103 



BLIGHT-RESISTANT COFFEES. 



Since the advent of the coffee bhght {Hcmilcia vastatrix) into 

 the Phihppines some twenty-five or thirty years ago, it has been 

 practicahy impossible to raise even a fair crop of coffee below 

 2000 feet elevation. This blight destroyed the coffee industry 

 not only in the Philippines but in Java, Ceylon and the Malay 

 Peninsula at aoout the same time that it reached this Archipelago. 



An attempt is being made now by several of the old coffee 

 countries to discover or create one or more varieties of coffee 

 which will be resistant to this fungus, and it is believed there is 

 some hope in some of the new hybrids of robusta coffee {Coffea 

 robusta). This Bureau now has growing at the Lamao experi- 

 ment station a considerable quantity of this coffee, and a little 

 later seed will be distributed to any one who wishes to experi- 

 ment with the variety. However, like several of the non-com- 

 mercial coffees this robusta does not have a first-class flavor, 

 though it is in some respects better than that of either Liberian 

 ( C. Uberica ) or the Inhambane coffee of Mozambique. Another 

 trouble with the new coffees is that they are for the most part 

 very weak in caffein, the active principal of the beverage — some 

 of them possessing no stimulating qualities whatever. — Philippine 

 A^riculttiral Reviezv. 



