— 56 -~ 



COFFEE 



Our sample of Coffee, was not so fine looking as 

 some of those from Java and Ceylon, which are passed 

 through sieves and classed according to the size of the 

 beans; but, they can well stand comparison, with 

 regard to their aromatic smelling to the best varieties 

 of Coffee. The beans exhibited, were of the Moka 

 coffee, introduced in Bourbon and Mauritius directly 

 from Yemen in Arabia. I had a small portion of it 

 terrified and tasted, with a favourable result. The 

 fact of there being but one exhibit of that product, is 

 due to the presence of the leaf disease which is caused 

 by a fungus, the Hemileia Vastatrix, pointed out in 

 1880 by Mr Daruty, Secretary to the Royal Society 

 of Arts and Sciences of Mauritius, in our coffee plan- 

 tations, as well as in those of Reunion, a pest against 

 which no remedy has as yet been discovered. Unfor- 

 tunately, no specimen of the newly introduced coffee, 

 the Liberian coffee, a hardier and larger variety than 

 the Gofea Amhica, has been exhibited. But, although 

 this variety, propagated from a few seeds introduced 

 six or seven years ago by Mr Daruty, is much appre- 

 ciated, the amount of cherries is still trifling. This 

 variety seems to stand better the Hemileia Vastatrix 

 than the ordinary coffee. In India the coffee culti- 

 vating region are the Southern Provinces, which supply 

 most of the coffee consumed in that peninsula, and 

 export large quantities to other countries. The coffee 

 crops of Southern India and Ceylon have suffered 



