April i, 1886.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURlS'l', 



73 1 



SIMULTANEOUS DECADENCE AND PRO- 

 GRESS OF COFFEE IN BRAZIL. 



Our readers will be glad again to see a letter from 

 our valued correspondent, Mr. A. Scott Blacklaw. 

 He gives an interesting glimiise of the home life 

 of the descendants of Portuguese colonists who 

 own so much of the soil of Brazil. But the import- 

 ant portion of the letter is that which deals willi 

 the gradual decay of cotTee on old cultivations, the 

 large exports of the berry being due to railway 

 extension and the opening of new lands, of which 

 there is still a superabundance in the great South 

 American Empire: — 



Province of Eio de .Janeiro, 

 Brazil, 20th Jan. 188(). 

 Active outdoor pursuits and a continual spell of 

 " roughing it " have prevented me giving you a 

 letter occasionally. You know the subject which 

 used to please your readers was "coffee" : well, I 

 have been for a long time out of coffee, and, 

 therefore, could say little about it. Besides, it 

 seemed to be a thing everybody was disgusted with. 

 You, in Ceylon, were annoyed that it would not 

 shake itself clear of the leaf-disease ; and here, 

 in Brazil, we got uneasy about it, because of its low 

 price, and all who used to derive profit from it- 

 looked with alarm at the production having out- 

 grown the consumption. But you reply : " Could 

 you not have given us something on nev) pruducU ! " 

 " New products ! " yes, but what is new to mo 

 is old to Ceylon. I could give you a deal of in- 

 foruiation about sugarcane, but that you have 

 tried years ago and found it would not pay. Let 

 us not forget our old friend rii/Zcc. The hill-sides of 

 Ceylon are not the ouly places which he has for- 

 saken after luxuriating for a number of years. 

 In former times, the lower parts of the Province 

 of Kio de Janeiro were the principal coffee- 

 producing district in Brazil. Even not much more 

 than ten years ago it exported as much coffee as 

 Ceylon did ever in her palmy days. A'""', in 

 these same districts, it is scarcely looked on as 

 a pursuit. The trees have gradually dried up as 

 one would say — gone all to dry branches and green 

 points, and gradually died out. 



One does here and there meet with a green 

 patch under shade beside a roadside hut, re- 

 minding one of your native coffee gardens — but 

 even these refuse to give fruit, and are not con- 

 sidered worth keeping clean. For some time the 

 planters thought it was only change of seasons, 

 and they thought the tiees would come round, 

 but they gradually got worse. I did not know the 

 Province of Bio then, so could not say anything 

 of the nature of the disease. Since I have come 

 to know it. I cannot find accurate accounts as to 

 the principal cause. Some blame an insect which 

 destroyed the roots ; others said it was a leaf- 

 disease which, according to some, was a fungus ; 

 whOe others would insist that it was an insect, and 

 a great many intelligent planters believed it was all 

 these things combined ; that the plant got weakened 

 through growing from seed produced in the country, 

 said seed being the produce of the plants of other 

 seed grown in the country and so on without any 

 importation of fresh seed. As usual in all cases 

 affecting agriculture Government was implored 

 to do something, and Government offered a reward 

 of X.5,000 (-50,000 milreis) to any one who could find 

 out the real cause and discover a remedy. Up till 

 now not one has come forward. Meanwhile the 

 estates have suffered and the trees have died. The 

 farmers in these circumstances have been reduced 

 in mtans. Some had to sell half their slaves, a great 

 many went and bought land in the "far west" and 

 opened tlourisbiug plantations in districtb . where 



railways were being made, and where there was no 

 leaf nor root disease, where they had only to fell the 

 forest, plant the coft'ee, planting Indian corn and 

 beans at the same time, keep the ground clean, 

 let the coffee only grow and pic); Die crop and live at 

 ease as before. 



No more fretting with the iilanter, now the corn 

 and beans give him as much as enable him to teed 

 and clothe his negroes, and the transport of 

 his coffee is paid in Santos, he receiving accounts 

 and money for the nett proceeds. 



Many on whom the blight had first fallen were 

 unablefrom reduced circumstances to buy new land, 

 and their old was now unsaleable. As you are 

 aware, the condition of life and the connection of 

 the planters with the soil are different here from 

 what they are in your country. Y'our Ceylon coffee 

 planter looks at his occupation as in no way fix- 

 ing him to the locality. He expects to spend a 

 certain number of years in Ceylon, and retire to 

 Europe with as much as will enable him to live com- 

 fortably the rest of his days, another planter suc- 

 ceeding him. The Fazoula in Brazil is the Brazilian 

 planter's home ; on this land he was born and here 

 he would spend his days, although he may be oc- 

 cupying but a twentieth part of the great block 

 of land which was granted to his first colonist 

 ancestor by the Portuguese Government during the 

 time of the South American gold-hunting exped- 

 itions, still the other nineteen parts are occui)ied 

 by his relations. Perhaps for the last four gener- 

 ations there has not been a single marriage amongst 

 the descendants of the old colonists conti'acted 

 outside of the family group. It is thus a hard 

 thing for these people to be compelled to remove, 

 and many have stayed on the old estates, to try to 

 make a living by a change of /(/rfiKiM {nijriciiltKre). 



But what was tliere to fall back on since cot- 

 fee now gave them nothing? At first they tried 

 Indian corn and beans, and planted up many 

 of the coffee plantations with iiiaiulimd, — Haiti- 

 hot ittili.<Kima. The first and second of those were 

 prepared for the market at little expense and 

 there was a market close at hand for them at 

 the capital, to which there was cheap transport. 

 Mandioca however reciuired manipulalioti to be turned 

 into fiirinlui ih: mandioca or into tapioca. In the 

 days of successful coffee planting, H}ese three were 

 gi-own extensively on all the estates, the rule being 

 that the cost of the upkeep of the estates, which 

 included the feeding, clothing and medical expenses 

 of all the field hands, and the large retinue of 

 washerwomen and servants about the house, must be 

 borne by the cultivation of these three articles. It 

 was not considered particularly good management 

 if the superintendent could not also keep up the 

 town establishment as well. Every fazendeiro 

 of any pretensions to importance must have his 

 house in the nearest town or village, and some of 

 them lived there constantly, seldom going out to 

 see the estate ; there were otlicrs who would only 

 visit the town at the times of the church feasts 

 of which there are a great many during the year. We 

 must not forget that the very large land owner 

 had also his I'alacette in Rio de Janeiro. Coffee 

 planting then occupied an important part in agri- 

 cultural life. If the fazendeiru had to pay interest 

 on borrowed money, the collapse of colToo planting 

 was his complete downfall. 



As I mentioned before there was no remedy, nor has 

 there yet been any found to check in other districts 

 beyond the Serra do Mar— where the canker is now- 

 spreading and causing gradual decay, nor is there 

 any likelihood of any one coming forward to 

 claim the tifty tlioiieaiid inilrcif. 



A correspondent in the Joiiniol i/c CoiiiiiiiTcio a' 

 late as 'i/th Nyveuiber last =liowb how difficult it io 



