269 
In 1875 the amount imported was 317,970,665 pounds, of the value of 
$50,591,488. But as the consumption is affected somewhat from year to 
year by the production, it is fair to estimate the average importation. 
The three years beginning with 1856 show an average annual importation 
of 221,800,000 pounds, of the value of $20,700,000 ; and the three years 
ending with 1875 an average aunual importation of 298,700,000 pounds, 
of the value of $50,800,000. It will thus be seen that in the past twenty 
years the increase in quantity of imports of coffee has been only 34 per 
cent., which is 21 per cent. less than the increase of population, but that 
the increase in value has been 146 per cent. 
It will be interesting to make a comparison with the importations of 
the other table beverage, tea. The increased amount of importations 
in pounds (annual average) of tea from 1856 to 1875, inclusive, has been 
136 per cent., or 81 per cent. more than the increase of population, the 
latter being in the past twenty years 55 per cent. The import consump- 
tion of coffee and tea per inhabitant, estimating the population in 1856 at 
27,000,000 and in 1875 at 42,000,000, was as follows: 
1856. 1875. 
Pounds. Pounds. Per cent. 
CORES TO! DEOE aS OT BEY oO DI se SEs 8. 21 Coad Decrease of 13 
Pee SUES OLUIOUIOU» 0. DENSOZS WO Liens The .93 1.43 Increase of 54 
Comparing the consumption of coffee and tea with the population, it 
is thus seen that the increased consumption of coffee has fallen behind 
the increase of population, while that of tea has very largely exceeded the 
growth of the country, and that there is actually less coffee used per capita 
than twenty yearsago. The reason of this is not found in the decreased 
popularity of coffee as a beverage, as it holds a place in the taste 
of the American people much above tea; but the explanation is justly 
to be attributed to the growing demand for coffee throughout the world, 
and the failure of the production to keep pace with that demand, which 
has greatly enhanced the price. The price in gold of tea at wholesale 
is to-day as low as it was in 1860, before the civil war,* while coffee is 
nearly double the price of 1856-60. 
These statistics are given to show that the United States are deeply 
interested in the increased production of coffee, and in finding new and 
more accessible sources for its supply of this article, of which it is a 
much larger consumer than any other nation in the world. 
It may bean unknown fact to many Americans that at our very doors, 
in Mexico, our neighboring republic, there exists the agricultural capa- 
city to produce all the coffee that can be consumed in the United States, 
and of a quality equal to the best grown in any country. Mexico, itis 
true, is exporting very little coffee, and scarcely figures in the coffee- 
producing countries, but its capacity and adaptability for its produc- 
tion have been tested by more than fifty years of successful cultivation. 
The topographical and climatic character of the country is admirably 
adapted for this purpose. The great Andean mountain range coming 
up through South and Central America, greatly depressed in the Isthmus 
of Tehuantepec, apparently for the passage of the commerce of the two 
oceans, suddenly springs up in Southeastern Mexico into lofty cord il- 
leras, one branch of which follows close along the Pacific and the other 
along the Gulf coast of the country, holding up on these two arms the 
great table-land of the interior, thus affording every variety of produc- 
tion of the earth. The coffee-producing regions are found on the entire 
line of the sea-slope of the mountains from Guatemala on the south, on 
the Pacific side, for more than a thousand miles to the north, until it. 
*New York Post, March 29, 1876. 
