122 NOTES ON COFFEE GROWING. 



J o the miivl of readers this might appear too extravagant a 

 iancy on my part, bnt I am referring to Inhambane Coffee, where 

 labour is still comparatively cheap. Provided the cultivation is 

 pro]xrly looked after, one can safely say that the planter will not 

 be ruined ! As to meteorological conditions, one sees that this 

 plant resists most successfully the most varied changes of tem- 

 perature. Tt is not at all infrequent for a grass thermometer to 

 record 3 degrees below zero — one need only examine the dia- 

 grams of the registering thermometers, which show really inter- 

 esting oscillations. The plant stands the drought, which occurs 

 with an irregularity that is most alarming to those who make 

 their living out of the soil. The following is a striking illustra- 

 tion. From the ist Jamiary of the current year the rainfall at 

 Umbeluzi. where there is to be found a nucleus of trained agi'i- 

 culturists and at Government Experimental Farm, was only 

 96 millimetres (3.74 inches). If we comjiare the annual rainfall 

 in Brazil, India, and other countries where it often reaches as 

 high as 3 metres, and sometimes more, with cur rainfall in this 

 and the previous year, we can safely assert that Inhambane 

 Coffee warrants the investment of capita 1. 



I should never advise anyone wlio has not previousuly 

 studied the cultivation of Coft"ee and does not possess sufficient 

 capital, to go in for other varieties that are not yet well known 

 locally-. 



T should not mind putting money in Inhambane Coffee, pro- 

 vided the cultivation was carried on in a thorough way, and thi'i 

 can easily be accomplished b}- means of an attentive and perse- 

 vering management. The undertaking is oy no means an exceedr 

 ingly difficult one, and now that such perfect agricultural imple- 

 ments can always be procured at prices well within the reach of 

 all farmers, and with splendid decortication machinery available, 

 anybody could make Coffee cultivation a success. 



in concluding these hurried notes on Coffee, I shall expect 

 whoever reads them to be indulgent to their defects. Being one of 

 the least important officials in the Agricultural Department of- 

 this Province I do not put myself forward ns an expert in a work 

 of so much responsibility. 



Agricultural Science. — Two books, which have 



recently issued from the press in connection with Messrs.- 

 Charles Griffin and Co.'s series of technological handbooks, claim 

 a more than merely passing reference. An era of agricultural 

 renaissance is," we trust, opening up for South Africa— -an era 

 of which probably no more than the beginnings have as vet been 

 seen. To take full advantage of this time of agricultural oppor- 

 tunity; South Africa will need all the energy of mind and all the 

 energy of body that men can put into practice. And it is neces-. 

 sary, also, that many South Africans nqt directly connected' with: 

 agriculture should have an intelligent grasp of agriculture's 



