest of the decade ! A group of estates, I 

 visited in February of that year, were almost leafless. 

 The fields were brown, and the trt/es a mass of bare 

 sticks. They were suffering, in fact, from the fiercest 

 attack of Hemileia it has ever been my misfortune to 

 behold oa so large scale, and they presented a most 

 desolate appearance. Y'et, notwithstanding this terrible 

 attack, immediately preceding the blossoming season, 

 these estates gave the best crop that year that they 

 had given since 1870 ! On the same journey, and 

 only a few days later, I visited another estate which 

 was comparatively free from the fungus, a picture of 

 luxuriance, and with every apparent promise of crop. 

 But this estate gave, in that same year, less than 

 a tenth of its ordinary crop, a failure exceeding any 

 I had, up to that time, ever witnessed ! Of such 

 discrepancies my experience furnishes numerous 

 instances. Only last year, ou remarking what a 

 fine crop there was upon a small field I had in 

 view, the manager of the estate reminded me that 

 on a very recent visit, I had remarked on the virul- 

 ence of the fungus on that very spot. lu citing 

 these cases, I shall not, of course, be understood to 

 attribute the good crops to the Hemileia, nor the 

 failure to its absence ! But I maintain that such 

 discrepancies prove, beyond doubt, a want of that 

 sympathy between ilie ravages of the pest, and the 

 unfruitfulnesa of our coffee trees, which would necess- 



arily exist between cause and effect. There is, in 

 fact, no such correspondence between the attacks of 

 leaf-disease and the failure of crop as a mutual depend- 

 ence would imply. 



Thirdly. Coffee has not been the only product of 

 the soil to suffer. Even in Ceylon the cereal crops, 

 which have had no leaf-disease, have suffered almost 

 aa much as coffee, and from about the same date. 

 From the same fatal year, 1871, disastrous of far 

 greater magnitude than any we have suffered, and 

 affecting agriculture over the whole face of the globe, 

 may be dated. India baa suffered dreadful famines, 

 successively, in Bengal, Madras, Bombay, the N. W. 

 provinces, and Cashmere. China has had to endure a 

 famine yet more intense and of longer duration. Per- 

 sia, Turkey, and the South of Russia have endured 

 a similar fate in varying degrees. Europe notwith- 

 standing its teeming capital, and all its resources of 

 science and skill, has had to bear terrible agricult- 

 ural disasters, and their miserable consequenoes. 

 Even in Great Britain, we learn from Mr. Caird, the 

 highest authority in such matters, that there has been but 

 one good crop of cereals, that of 1874, since 1871. 

 The fruit crops of the U. S. of America have failed so 

 persistently during the same period that the Board of 

 Agricultural lately reported that the art of fruit culture 

 seemed to be lost ! 



It would seem, therefore, that some wider infiuence 

 than that of Hemileia has been in operation during 

 the period of our depression ; not in Ceylon only, 

 but over the whole world. And it appears also that 

 elsewhere, as well as in Ceylon specific pests have 

 followed in the wake of that more general influence, 

 and have attacked, not coffee only, but other agri- 

 cultural products. 



Fourthly. Evidences that something affecting the 

 fruit-bearing power and stamina of our coffee trees 

 had preceded and invited the attack of Hemileia an 

 strong and consistent. It is a characteristic of the 

 whole family of fungi that they prey upon orgau'sms 

 bordering on a state of decay, and upon such as are 

 Buffering under conditions uncongenial to their habit. 

 Of 200 species of fungi that infest the British Oak, 

 only 6 attack the growing tissues I All the rest await 

 the autumnal decline of Tcgetative power, and prey 

 upon the dead or dying members. The decompos 

 ition of organic substances is almost always accom 

 panied by, and has therefore become almost .eynouym 

 ous with, fungoid agencies, such as ferments, &c., &c. 

 mark, then, how well this view of the advent of 

 Hemileia agrees with the fact that sickly and suffering 

 coffee trees are subject to its first and worst attacks. 

 Of such trees, indeed, none escape. Though healthy 

 and luxuriant trees around them and in actual contract 

 with them are scarcelj' injured, these ure nearly 

 killed ! Nor have such trees any respite, for when the 

 fungus disappears for a time from the stronger trees, it 

 still clings with fatal force to these miserables. 



The foregoing arguments are based on facts which 

 are well-known, and uhich have, no duubt, been 

 carefully considered by many of my fellow planters 

 wbo, nevertheless, revert to the popular idea that 

 leaf disease has been the cause of all our misfortunes, 

 simply because there is no other cause appareiit ! It 

 is natural to iissume that there must be a recognisable 

 cause for a change so remarkable and so widespread 

 as that we hive witnessed in our coffee ; and so 

 we blame the Hemileia because it is the only one 

 we C'»n see ! And this W'luld be a reasonable con- 

 clusion if we had all the forces of nature within our 

 ken. If all possible causes of infertility, and all the 

 conditions necessary to fruit-bearing, were within the 

 scope of our knowledge, we might, conclude, if no 

 other cause were evident, the Hemileia mint be the 

 true cause. But our misfortune is that, so far from 

 our knowing all the laws and conditions of nature 



