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'Mt fROfiCAL AGRICULTURIST. [September i, 1885. 



INFERIORITY OF THE WYNAAD COFFEE 



BEAN. 



[gee letter of Wynaad Planter's Association on page 54.-ED.] 



At the monthly general meeting of the Wynaad 

 Planters' Association, reported in the Madras Mail of 

 20th June, a matter of great interest to those who 

 have sank money in Coffee estates in Wynaad and the 

 Niigiris was discussed, namely, the inferiority of the 

 Wynaad coffee bean, and the low price it fetches com- 

 pared with other districts and with former years, and 

 it Eeems to have beenrfsolved to address a series of 

 questions to oth^r Planters' Aasociationa asking for 

 their views and experience on the subject. The first 

 of these questions touches on the matter of shade, and 

 its effect on the quality of the coffee bean, and here 

 the Wynnad Planters' Association are vtry nearly 

 arrivmg at the conclusion of the whole matter. No 

 one who has travelled in Coorg and Mysore with his 

 eyes open, can but have observed that on estates 

 noted for their fine sample, the open secret of their 

 superior bean in simply dry climate and dense shade 

 Mysore coffee always commands the best price in the 

 London market, and one has only to compare a sample 

 of it with a sample of the finest Wynaad coffee to 

 see at once the immense superiority of the former 

 over the latter, both in size and colour. It was at one 

 time thought that the Mysore tree, or Munzerabad 

 chick, a? it is called, produced a finer bean than the 

 Coorg or Wynaad tree, but this has been proved to be 

 a fallacy, and Mysore planters are now uprooting 

 their old Munzerabad chicks, and planting Coorg trees 

 in their place ; and to prove that the tree has nothing 

 to do with it, I heard that last year, a wellknowu 

 Mysore planter sent home the coffee from his Coorg 

 and Munzerabad trees separate, and on reaching the 

 London market the Coorg coffee was sold as Mysore, 

 and the Mysore as Coorg, while I myself know 

 estates in Wynaad and Coorg with a dry climate, 

 where shade is being persevericigly planted, and where 

 the coffee improves in quality and fetches a better 

 price every year. That any proved system of estate- 

 ouriug will affect the colour of the bean I do not 

 believe. I have heard that on some estates in Wynaad 

 the coffee is washed, after lying only 12 hours in the 

 lats, the superintendent thinking thereby to improve 

 the quality of his coffee; but the result would only 

 be dirty parchment, and no improvement in the colour 

 of the bean. Neither do I think that it matters 

 where the coffee is cured, although no doubt something 

 depends on careful drying, peeling, and garbling, and 

 I believe that this work would be moat eflSoiently 

 done on the Malabar Coast. The use of manure could 

 not improve the quality of the bean, although 

 theoretically pruning might. The manures used in 

 Mjsore are the same w those put out m Wynaad, 

 and all maiur.s, especinlly artitical and stimulating 

 Ooropouuds, have the effect of making the trees give 

 exhausting crops of inferior coffee, in regard to the 

 packiiiij 01 coff e, 1 cannot give an opinion, but I should 

 think it would always be best to send one's coffee 

 to the London market by a chartered coffee ship, in 

 preference to shipping It along with a mixed cargo by 

 P and 0. or British India steamers. To havt a good 

 sample of cofiee, the shade trees must be tall, and 

 I fear that Wynaad planters who only think of 

 b«..iuningto plant shade now, will have to wait sotne 

 ciifht or ten years to see any improvement in the size 

 and colour of their bean. Mtanwhile their only 

 chance is to ,trv and make up for inferior quality by 

 quantity, and 'it may be some melancholy saiialaction 

 to them to hear, that the aj/erage yeild of the Mysore 

 estates is a good deal below that of Wyraad. To 

 counterbalance his small crops, t*ie Mysore planter 

 pays 25 per cent less for bis labour than tbe «\ynaad 

 planter, and as a rul« it is sbundant ; hi» shade bf ipg 



dense, his expenditure on weeding and pruning is 

 reduced to a minimum, he gets a better price for hia 

 coffee, and he has practised from the first the most 

 rigid economy in his estate expenditure. The Wynaad 

 planter, on the other hand, has to pay a long price 

 for labour, when he can get it ; his expenditure on 

 weeding, handling, and pruning is very heavy, his 

 coffee fetches a wretched price, and many planters 

 becoming involved are hampered, harassed, and harried 

 in all their operations by their Agents on the Coast. 

