Introduction. ix 



have been rendered more complete and valuable, at 

 their expense. 



The most remarkable change in the position of 

 coffee-planting that has taken place of late years, 

 has arisen from the falling off, from one cause or 

 other, in the production of the staple in various 

 parts of the world ; and this, at a time when the 

 tendency of consumption has rather been towards 

 increase than otherwise. The natural result has 

 been an enormous rise in price coming, most 

 opportunely, just in time to prevent the planters of 

 Ceylon and Southern India from being utterly dis- 

 heartened, by the (what would otherwise have been 

 ruinous) devastations of the leaf -disease a blight 

 that for some years has brought down the Ceylon 

 yield about 40 per cent. So much, however, has 

 this calamity been thrown into the background by 

 the advantage gained in price, that coffee property 

 and land suitable for the cultivation, instead of being 

 depreciated, have enormously increased in value. 



More than normally prolonged seasons of drought, 

 in some of the hottest districts of Southern India, 

 have at length forced ori the planters a conviction 

 that a change in the system of cultivation (from 

 that ordinarily pursued in Ceylon and other more 

 humid climates) must in future be adopted, to enable 

 the estates to undergo similar trials as they recur ; 

 which, it is evident, they must be expected to do, 



