73^ 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [April i, 1886. 



to discover a remedy, owing to the cause being diiYerent 

 " in various districts" — ^he says, " it appears im- 

 possible to discover a cure for the disease of the 

 coii'oe trees, its organism is subject to so many 

 different alterations. Different means might have 

 been discovered to combat the viuion.s diseases. 

 The deliciency of certain mineral salts in the soil 

 causing serious perturbations in the vegetation of 

 the coffee trees could not be vanquished by tlie 

 same moans employed tor the destruction of animal 

 or vegetable parasites." '• This study relative to 

 the diseases of plants, requires a long continuation 

 of experiments to verify what is the cause of the 

 disease. Sugarcane for example in the Northern 

 (Provinces of Brazil) is attacked by a disease, at- 

 tributed by some persons to the want of mineral 

 salts in the soil, by others to the action of a 

 cryptogamic parasite and sometimes to oxalic acid 

 the product of elimination " (that is the burning 

 of the trash after cutting and clear the ground which 

 so many sugar planters all over the world believe 

 in. — A. S.B.) " Therefore to achieve the end, desired 

 by the provincial assembly of llio de Janeiro (who 

 have offered the reward of i;5,000— or .'iO.OOOJOUO.— 

 A.S.B.) it is necessary to establish a laboratory 

 where these studies of agriculture can be made 

 with perfection, and only in this way can a true 

 remedy be discovered." 



This is not the first time the loaf-disease of 

 Brazil has been introduced into your columns. I 

 have not any of the pajjers by me at present, 

 but I think that in any former writings to your 

 paper 1 mentioned that tlie iliscase or a deliilitij 

 amongst the coffee trees was first noticed in 1801, 

 the season iHdO-lil was a dry one, and there was 

 also a lieavy crop picked, indeed the largest Brazil 

 had given previous to that and the same quantity 

 was not reached again until season lH74-7fl. 

 These were for IHOO-Hl bags 3,lHr.,0!U, and for 1871-7.5 

 3,205, r)Ci7 from the Port of Rio dt Janeiro alone. I 

 am safe in saying that in the latter mentioned season 

 1874-75, not one-tenth of the quantity mentioned 

 was got from the same locality as that of l.siiO-fil 

 but nine-tenths of that large crop of 1871-7-5 

 was got from plantations opened beyond the Herra 

 do Mar to which the disease or debililij had not 

 reached. Let us remember that the Province of 

 Kio de Janeiro which used to be the great producer 

 of coffee, occupies a stretch along the coast about 

 200 miles long by running nearer East and West 

 than North-East and Bouth-West. About one half 

 of the laud is on the sea side of the range of high 

 mountains called the .Vein; i/ojl/t(/-, of. which the pecu- 

 liar looking Organ Mountains near Kio de Janeiro 

 form part, and the other half is beyond that range. 

 The breadth of the province from the sea to the inland 

 range is from (10 to DO miles. Before 18C0-'il 

 nearly all the coffee was produced on the sea side of 

 Die .S'c/TH do Mar. Tlie re the di.sease appeared just 

 about 18(')l-()2, and precisely there at the present 

 day coffee in'll nut tlirive under any evnditiviii, 

 Ceiniostoma coffccUuin, an insect of which I gave you 

 account some years ago, was believed at first to be 

 the cause, but this insect propagated by a small 

 hioth ceased to be so destructive as to cause much 

 loss and ceased to be noticed, but still the coffee 

 trees dwindled, then many believed in the various 

 causes I have mentioned above ; but there was no 

 stoppage of the gradual decay of coffee trees all 

 along the sea side of the Serra do Mar. Now 

 (or the last few years it has been making 

 such havoc in those districts beyond the Serra 

 do Mar, the same that supplied that large crops I 

 mention of 1871-75, that the Goverument have 

 offered the reward I mention, £5,000, to any- 

 UU6 wlip can diecovcr a cure. You ask ffbat ie my 



own opinion on all this ? Well, I will say shortly 

 that all these fungi, all the insects, and the 

 various assertions about the climate having changed 

 are not the cause at all. The parasites, fungi, 

 Ac, are an effect, not a cause. A nearly debihtated 

 bullock will get covered with insects such as ticks 

 while the healthy ones of the herd will have 

 none, a few more weaker bullocks will also get 

 covered with ticks— and by and by the insects will 

 breed so fast as to cover the healthy ones too. 

 Coffee gets debilitated through long continuous 

 cropping in the same soil without manure, or there 

 may be something in the soil which coffee requires 

 as noccRsary to its healthy growth, and which the 

 manures hitherto applied do not contain. The tree 

 gets weakly and becomes a prey to disease of various 

 kinds, and has not strength to rally against attacks 

 of fungi and insects. There may be exceptions as in 

 your Ceylon leaf disease which if 1 remember right 

 broke out first in Ceylon, in one of your youngest 

 districts at that time, Madulsima, in the Uva or 

 Badulla District. 



But here in Brazil all the old coffee estates 

 have creased to yield coffee, not only in the 

 Province of Rio de Janeiro but San Paulo as 

 well. I do not mean that in Sao Paulo disease 

 has been at work beyond what I described to you 

 some years ago in regard to the coffee leaf miner — 

 iCemiostoma roffeelluin - ,S'(a/«(OH)— which still exists 

 all over Brazil, and is not confined to coffee trees, 

 but is found on forest trees, and small shrubs as 

 well— and at present does healthy coffee trees little 

 harm— but a gradual decay has taken place on all 

 old estates from some cause not clearly discernable, 

 the result being apparent exhaustion. 



In South Africa the same decay in coffee trees 

 has taken place. Natal which at one time exported 

 30,000 cwts. a year, and supplied home consumjition 

 —which amongst the Boers is no small quantity, 

 has to be supplied with coffee, and that supply 

 comes mostly from Brazil. When in that country 

 (South Africa) in 1882, I saw whole plantations 

 of coffee reduced to dry sticks, and green points 

 the same as one sees so much of in the old districts 

 in this country. One could witness no direct cause, 

 and every other Planter gave a different reason for 

 it. In that colony a Commission was appomted by 

 the late General Sir George Pomeroy-CoUey in 

 1881. I think they reported m 18,S2, for the copy 

 of the Report saw had no date— and no particular 

 cause could be assigned by the Commissioners to 

 the decay of the coffee trees. The Commission 

 reconniicnded that fresh seed should be got from 

 other countries, to manure plants from the com- 

 mencement of planting, to stop pruning, and to 

 watch the results which were being tried by some 

 —particularly the Natal Land and Colonization 

 Company — of allowing the trees to bear three 

 to four crops and then replanting. The fresh seed 

 recommendation is no doubt highly to be approved. 

 It has been tried in the districts where the decay 

 first commenced in this country, but by the time the 

 plants came into bearing the old cause was at work. 



In the new districts far to the west in the Pro- 

 vince of Sao I'aulo and Minas Geracs, fresh Bourbon 

 seed has been extensively used, and notably on 

 the estates in Sao I'aulo, owned by the present 

 Minister of Agriculture, and those of members of 

 his family, and who knows but that a persistence 

 in this system of putting in fresh seed from other 

 countries in the opening up of new districts where 

 the disease or cause of decay has never reached, 

 niay have the effect of giving a longer span of 

 life than has been customary here and in other 

 countries where coffee planting has been success- 

 fully carried on, until all st ouce a change caiiie 

 over it. 