 His lot has not fallen in pleasant places, he must 

 patiently wait on if he can, till the clouds roll by. If 

 he has funds he can grow shade and put out manure 

 and should all his efforts end in failure he can at leas say 



*' 'T is not in mortals to command success, 

 But we 'II do more, Sempronias, we '11 deserve it." 

 — Madras Mail, July 1st. 



[Shade for Arabian cofiee may be good in the drier 

 portions of Southern India, but the conclusion almost 

 universally adopted in Ceylon is that where coffee 

 will not succeed without shade it had better not be 

 grown at all. — Ed.] 



THE COLOUR OF COFFEE. 



In the Madras Weekly Mail of 11th July, the following 

 letters appear ; — 



Sir,— In your issue of the 1st July you have a letter 

 from a correspondent who treats of a subject of immense 

 importance to planters in general, and especially to 

 those of the Wynaad, who have now for two years run- 

 ning lost money owing to the inferior colour of their 

 coffee. Your correspondent thuiks that it is an 'open 

 secret' that it arises from want of a dry climate and 

 dense shade, such as you may see in Ooorg and Mysore. 

 I was for two years in a broker's office in Mincing Lane, 

 when Mysore coffee of celebrated marks was, as now at 

 the head of the market. But it was never colory coffee. 

 It was, on the contrary, a thick heavy bean, and 

 very much coated with the silver skin, and of a peculiar 

 character of its own. It was always bought for the 

 home trade, whereas the best colory coffee was bought 

 for export. So that I think that as far as colour goes, your 

 correspondeut's open secret may shut up again. 



But it is a fact that we in AVynaad cannot produce 

 colory coffee? I think it is rather that we cannot get 

 it landed in London as colory coffee. This year I sent 

 home overland samples which were reported on and valu- 

 ed as colory, but when the bulk from which the sampes 

 came arrived in London the colour had gone, and the 

 new values were not within 6/., or £6 a ton, of the 

 former ones, though in the meantime the market quotation 

 had slightly risen. The qestion is : why ? Achbomat. 



II. 



Sir, — What does your correspondent mean by saying, 

 when writing of the " Inferiority of the Wynaad coffee 

 beau," " the of use manure could not improve the quality 

 of the bean, although theoretically pruning might." On 

 a heavily-manured estate in Coorg as high as 62 per 

 cent of A. has been obtained. On another estate in 

 the Wynaad, into which manure has been poured with 

 no sparing hand, almost as good an outturn has been 

 reached. I'his estate has yielded 6^ cwt. per acre, 

 average for eleven seasons, and 7J tor the last three, 

 over nearly 400 acres, and the coffee is bought by 

 grocers chiefly for the purpose of putting iu their shop 

 windows. Inasmuch as A. coffee fetches the best price, 

 except someiimsB the small percentage of peaberry, it 

 is obvious that herein lies the chief point, and I fail to 

 see what your correspondent means by manure not improv- 

 ing the quality, &c. Later on he says : — " If he (the 

 planter) has lunds, and can grow shade, and put out 

 manure," &c. AVhat is the manure for : to grow the 

 shade, weeds, or improve the quality and quantity of 

 the henn 'i Too much attention has been paid to what 

 may be called ixtra clean weeding, and far too little to 

 muuuiiug. Ill some districts clean weeding is a necessity j 

 iu otberA I could came efitates that bare brought ruin on 

 t^tieijT oiraers tbroU|^|> persisticg in it. In PD$ fue tbf 



