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THE CULTIVATION OF LIBERIAN COFFEE. 



By E. W. Muneo, 



(Mmi'iging Director, Moi'ih Plantations, Selangor, F.M.8.). 



n^HIS paper is written principally with a view to encouraging 



other payable industries in this country (few other countries 



having equal advantages) submitting that the . policy of giving 



general support to one product only cannot be based upon any sound 



argument. 



No statistics are available regarding the area at present under 

 cultivation, but the latest returns including all varieties give the 

 figure of 2,268 acres on estates ; this is probably interplanted 

 with rubber or coconuts. 



Since rubber has proved all along so attractive it is not 

 surprising that comparatively little attention has been paid to coffee, 

 but, if figures prove anything, the cultivation would seem hardly 

 to have received the recognition that it might have done. 



At the time when a good deal of attention was being given to it, 

 and a very considerable amount of British capital invested, it was 

 more or less acknowledged that quite a useful return on the outlay 

 could be obtain'ed with the price standing in Singapore at $22 to 325 

 a pikul (the cost of production being then about §12 to §15 per pikul). 

 It should be stated here that the value of the dollar was about 3s. 6d. 

 That the prices ruling during the boom from the years 1893 to about 

 1899 were 50 per cent, higher than the above, and also how it sud- 

 denly dropped to an unpayable figure have become matters of history, 

 .and there was hardly a planter in the country who was not badly hit. 

 Prices rallied in the most unexpected manner later on, so that in the 

 year 1905 cofPee was in great demand again in the local market at $30 

 a pikul. 



The original decline in prices was supposed to be due to the 

 Santos valorisation scheme, and other causes unconnected in most 

 cases with the question of quality, or of the actual supply and 

 demand. 



Planters got tired of being told that they were suffering 

 because they insisted on producing a low-grade article, especially 

 when it became known that whatever value was placed upon it as a 

 beverage decocted from the raw material it was looked upon as 

 being an absolute necessity to the commercial world for carrying out 

 the usual trade methods, mixing it with Arabian, and other grades, 

 and selling it as the finest " Mocha." Looking at the prices that 

 have been ruling for some years past (it is quoted to-day at $45 

 per pikul) the so-called low grade article appears to command a 

 considerable amount of respect. 



